A One-Way Plane Ticket

“It’s like I’ll take a one-way plane ticket and I’m never coming back,” my father told us tearfully last weekend.

We’ve just found out that his stage II pancreatic cancer metastasized to stage IVB.

There is no stage V.

Throughout the years, I gave comfort and words of assurance to friends who witnessed their mother, father or even siblings battle cancer. But it’s only now that I’ve come to know how it really feels like. It’s different when you see your own dad lose weight and drink glasses of gooey, pale yellow Prosure every day as if his life depended on it (and it does), only to puke it out until he has nothing left to puke. I constantly had to remind myself that the man before me is the same handsome man who topped his Geology board exams at age 20 — a man I am proud to call my father.

My dad Ray, dashing and dapper in his 50th birthday celebration in 2011.

It turns out it is so easy to take life’s small hours for granted. In the course of our daily lives, especially when we’ve just started with our career or when we’re reveling at the peak of it, it is almost too easy to get wrapped up in our own little worlds that we fail to realize that all we’ve ever wanted are what we’ve had all along.

Take the time to tell your parents and loved ones how you feel. Kiss them when you can. Hold their hands. Show your appreciation. Apologize when you’re wrong. Stay home on a Friday night and have dinner with them.

Most of all, tell them you love them.

My favorite picture of Mama and Papa with my little brother Ryan (seated, lower right)

Don’t wait for the moment when you have but a few months or days or hours left to let them know you’re glad they became a part of your life.

Why?

Because you’ll never know just when that one-way plane ticket will be booked.

You can only pray that you’ll have the chance to tell them everything you need to say before it’s too late — before they’ve taken flight from a place where they’ll never come back.

Fancy Delight Alert: Sauceless Lumpiang Ubod

Here’s the story of how a sauce-lover like me came to love a sauceless dish that usually has sauce:

One Sunday afternoon, I headed to NBC Tent in BGC to try out the special lumpiang ubod of my friend Alvin Ty. A brief background: we were both members of The UA&P Chorale all throughout college. He was a tenor. I was an alto. And now he’s the owner of this growing lumpia business (while I’m here writing about it and craving for it!).

Fresh lumpiang ubod. Photo taken from the Ubod ng Lumpia Facebook page. 

Lumpiang Ubod is a popular Filipino dish, with ubod or “heart of palm” as its main ingredient. Also known as burglar’s thigh, aristocrat’s plantar, and swamp cabbage, this particular vegetable is harvested from the inner core and growing bud of certain palm trees. When served julienned in a lumpia wrapper, its very subtle flavor is usually enhanced with raw minced garlic and a special peanut sauce. Try not to drool!

Partying and Road Tripping with the Danes

The past few weekends have been spent entertaining three fearless Danish women, one of them my half-Filipina cousin, in the more glamorous and pristine areas of the Philippines. On weekdays, they brave through the busy streets, sweltering heat, and the general clamor in Balut, Tondo, Manila as they go about their volunteer work.

Their view from their rooftop: two opposite areas juxtaposed for the world to see. Downtown Tondo and a beautiful skyline in the distance. Ah the irony!

I really admire them for traveling all the way to the other side of the globe to tend to the needs of the children near the dump site. Having been in Denmark myself back in 2007, I know what a shock it must be for them to go through the daily rigors of a depressed area in a third world country — a stark contrast from their sparkling clean surroundings!