Life in the Single Lane... (a chronicle from "On Single-Parenting")
“ Pa, I need 800 pesos..” Sean asks you one time at the dinner table.“ What for?...” You are hoping that he was just kidding. "Our JS Prom? …” Sean adds with a tone of ambivalence…Suddenly you feel a tinge of exhilaration beneath your skin, not knowing whether it is rooted in joy or disbelief. You are faced with accepting the truth – your oldest son has grown. Your financial worries are upstaged by your excitement of imagining him dress up for the occasion. Thinking of ways of how he could get the most of these numbered-in-life events, you plan. It has to be special. A complete transformation just as you see in reality TV shows gives you the idea. You begin counting days until D-day finally comes. Absenting your self from work you run to the mall without taking your lunch and allow him to be pampered in his first-ever “salon-experience”. “I want his hair lightened, no sign of waves just do whatever you can…give my son a transformation!” you request. The next thing you need to do is go down the mall and choose flowers and some imported chocolates as what Sean orders you to do. Asking him why he needs to give flowers and chocolates to six girls, he answers you “I just need to.” Feeling the pinch in your pocket already when you paid the salon, you hurdle to a throng of people in the flower shop. It’s the season for buying roses and you can never imagine the price of a single stalk. By the time you have decided on which brand of chocolate bars you’ll buy, you feel your gastric juices squirming your stomach.
You return to the salon and hoping you can just rest it off. In an hour’s wait, a familiar sight of a groomed young man greets you with a smile…"I’m done…"It leaves you speechless for awhile and realize with conviction that this will be, not only your son's but also your's- an indelible moment in life...
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