The health and wellness concept is getting on everyone in the office except me and as health enthusiasts are increasing like tenfold, I wonder, how come it hasn’t hit me yet? Not even when the doctor advised me to look after my weight since my cholesterol level is frying hot and my blood is getting sugary each day. I promised myself once more to eat healthy and exercise and get disappointed by myself all over again for not taking the extra effort to commit to it.
I have a penchant for deadly combinations, well aside from the public admission of being a caffeine addict, a foodie and a sweet tooth, I am a loyal client of the Coca Cola company since 1st grade. I am a Coke fan. I refer to the classic Coke, not the Light one or the Coke-zero. I find these variations hilarious, how can you have Coke without the sugar? It’s like eating pasta without the sauce. While some people recognize the intricate connection between wine and spirits, I can say that I share the same line of thinking and belief that sugar and Coke should not be separated at all. Thus, the sugar component must remain. It’s a non-negotiable. It is the price you have to pay for the great taste.
Put away all those marketing frills and fads, I have my loyalty tied to Coke original because I have one great memory of a person attached to it, my grandfather, Tatay Mateo. He is a Filipino Spanish mestizo from Tacloban and my mother inherited his lustrous skin and high bridged nose while all I got was his fondness for a dark sweet beverage called Coke.
I remember him as one silent man who used words sparingly and still had a powerful presence around people. I felt that power every time he arrives home from work to eat lunch with me and my cousins in the Old House. This is one of my earliest lessons in life; silence does not always mean timidity or coyness, for silence could outperform spoken words; it is a way of speaking soul to soul where communication is at its highest form and class. Grandfather must have mastered this art and found speaking through words a futile exercise.
He seldom smiles and during those times he did, I could see his eyes lit up a handsome face. Though I spent less time with him compared to my grandmother, I could still remember the stance he assumes while walking around the Old House with his cane. The pounding of the cane against the wooden floor was my indicator of his presence.
Every afternoon, coming home from school, I would proceed to the nearby hotel’s billiard center. I would play-pretend not to see Tatay Mat in his workplace to make it appear that I was sent to the same place by sheer luck. I would wait patiently in a corner and look towards his direction discreetly, like a decisive billiard player projecting her next move. At the instant he sees me in my quiet solitude, he suddenly disappears from my view and then I know our game is nearly done. My grandfather re-appears from the diner with an 8 oz Coke in one hand and a smile on his face. He waves at me and I walk towards him, taking all the time in the world to show that I wasn’t in a hurry at all to claim my prize. This was victory for a little girl and it tasted sweet.
As a parting sign, I would take his hand and dab it to my forehead (mano) as a gesture of respect and my thanks. My grandfather looks at me smiling, his handsome face imprinted in my mind and his silence, powerful enough to last me a lifetime.
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