I once heard from a Christopher de Leon's MMK episode the line, "Do not let your left hand know the help that your right hand did to others." I had second thoughts at first on posting this because I feared that I might be praising myself for something good that I had done. However, I realized that what I did isn't something that would place me in the list of the nominees in CNN's Hero of the Year. It was very simple. Just a deed out of a respect to the past and understanding of the present. It was out of reminiscing memories of my childhood friends. Do they still remember? Wherever they are now? I'm sure they do.

It was a very hot May afternoon. Lying on the bed with all the curtains up and all windows open wasn't enough to take the Summer madness on the temperature. Since our house is literally five steps from the highway, I knew kids were down there on the streets, kicking a tin can then running here and there, doing hide-and-seek. I can't remember playing that strange game when I was young. Why did they do them all at once? Hitting a tin can with a slipper, chasing others and hiding-and-seeking. The young generation is really full of reinventions.

I heard a ding-dong and I heared the kids stopped running. What a relief! Our local ice cream is here! I took 50 pesos from my torn wallet. That was the last 50 pesos I had from the money my mom gave me to come home. It was also the last money I had. *swipe some zero-balanced atm card here*. Swiftly, I signaled Mr. Ice Cream Maker that I wanted a cone. Typically, I expected only two flavors: Ube and Mango. I was right. Nonetheless, who would care about that when you're all so buried in extremes of the weather?

Atfter taking my cone and paying for it, I had decided to go back home when my phone rang. Still standing in the highway, I read the text message and laughed. Then I thought of something after that. Didn't those kids stop playing? What are they doing now?

I turned around and watched them. Some of them stared at Mr. Ice Cream Maker as he prepped up to proceed his with his beloved sojourn. But some of them were staring hardly at me too. Their eyes, glued at my ice cream while they were eating the collar of their slightly dirty clothes. Some were biting their nails too. Realizing that I was looking at them as well, they were, I think, starting to decide to play again. But what I did, something I couldn't have done if there were other people, was something that made them happy.

So I walked towards Mr. Ice Cream Maker again and told him that I wanted to buy some more. The total number of children was 8. So it would obviously leave me with 5php as change. I approached them right after. At first, I just sat down on that stony corner. I knew I would see them smile. Yes, they did. But it was their eyes sparkling with unblistered innocence that caught me off guard as I handed them the cones one by one. Looking at the expressions on their faces, they easily took me away with remembrance of some of my childhood friends.

One of those kids is a younger sister of someone I knew who is in Manila right now. She is of the same age with me but her mature mindset is twice as sober as I have. She has thoughts imbued with overwhelming sense of responsibilities. I've heard she's made all her way through. She worked as a maid for years and now as a sales agent. I remember her confidently gripping that old stalk of coconut tree ready to glide. She was a very small girl back then. I just waited below, nervously watching out if she's gonna fall or not over the smooth but slopy cliff. She did fall. But she would stand up and tell me that everything's fine. What a fighter!

The other kid is a cousin of two sisters I once shared countless laughter with. The same story is almost uniform to all other girls in our place. After finishing high school, with all the financial asphyxiations, they defy their destinies by going to Manila without any experience. They got jobs that are easily acquired. Being a house-helper is the best example. These two sisters however got married last year. The same year their father died, leaving their 6 other siblings terrified. The older of them wedded someone who's twice as old as she is. The younger one married someone older than her as well but they're currently in a long-distant relationship. I just wish they married because they love those men and not because they need them to survive. Whichever is the reason, it's hard for me to blame them. I am left to remember these two girls from years ago. We were there, along with all other kids of our age, all intentionally stripped, holding our hands as we swam deep in the sea with huge waves. For us, it's most enjoyable when storms make waves in the seas. It was deadly funny. I just didn't expect that the two ladies' breadwinner responsibilities were as big as those titanic waves.

Another kid, the one who was eating his collar, reminded me of one of my best friends. We used to play with rings of thin round elastic rubber all day. We used to go outside and play with small animated cards we call stickers even if they don't stick. At early age, we shared the same groovy passion for dancing that lasts 'till now. He sometimes didn't go home at night but rather stayed in my room, lying in my bed as he shares to me his dreams. Many cars. A large blue mansion with a dance studio. A refrigerator full of chocolates and our favorite foods. I could hear him blissfully enumerated them. It must have been so hard living his life. He grew up with a step mother who always quarreled with his father. They eventually separated for real even if they both love him. He went to his father at first and joined the job as a jeepney conductor. Then he went to his mother who has her new family. He decided to go back to his own city alone and is now working at a nocturnal restaurant. I wish I could see him again to see how much he's changed. I wonder if he still dreams of those he mentioned every night in my bed. It moved me to wonder that maybe, he's really now a big boy with a big dream. He has a big heart. Memory of him is too heart-wrenching.

After those kids finished eating their ice cream, only one of them thanked me. Well, I couldn't protest about their childish innocence. What filled my heart was the speech their eyes delivered. I've got a feeling that with all those people they love far from them now, they too start to be alarmed of the misfortune written at the end of their lines. That's how life goes on most children in my hometown. But as young as they are, their earliest years deserve to be spent with whatever that can make them effortlessly happy. So that at least, like me, they will smile looking at the faces of younger kids of the generations next to them while memories jump back. And just like the ice cream that makes us happy, even if the good thing is done after eating the tip of the cone, there will be another chance of hope as long as we wait again for Mr. Ice Cream Maker to come. And I promise you, he always will. #