General Admission
The gift that restores Pinoy family tradition
By Al S. Mendoza
MY legman of many years, Valentin Dakuykoy, couldn’t believe his eyes.
“Sir,” he said. “Look, what I’ve got.”
He was flashing a big, brown envelope.
“Inside this envelope are two tickets,” he said. “One for me. One for the missus.”
What tickets? Lotto or jueteng?
“Course not, Sir,” he said. “Lotto, maybe. But jueteng? Never. Over my dead body. Not until jueteng gets legalized will I ever make a jueteng bet.”
So, what tickets have you got there?
“Ticket To Ride,” as in the title of a Beatles song?
“Sort of,” Valentin Dakuykoy said. “Tickets to Hong Kong.”
I stopped pounding away at my laptop.
Tickets to Hong Kong?
“Yes, Sir, tickets to Hong Kong,” he said.”
You won them in a mall raffle? At SM or Robinson’s? At Gaisano or Limketkai maybe? Or at CSI or Nepo, or even Star Magic, if not Trinoma, Greenbelt or The Ayala Terraces?
“All wrong, Sir,” he said. “These plane tickets to Hong Kong came from our daughter.”
I looked him in the eye.
“I’m not kidding, Sir,” he said. “Christmas gift from our daughter.”
He handed me the brown envelop.
“Look inside, Sir, they are right there, two tickets to Hong Kong,” he said. “One is under my name, the other in my wife’s name.”
He was now almost teary-eyed.
“I couldn’t believe it, Sir,” he said. “Now I know how it feels to be really loved by your own child. She and her hubby will be our hosts from Day One. I never dreamed this would ever happen to me and my wife.”
Isn’t life like that? Full of surprises, if not filled with the unexpected?
When was the last time we had gotten the surprise of our lives û as in Valentin Dakuykoy’s case?
When will the trip be, anyway?
“On December 23, Sir,” Valentin Dakuykoy said.
When will you be back?
“On December 26, Sir,” he said.
You mean, you will be spending Christmas in Hong Kong?
“Yes, Sir,” he said. “Up to now, I couldn’t believe it.”
Sometimes, we tend to underestimate the capacity of our own children to make us happy.
The cynicism syndrome has long detained us from prison thoughts that, yes, we take family for granted.
In Filipino tradition, aren’t parent-children ties supposed to be as impregnable, unassailable even, as the faith of the flock?
Christmas, as we all know, is one season that has the latent trait to surprise – pleasantly, if not happily, that is.
That was what was proven in the gift of Valentin Dakuykoy’s daughter to her parents.
If a parent can never stop loving his/her child, a child can be a boundless source of unexpected joy to his/her parents.
Happy New Year!
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