Dear Christine,
Yesterday, while I was mechanically leafing through the paper and hoping to get my daily dose of laugher from the travails of Calvin and Hobbes, Peanuts and the Fringe Benefit Café Folks, I chanced upon some really good and interesting news in the entertainment section.
Finding something good in the papers is a rare commodity these days and I must confess that every morning, I always drop the front pages and go straight to the funnies, and sequentially dodge those distressing news!
Anyway, the heading was screaming in bold colorful letters: The Cascades: Did they (or didn’t they die in a plane crash?)
Remember The Cascades, Christine? Remember peanut butter sandwiches and unrequited love? Didn’t I just bring a smile to your face?
I know you can almost envision us finding refuge in that leaking gazebo in the middle of a torrential rain while humming Rhythm of the Rain. We made sure no one heard us lest the whole student population dubbed as “homo sapiens from the Neolithic era.”
Living up to our dork-to-the-core image was rather perplexing, I admit. But listening to the crooning of the Cascades mawkish love songs of the ‘60s while slaving over Math 100 and a broken heart in the mid-‘80s proved to be beneficial after all. And yes, it was a welcome respite from the loud newfangled music that ruled the airwaves then.
I miss you, Christine. I miss having Chippy and a bottle of coke for breakfast with you. I miss rhapsodizing our joys and woes in the library steps. I miss laughing over Leo’s silly jokes under the waiting shed.
Those were the days…We staggered through the rough roads of teenage-hood and college life…and finally entered the threshold of the real world. You took the starched-collar route and the left this “rat hole”, while I chose the road less traveled and stayed behind.
But thanks to the wonders of the www.com ---- technology has made it easier to touch base with you every now and then.
I just read your email, btw. So how’s life in the fast lane? After a quarter of a century, you finally got the proverbial house with a white picket fence and that really sleek SUV and --- what do you know --- a trophy husband too.
I’d love to see you all decked-out in your office clothes with matching blings. A far cry from our ho hum college outfit of loose drab shirt worn over washed-out jeans and a matching pair of sloppy Adidas Monica shoes…
You seem to live a charmed life, Christine. But you said you were longing for something more? And Holy Week is just compounding that sense of longingness? Have the things you’ve been trying to achieve turned out to be far less than enough?
Too bad, college didn’t give us an exact science for assessing the deeper things in life.
But I guess, the difficulty lies in our frantic busyness…we don’t have the time to stop and ask what it’s all about and where we’re running.
Was it Socrates who said, “The unexamined life is not worth living”?
Yes, we’ve grown wise enough not to be deceived anymore by the flutter of the heart, and to find solace in a syrupy love song…but are we also wise enough to unpuzzle life’s mystery and pursue a quest for meaning?
Albert Einstein said something thought provoking, “Our situation on this earth seems strange, every one of us appears here involuntarily, and uninvited for a short stay, without knowing the whys and the wherefores.”
Isn’t it sad that we just drift down the years and join the statistics of those who get caught up in themselves and those who choose not to know what life is all about?
Life wasn’t so nice to me, Christine. I had to grapple with its cruel twists and turns. My mom’s death. My two brothers’ debilitating sickness. Bad relationships among kin---bad enough to make me feel like a Class A loser.
But at one point in my life, I came to understand that life isn’t really a cruel joke where I’m the punch line. The old story that I’ve been hearing in church and Sunday School came to life.
Jesus did die on the cross to take the load off my heart, and with that, He took all my faults and the nasty things about me. And on the third day, He rose from the dead to free me, to give me hope…His resurrection brings hope…it has also given me a purpose.
I love my life! Even if my wallet’s not dripping with precious moolah, I never seem to lack anything.
Oh, before I forget…the Cascades aren’t really dead. There was no plane crash where all five members reportedly perished. It was all a hoax! I guess we were too dumb to believe that plane crash story back then. But hey, there was no Google then to check the veracity of the story.
Anyway, the Cascades are performing live in Manila at the Hard rock Café sometime this month.
So what to do you think about the idea of hooking up for old time’s sake and watching some oldies play love songs reeking with mush? It’d be a nice way of reminiscing yesterday, and talking at length about today and tomorrow…
Go grab that flight, girl! And I’ll get the concert tickets.
Cheers,
Merrilee
Disclaimer:
The author is now happily married with four kids, and has outgrown the taste for all things sappy (read: over sentimental love songs.)
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