“Ninety Summers”
A Short Story Inspired by the Writings of David B. Katague
I woke up before the sunrise, as I always do. The sky outside my window at Chateau Du Mer was the color of old rosewood, soft and muted, like the lanzones wood carving of the Last Supper hanging above my desk. Ninety years old today. A number both weighty and feather-light.
My bones remind me before my mind does. A twinge in the knees, a stiffness in the fingers that once typed out research papers, poems, and blog posts. And yet, there’s something elegant in the slowness now. Like the slow bloom of a gumamela flower—more deliberate, more sacred.
I reach for my notebook, the one I’ve been writing in since turning eighty. I titled it “Echoes of Becoming American.” In it are fragments of memories: my first love letter, my first article in high school about being the eldest child, the day I married Macrine in Boac, and the day she whispered goodbye. I still write to her. I tell her about the orchids blooming in the courtyard. About our children. About my dreams.
Being ninety is like living in multiple dimensions at once. I am both here and there—in Barotac Viejo under the guava tree, in Pinole teaching my grandchildren Ilonggo words, in Sweden, watching Derek, my imagined Nobel laureate, accept the prize I never dared dream for myself and here in Walnut Creek, playing bridge every Monday and Friday.
The past doesn't haunt me. It accompanies me, like a well-worn rosary. I hold it gently. I finger the beads of mistakes, of triumphs, of silence. There’s power in remembering. But more power, I think, in forgiving.
At 90, love looks different. It’s the warm hand of a caregiver who calls you "Kuya Dave." It’s the laughter of other seniors at the community center, flirting like they were seventeen. It's the deep hush in prayer, when I ask for nothing and simply say, “Thank you.”
My garden still grows. You cannot kill a cactus, I once wrote. Neither can you kill a soul that has learned to bend with time, to survive drought and heartbreak, to bloom even in rocky soil. I look at my hands—spotted, wrinkled, still able to cradle life—and I smile.
I do not fear the end. I fear only forgetting to live before it comes. So I write everyday. I water my plants. I talk to Macrine in the wind. I write to friends, real and imagined, hoping they feel less alone because I shared something of myself.
Ninety is not the end. It’s an arrival and a beginning.
And today, as the sun finally crests over the Marinduque sea, I say aloud:
"Salamat, Ginoo. Thank You, God, For this life. For this story."
And then, as always, I pick up my pen (Open My Computer). Daily!
This story is created with the amazing help of AI technology. Events in the story are both real and fictional. Again I dedicate this story to All Nonagenarian( like myself) or over. At our age, memories are our life and inspiration to go on living. Again, Be Grateful!
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