This story originally appeared in the Philippine Daily Inquirer on March 16, 2000.
My Dad treasures a lot of things. Through the years, he has collected items that remind him of significant events in his life. One of these things is a manual typewriter he bought even before he and my Mom were married.
All three of us kids were able to see and use that typewriter. When we were small, my sister and I would sit in his room watching our Dad in awe as he expertly pounded on the keys. We especially loved it when we heard the “ting” the typewriter made as he reached the end of a line. When he was in the office, we would take turns typing whatever on a piece of paper, trying to imitate his speed and precision. When I was in high school I spent most of my weekends with that typewriter for my papers and stuff. My Dad would repeatedly remind me to be careful with it and clean it after using. He would always tell me how precious that typewriter is to him and that we should be mindful of its preservation.
When I was in college, we were able to buy an electric typewriter and a personal computer. Typing documents has never been more fun! Like kids again, we would happily pound on the unfamiliar soft keyboard and watch in amazement as the printer furnished us with the real thing! Nobody paid any more attention to the old typewriter. Nobody, that is, except my Dad.
Eventually the typewriter found its way into our storeroom. Dad would still take it out to clean it from time to time but realized that with the new typing equipment we had, the old one certainly deserved some rest.
Years passed and the old typewriter was ultimately forgotten. Our new gadget never fails to amaze us with its conveniences and high technological capacities. We could not imagine how aboriginal we must have looked when we still used the old typewriter. Not until someone came knocking at our hearts, needing what we thought was inutile.
One of the helpers we had at home was Manang Adelina. She was our laundrywoman since we moved into our subdivision. We have grown to like and trust her to the point where we could leave our house to her care when we were out of town. She is diligent and trustworthy and so through the years that we have known her, we have come to see her not as a helper, but a relative. A lola to us and an older sister to our parents.
Manang Adelina has several children, one of them is a girl who is in college taking up education. One day after finishing her day’s chores, she approached my Mom and asked her if she could borrow the old typewriter. Her daughter needed one for her assignments and she didn’t know where else to find a typewriter, nor did she have the means to buy one. My Mom instantly gave her the now rusty typewriter and told her that she could have it if her daughter really needed it. Manang Adelina nearly cried with joy and could not stop thanking my Mom. Everything looked so perfect except for one, my Mom did not ask my Dad’s permission to give away one of his most precious “antiques.”
We decided to just let the incident pass and never mention it to our Dad. We convinced ourselves that he had forgotten about it already as he had not taken it out of the storeroom for quite some time already. Of course we were wrong. Like a hen looking for her stray chick, my Dad somehow sensed that something had gone amiss in his baul (the storeroom). He checked it one day and discovered that his trusty, old but valued typewriter was missing.
We were left with no choice. We told him what we did. We would have felt better had he lashed us with his belt or sworn at us at the top of his lungs. Instead, he just nodded and murmured, “I see. . .” and went to his room.
We knew we had hurt his feelings. And we couldn’t think of a way to show him we were sorry. We just let the event pass. Soon enough that particular episode was forgotten. Sooner than later, we felt that Dad had found it in his heart to forgive us because he never mentioned the typewriter again.
One morning as he was driving me to the terminal of buses going to Baguio, I felt it was time I asked him this nagging question.
“Daddy, how come you never got angry when we gave your typewriter away?”
He did not answer my question right away. Instead, he told me this story.
“Remember the time we bought this car? The bank has been threatening to repossess it because we were short of money to pay the last of its amortization. We didn’t know where we could go to ask for help. We had knocked on all our friends’ doors but all our efforts were futile. Just as we were about to give up, I remembered my friend, Kuya Raffy. We went to him and asked him if he had some money to spare. He told me he didn’t but he had the title of his house and lot. He gave it to us and told us that we could lease it to the bank in exchange for the amount we need. It was the greatest gesture of friendship I have ever seen. I could never repay him for that.”
“But you were able to give him the money back, right? That means you don’t owe him anything more!” I said.
“Yes, but the mere act of entrusting me with his home in exchange for the amount I needed to save me from my difficulty is more than anything of monetary value. It was an act of charity, of genuine love for a friend. I always thought I should find a way to give back the same gesture of kindness, only I never found it in Kuya Raffy’s life. I found it in someone else’s,” he answered back.
“Whose life did you find it in?” I implored.
“Manang Adelina’s,” he said as he kissed my forehead and let me out of the car.
