and true colors will show ...

 

When my parents died a year apart in 1994 and 1995, I have made a promise to myself that I shall transfer all my accountabilities and responsibilities to my second Mom, my Ale. My Mom’s best friend and cousin who invited my Mom to set up house inside her property and thus I was raised there, my family under her wing and care. True to my word, she officially became my Mother in the eyes of everyone and I made sure that she gets the care and the financial support that she needed, not that she needs any at the time.

Throughout all the years that followed, talk about her family’s history and the issue as to how the ownership of the land would pass on became a topic in many of our conversations. I being an agnostic is a firm believer that the land owns us and not the other way around and that eventually, property ownership leads to disputes, something I am well versed with but by no means willing to indulge in unless provoked.  So in all those conversations, I have told her that I refuse her generous offer of being heir apparent for the reason that I grew up hearing from my cousins about their plans over the property and as if I were to state the obvious, they were in dire desire to have the property under their control. And to me that would mean that if they knew that I was heir apparent, the tensions would be worse as it already was. Because it was at the time since I was young… they feared me most because I was Ale’s favorite, despite the fact that they were mostly the recipients of Ale’s generosity and I was not, because I never asked.

I am not a simple man, my complexities borders around the absurd and unorthodox views of the world order, but there are certain mantras that I live by and they have somewhat gotten me through my semi sad sorry life. Some of them are as follows based on my current situation at the moment;

• Never live outside your means
• Enjoy only those things you think you truly and rightfully deserve
• Never start a fight
• If provoked, oblige them
• Man belongs to the earth and not the other way around
• Do not desire what you really do not want
• Always be prepared

I have loathed the day when Ale passed away, simply because this is the entire situation that I have always wanted to avoid. When fangs will be wielded in the open, when greed will take over what is deemed decent and proper, when the time for the Tupperware and Orocan parties expire… when I would be surrounded by people with wants, needs and whatever, when the death of a loved one will be taken as an opportunity to gain.

And that is why I have always professed that I am better than most Christians or Catholics I know and maybe a bit more stupid than most of them as well, because despite my age and experiences, I still believe in the supposed goodness of man. I know that that I sound so naïve, but that is who I am. I shall as I always have, allow others to do the work for me.

So about ten years ago, my Ale handed me a love letter and a ring after celebrating her birthday and told me that I am her heir and I immediately said, No. my primary concern at the time was because I do not want her alienated by my cousins and grandchildren for favoring me, one who is in their eyes, not blood. The same people that despite all the help and support I have given them thru the years, they have managed to bad mouth me with Ale every chance they could. An example was when I had the garage built and Ale’s house improvements, it was taken as a threat as well.

And now, we are here in this situation. The real threat finally arrives with the appearance of Ale’s full blooded niece and nephews who has laid claim to the property. The people of whom I barely knew except for Ale’s stories and how much she despised that family, whose parents squandered and lost their inheritance of a property three times the size of Ale’s lot. It then followed that Ale’s brother begged and egged her into loaning half of Ale’s property because she was anyway single and with no children while he has a bunch and so Ale relented. That property, intended for his brother’s children, a redemption site for his family was also forfeited on a loan… and was lost as well.

So this is the family that I was to deal with eventually. A couple of months or so after Ale’s passing, they came and we had a discussion. I told them that I was not interested in the land but I sated that my only desire was to pass on in the place where I grew up, in the place which I called home considering that I was the primary person who took care of Ale all of these years… and they said YES. Case closed or so I thought.

Yesterday, I received text messages which were meant to be disturbing but I am too old to care. Because as I stated earlier, ALWAYS BE PREPARED.

And thus, my new adventure begins… and as I have safely concluded, like most of my social experiments, man failed.