My Year-End Reflections - 2013

I thank the Lord for the past year.

Since my retirement in August, I have been enjoying the changes in my life.

In the first place I can now spend more time with my family. For decades I had been engaged mainly in school work and I found myself teaching even in my dreams. My husband and I seemed to be on divided paths, each lost in our own field of work. My students used to joke about never having seen my husband. We spent our holidays separately as my friends, with whom I shared bits and bobs, were not his.“What do men know about female needs?’ I used to say.

Now, however, we are together almost every minute of the day. He is the first one to be informed of my slimming plan and a change in my hairstyle. Who else would care about this when everybody is busy at work? People he befriended on morning walks know at last that he is married. There is someone sharing his heavy loads of purchases from super markets. And the night now sees us reading side by side by the bed light before we turn in. Well aware of my knee pain when walking upstairs, he is always ready with a helping hand. He’s the one grinding through the long waiting hour with me at the clinic. This is perhaps what we mean by ‘Walking hand in hand in old age.’

I can, without hesitance, avail myself when there is the urgent need for someone around. Occasionally, my husband and I are entrusted with the care of our grand nephews and nieces when the helpers are on leave. I no longer find them disturbing since work, if any, can be laid aside now that there is no restriction from a time frame.Taking kids to and back from school or extracurricular classes can be fun. I have come to realize, with great delight, that Rio, my grand nephew, is so popular among his classmates.

I am particularly grateful for being able to accompany my dear sister for some time every day. I could not possibly squeeze that daily hour if I were still buried with work up to my neck. Sitting by her bedside helping her to exercise and communicate her thoughts somehow makes up for the regret of not being able to travel around with her as I had expected as part of my retirement plan.

Despite all these, I am not without the interest in working. I have indeed been graced with a few job offers. The greatest attraction to me is freelance work, which I can handle at my own pace in the home. I have lost the patience and confidence in endlessly exploring new methodologies to arouse learners’ interest. The setback from seeing stringently planned and structured lessons wasted among lowly motivated students has dampened what is left of my passion for teaching. Having to take the blame for the failure of lazy students is especially discouraging. On the contrary, I desire work that I can hold myself accountable for in accordance with my own ability and efforts, rather than the learners’.

Undoubtedly, what I favor most is evangelical work. I am thankful that I can now devote more time to serving the Church. I derived unspeakable satisfaction from participating in a recent international seminar on Renewed Biblical Apostolate. I benefited greatly from expert speakers’ talks and from exchanging ideas with participants from different Asian regions. Thus enlightened, I feel more committed to learning to spread the Word of God. This will, in fact, be my goal for the coming year.

In brief, I thank God for having showered me with abundant blessings over the past year.