Still on the back roads of my mind

I revisited my blog, brooksidebaby.blogspot.com, to search for old pictures of the late Mercy Fabros that her daughter May-i requested. I sent her links to blog entries where her Nanay was mentioned or quoted.

I am posting these three pictures of Mercy. The first two show us attending Viva Voce's "Complicated the Concert" in 2014 at the former Lopez Museum and Library on Textite Road, Pasig. The building that housed said museum and library is no more. It will assume another form in Rockwell Makati, but when that will open, I am not privy to that info. It just adds to the grief over lost people and lost stomping grounds in one's life.

Viva Voce's Camille Lopez Molina and Myramae T. Meneses bookend me and Mercy Fabros.

Color-coordinated! From left: Joseph Uy, Mher U. Nival, Mercedes Fabros, Ivan Niccolo Nery and me

In that concert, Mercy and I heard Raymond Yadao sing Julian Celis Bautista's kundiman "Parang Maghapon Lamang." We felt the hair on our arms rise. In the blog, I wrote that the Levi Celerio lyrics told of youth wasted: "Even if it feels like the length of a life, whether it ends at age 27 or at age 88, is long in earth-time, in the eyes of Eternity, it is only the equivalent of an afternoon."

Ang buhay ko’y maghapon lang pala

Tila isang saglit sa akin ang ngumingiting umaga!

May awit ang ibong tanda ng pag-asa!

Pagsapit ng hapon, ay!, kay lungkot sa puso kong nagdurusa!

Kung katotohanan ay ganyan,

Bakit sinayang ko yaong unang sigla ng aking buhay!

Di na magbabalik kahit na kaylan man

O! ang buhay pala ay parang maghapon lamang!

The third photo shows Mercy cradling my grandchild Kai. My daughter Kimi Fernandez had just "graduated" from Lamaze class with a successful childbirth, Dr. Melendre Araos as her attending OB-GYN.

My gratitude to Mercy and Melen is as boundless as the mysterious love that binds sisters together.