REFRESHING MEMORIES

A Facebook friend with whom I have occasional messages surprised me one time when she asked me during one of our lighthearted correspondence if I had remembered too that I was once her boyfriend.  “Of course!” was my chuckling reply in my private messenger box, a little bit embarrassed, in fact it was what I remembered when, upon seeing for the first time her name, a friend-request did I reluctantly send.

And as we exchanged giggling messages further, we couldn’t help but remember our past innocent times.  Those were the instances when we were flirting with disaster after we both violated petty house ‘crimes.’  Like, despite limited finances and strict parents, still, we managed to be present in every barrio evening disco.  Sneaking with our hidden clothes that were “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.”

Sometimes it’s good to be refreshed with memories of the youth, for we learn life’s valuable lessons therefrom.  Its recklessness and vanity helped George Bernard Shaw make his conclusion, “Youth is wasted on the young.”

A few weeks ago, I had been reminded once again of my precipitous youth on my way back here to Iloilo from Molino, Cavite, via RORO bus service.  That was my first time in ten years to take RORO, and if you ask me why I did it, just recall what Old Bill told Older Bush, “It’s the economy, stupid!”

Boredom would have struck me to death but great thanks to a young maiden who happened to travel with me along with her kid sister who loved to smile, sleep and think.  I’d only call her “Charm” here for lack of authority to reveal her true name, and also because I was charmed by her stories while gazing at her face so prettier than pink.

There I remembered my youth as I spent all of my time with them to the envy of young male co-passengers since I acted as their companion if not their guardian or father.  I had to watch my words and my conduct they being a stranger, that to people around we would not appear like a predator and a prey so I had to do things decently and in order (I Cor. 14:40).

And I remembered my six-year-old daughter, some few years from now she would grow up like her.  And it is my prayer that God wouldn’t let my young Rahab tread upon the path I took as a teener.

But rather, she may revere Him like a true servant who fears her Master truly, and live a life like what Apostle Paul charged to Timothy:  “Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity” (1 Tim. 4:12).