Leaving the Philippines for good
It saddens me that, after many years of waiting, my two brothers and two sisters, with their respective spouses and minor children, have finally left the Philippines to become permanent residents in the USA. They are joining my 89-year-old father and 87-year-old mother who have been residing in the West Coast for more than twenty years. My father is a Second World War veteran and he has been granted US citizenship for more than two decades now. He petitioned his children, except me who volunteered to stay to take care of our ancestral property in Southern Cebu. Now, I am alone and I am missing my siblings. We are not well off but we truly love and care for each other. We have had our little fights and sibling frictions, but at the end of each day, we always hug and come together.
I'm truly happy for them and for their children. They will have a better life there, away from the many problems that our country faces and our people are burdened with. This is not the best of times to migrate to America but for sure, they will find it easier there to earn a living. There are already jobs waiting for them because my two youngest brothers made arrangements for that. They are also buying a bigger house so that they could all be together especially that Mama is now bedridden and is constantly needing special attention and health care. I will just visit them perhaps every Christmas as they will take turns in sending a pre-paid plane ticket to join them for the Yuletide season with my wife. We will always have a family reunion every Christmas.
Being the eldest in a family of, hold your breath, 18 children, but with only ten surviving, I have always been in the forefront of helping my parents in taking care of my siblings. We were very poor, living in the mountain barangay of Langin, Ronda, Cebu. My parents were farmers at first, then public school teachers. We could not make both ends meet and so, we helped in the farm, tending cows and goats and growing vegetables. My mother used to sell mosquito nets. And my father was a part-time farmer and fisherman, walking fifteen kilometers to go to the sea. My brothers used to sell suman and cakes and my sister got herself employed as a house maid. I was a school janitor supporting myself to high school and college.
Through struggles and perseverance, we were able to turn our lives around. As the eldest, I always made sure my siblings got an education and a decent job. Today, all of them are not rich but are much better off than we were ten years ago. The migration of my siblings to the US will only mean a temporary physical separation. We continue to call each other, and connect with each other via the social media. We have always been close to each other and we find strength in constant communication and connection. Our parents are not getting any younger but we can see in their faces that sense of fulfillment and success. They raised us up in a very hard way. But we turn out to be very loving sons and daughters.
I have five children of my own and each one is a professional with very good and stable jobs and business. They have grown up to be upright young men and women, responsible, decent, and hardworking. There is nothing else that I can ask for from God. My credo in life is: Work hard in your job but put God in the center of your life and your family as your first priority. There is no success in career that can make up for failure in the family. I am sad, yes, because my siblings have left. But there is a deeper joy in my heart for having been blessed with a warm, loving and united family. There is no failure in career or in life that can detract from such a happy and successful family. And I thank God for all these.
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