God’s Gracious Gift, Fabulously Golden: My Youngest Sister Joan

Events

Jun 24

A Personal Essay To Celebrate Her 50th Birthday

I remember that night 50 years ago.

I was six years old, people were milling about at home fussing over my Mother Gloria who was expecting to deliver a baby that night. I wasn’t really sure what they were fussing about, but since nobody seemed to be paying attention to me, I was more preoccupied and scared about the sounds in my surroundings – the noisy crickets, the loud croaking of the frogs, and other weird nocturnal sounds. I was in the midst of imagining all sorts of scary stuff, especially since in those days people talked (and believed!) that witches and monsters prowl the night to abort babies from pregnant women. I must have been in some form of panic attack, when a loud shrill cry broke loose. It was so loud, proximate and continuous, just in the room next to mine, such that the scary nocturnal sounds suddenly seemed inaudible. The loud shrill persistent cry drowned them all out.

It was Mary Joan! My little sister just arrived and broke into my eerily noisy nocturnal world, but boy, was I very happy that she drowned out all those scary sounds with her welcome crying out loud! And people around her were jubilantly exclaiming, “The baby’s a girl! A girl!” At that time you never really knew the gender of a baby until she was born. She was instantly given the name Joan, owing to her coming to the world on the feast day of St John the Baptist. She would have been called “Juan” if she had been a boy, the biblical name of Hebrew origin meaning “God is gracious” - St John the Baptist having been given to Saints Zechariah and Elizabeth (cousin of the Blessed Virgin Mary), in her ripe old age.

And because she is a girl, Joan got her name as the feminine form of Juan. Auntie Gavina, the famous midwife from the Legazpi Puericulture Center who probably delivered almost all of us in Capantawan, readily agreed. Her given name was most appropriate. Indeed, Joan was God’s gracious gift just like her namesake, her patron saint, St John the Baptist! Joan was a menopausal baby, and my mother did not know she was conceiving until a few months into her pregnancy. My mother was taking medications for her kidney ailment at that time so it was a miracle that my sister Joan came out normal. In gratitude, my parents added Mary to her name.

And we welcomed Mary Joan to the world. That was 50 years ago today.

Twice she had emergencies when she was very young. I remember she was brought all the way to Tabaco suffering from a high-fever convulsion and the American pediatrician who attended to her soaked her into a basin of ice-cold water! Many, many dextrose after, I developed an aversion to bottles of that shape making me think they were for babies who were sick.

And just a few years later, right when she was attending Day Care School or thereafter, she had another emergency from acute appendicitis that needed immediate surgery.

That she is now fabulously 50 years old is a miracle story for which we are extremely grateful to the Lord. A birthday thanksgiving mass for her intention was celebrated back home in Legazpi City by Father Joseph Salando.

Joan is a thoughtful little sister always diligently doing things for me. She has a tendency to be obsessive-compulsive about things (just like me, haha), so she wanted to do things with a certain precision in methods to achieve desired results. This eventually manifested itself when she took on medical technology as a profession.

She devotedly studied and earned another degree in physical therapy. Being the youngest in the brood of 10, the double degree in medical allied professions made her the default caregiver for our aging parents, living with them until their advanced age which she took on with much dedication.

For this, I am grateful to her and my other siblings, but most especially to Joan, as she lived with my parents for many years, choosing to stay put and work in Legazpi. Her decision to remain in Legazpi with my parents gave me the opportunity to pursue my budding international career as a globe-trotting technology auditor.

And to her credit, she truly deserved to be rewarded travels to many countries accompanying my parents and me.

In 2002, she went with our parents to visit me in Singapore, and later, we all went on a pilgrimage and pleasure trip to key places in France, Italy, the Vatican, Austria and Germany. Travelling around Paris, Rome, Padua, Venice, Verona, Florence, Salzburg, Mondsee and Munich gave us more than a fill of lovely churches visited, but what was truly special was seeing the sites in Salzburg and Mondsee shown in the movie, The Sound of Music.

Still, the highlight of that trip was our visit to the Vatican – the most important site in addition to visiting the shrine of our Lady of the Miraculous Medal in Paris, the shrine of our Lady at Lourdes and the site of the incorrupt body of St Bernadette Soubirous in Nevers, all in France. Alas, the Pope was not at the Vatican during our visit. Pope John Paul II was in Toronto, Canada for the World Youth Day 2002. It was almost as if the late Pope, now a Saint, was prophetically motioning to Joan, “come follow me”.

And follow the Saint’s footsteps to Toronto, Canada she eventually did. A few years after Papa died, on one of my frequent coming home to Legazpi from Singapore, she and I had a heart-to-heart talk where I advised her to pursue her dreams to where she desired to go. She had served our parents long enough. And at that stage, I had fulfilled what I needed to do with my life abroad, and had a persistent, nagging desire to take root back in Legazpi. But that is another story.

Meanwhile, Joan left for Canada, uncertain as to what was ahead of her and very brave enough to take the plunge.

A whole new world opened up to her, which she embraced wholeheartedly. She initially stayed with our cousin Ate Zeny and her husband Kuya Alan in Toronto. They had a neighbor, Rob, whom Joan eventually met and later the two became a couple and decided to get married.

Our brother in Canada, Kuya Jun and her wife Ate Belen, were just as happy that Joan decided to stay in Canada as well.

And the rest was destiny.

She found her corner of the sky, and am just very happy and thankful to see her fulfilled, happy, and fabulous especially now that she has turned 50. A true golden girl to boot.