The Legacy of Yanoy

He was quietly leafing through the pages of the Fire-side version of the Bible which was given to them by their second daughter on their Golden Wedding anniver-sary. How fast time had flown! The kids are grown, had their own families, leaving them an empty nest since about sixteen years ago. The move to Canada had drasti-cally changed their lives - actually their way of living - and their outlooks. The country had been good to them, yet in their hearts there are still those nostalgic moments when they long for home - the Philippines. Most of the friends they had in those wonderful days, now forever gone. The grandchildren were another challenge. Oh, how they keep us, old ones, feeling young inside! Yet to a certain degree they can also be somewhat strangers in their ways. They were brought up in a very different culture, an almost alien milieu. How can I talk to them of my good old days? Would they ever understand my life in that country which is foreign to them? These thoughts keep creeping in uninvited in those quiet times. He wished someone would record his life history. But who? None of his kids studied journalism. I wish I were more interesting - a public figure, perhaps – then someone would have the curiosity to pen the events of my life! He remembered how incredulous some clients were when he refused to accept bribes when he was still working. Some people were prone to dole out some recompense to the tax examiner, just to facilitate the signing of their business audit. Not to this foolish idealistic man! He has persisted all these years walking the straight line perchance he would have an easier time when meeting St. Peter at the gate of Heaven. Now wouldn’t that be a good anecdote for the young ones? Some people are into genealogy, happily tracing their ancestry. Alas, such would not be so easy for Yanoy. Government records were lost in fires, especially during the war. It would be interesting to know ones origins. Perhaps there might have been some Japanese among his ancestors as Yanoy was several times mistaken as one. It became quite dangerous during the Second World War. Some guerrillas almost killed him because of it. His life was interesting in a tame kind of way. The days were like checkers of black and white making them less boring; but nothing was too dramatic. It was a different life in the Philippines compared to the one in Canada, and his progeny deserves to know what legacy Yanoy is leaving behind. Let it not be as Shakespeare had written (in Mark Anthony’s speech when he buried Caesar): The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones! Nor should it be too much idealization as demonstrated in most eulogies of this contemporary world. There is still inherent beauty in the truth of life.