I am savoring the last day of the longest time we’ve come home to Aringay. Four days of pampering and being well-fed. Four days of good old bucayo and panutsa. Mom filled a jar each of the sweet delicacy I’ve come to associate with coming home. We took a Victory liner bus coming over, and few minutes before arriving at the unloading station, Arnold called home to ask for help with the luggage. As soon as we crossed the main road into the path going home, I saw Dad, rushing, towards us. What could be a better welcome? Two years ago when I first met Dad, I saw for myself how selflessly he serves his family, especially mom. When everyone else is taking a good nap right now after a lunch of fried yellow fin and dinengdeng which Dad cooked, I can still hear the old man doing the dishes in the kitchen, humming a tune or two as he works along. Dad has an undeviating character of goodness and self-sacrifice. He has lived all these years working hard to serve his family. He’s not a bad cook, too, if I may say so myself. Arnold is not a fan of fish unless Dad was the one who cooked it.
Here in Aringay, life is simple, uncomplicated. I know these two words can mean the same thing, but I decided to put them together for emphasis. This family has seemed to manage to survive in keeping life simple despite the complexities around them. Their simplicity is expressed in the way they know relationships are to be kept. Husband and wife stay together and do not separate. Parents provide love, guidance, and comfort for their children. And children get a good education, honor and obey their parents, and start their own families in the future. Such is the circle of life. While some may deem it predictable and boring, truth be told, the essence of things is simplicity. Mom, Dad, Manang Lorie, and Kuya Dan just got to maturity and realized this beautiful principle sooner than others did. They are so unlike the manicurist Juvie. Once married, now in a common-law relationship, Juvie has 4 children and has no intention of getting an annulment and marrying her current partner. “Getting married can be limiting. When you have a husband he can stop you from seeing your friends and from having fun,” Juvie goes. I feel sad for her.
Marriage is ordained of God to man. It is a gift. Celestial marriage is attaining the highest order of the priesthood and making the everlasting covenant. The key is in finding the right person to marry. Literally, one has to ask herself “Is this the man I want to share forever with?” If one is to be happy with this love while on earth, wouldn’t he or she want to aspire to keep that happiness forever? Further, the late prophet Gordon B. Hinckley counseled, “marry the right person at the right time, the right place, and by the right authority.” When the marriage is not taken into the eternal perspective of things, I say it is a waste of time and must be corrected. But once that celestial quality of marriage has been found, wo be to that Adam and Eve who would not do all they can to stay together.
There’s a part of my personal history I am not proud of, and that is the many mistakes I have had in having previous relationships, to this, my eternal relationship with Arnold. All the wrongs stop here. In him I have found that one person to be with eternally. I love everything about him, including his imperfections. And I love his family.
We cannot underestimate the support a good in-law relationship gives to the spouse relationship. Quite honestly, before making the decision to come over, Arnold and I have been having a misunderstanding. I only started feeling good about the trip when we arrived in Aringay town and were greeted by the beautiful Aringay river. Because right then, memories of our last visit flashed back. It was last year, we went to see Manang Lorie at the school where she teaches and had a picnic over hotdogs and fishballs that sold in ubiquitous stalls across the school. Those were simple joys, but it was the memory of just having fun encircled in love that made it magical. Remembering that, I felt good to be home again.
And then there was Dad, rushing to greet us. Seeing Dad deepened my love for Arnold. The man I love is, indeed, borne of goodly parents who love him. I am someone his parents trust to take care of their son. Who am I not to do a good job, after all, they have done an excellent job raising a good son?
There is also that comfort of coming home. I am grateful to Arnold because through him I have an Aringay home, a home filled with simplicity, love, and caring for one another. Through him, I have a Dad and a Mom, a family who cares for me and for Chizzy additionally. That is a wonderful blessing.
It didn’t take long for Chizzy to warm up to Lolo when she saw him again. She wore that smile of being happy, and at the same time, being shy to admit that she was happy. It was a cute smile, alright.
We were supposed to have gone to the beach but typhoon Parma destroyed the resort and the place has not recovered yet. We stayed home the whole time, just catching up and eating lots of good food. Did I say crab, shrimps, and sour soup? Good food, indeed, because Dad goes through all the pain preparing them.
Indeed, there is no place like home, and there is no happier travel than that going home. President Monson said it well: People are most of the time in the thick of thin things. I traveled home, and I didn’t miss the point. It was of being encircled in the love of a family.
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