Class Reunion

After several years , several pounds and several children ( but no several wives),

it was SINCERELY nice to be in the arms of people that you grew up with,

from pig tails to pimples, without any pride and pretention just all the humility of being young, once again.

My gradeschool-highschool classmates and I , regardless of who we have all become and where we have come from have remained good friends.

There were only 33 of us in our highschool graduating class of ’91 at Montessori de Oro in Cagayan de Oro CITY :

And although not everyone showed up on that particular get together, it was still a difficult time for us to identify one another.

More than a class reunion,

It was a game of charades:

One word , two syllables, sounds and LOOKS like…

And it was also a game of tag.

“You are IT!…It’s you”?

“How are you?”

As one classmate stood at the entrance of the venue,

one would start guessing who it was. ( Timer starts now!)

Oh that is, uhm,uhm,uhm.. ( shot clock ticking, miami,dallas)

“CONTESSA!…yes, that’s her!”

And the first one who could identify him or her would be the one to greet her and TAG him/ her.

“uy, Lovelyn!uy, Cristina It is you!”

How are you doing?

( As if we have known all along.)

( it was no different when tagging pictures on Facebook,

especially when the picture has too many people on it and there is just no space anymore, you just have to tag the flower pot or the table near the person.

And when friends open their facebooks and see the group picture , they would say “hey look at SO and SO now, he has grown so, well, FLOWERRY!)

It was fun and exciting to be able to identify each classmates really.

Until somehow, a woman in her 60’s stood by the entrance of the venue, whom my husband Richard pointed to us ,

“Yan, classmate nyo ba yan?” ( “Is that a classmate.?”)
For a moment there our hearts stopped a beat and we all looked at each other , for we just did not know who she was .

( plus, she looked well , MATURED…did we all age 30 years or more? …I know, we will all get there.. but that SOON?)

(I for one, vowed that as soon as I get home, I will change my anti ageing product to something more POTENT!)

But then as the woman left, all of us gave a sigh of relief amd kept our thoughts to ourselves.

While our classmate Stephanie Jeanne Lim on the other hand, blurted out our similar opinion,

“Chard, wala pa naman sa classmate namin ang ganun ka “matured” ang hitsura!”

(Chard, I think for now, we do not yet have a classmate that “matured looking!”)

So many things can happen at the turn of the century so to speak.

However there would already be some early-senior moments though:

Imagine how you would feel, if someone mentioned a supposedly classmates name who you could NOT recall at all?

My classmate Mitchiko Ariola Lopez asked me one time, how our classmate Robertson was?

And we of course did not have any classmate named Robertson!

This just brought so many thoughts to mind, like:

A. I might have received a different yearbook cause I just could’t find him there.)

Or B.. Mitchiko had an imaginary friend when we where younger;

Or C. We most definitely had this classmate named Robertson and he was just invisible. He shows himself only to a priveleged few;

Or D. Mitchiko and I really were never classmates at all;

Or E. I never went to highschool and all these was just a successive dream sequence.

I racked my brains out for a few minutes till Robertson turned out to be a classmate after all,

but well Mitchiko of course meant our classmate Ronaldson…

As my classmate Gilrubie Tura Chan would say,

“We thank the Lord that we were given the chance to see each other once again…”

We should always get together, should there be a chance .

So we will not one day , have the reason to see each other only

when the occasion shall not anymore call for a happy one.”

I feel that so true, especially for those of us, who are not getting any younger..

If given the opportunity or better yet, find an opportunity to

attend your highschool reunion..

Besides whatever you have become, wherever you have been.. They are still the
same..

– Posted using BlogPress from Pier Angeli Ang Sen’s iPad2