Twenty Years

My inbox has been heavy with mails and facebook (FB) notifications these past few days. All of a sudden, I can't keep up with the amount of messages, FB friend requests and threads, comments and responses clogging my inbox. They are from my elementary classmates.

We graduated 20 years ago from St. Anne's Academy in the sleepy and obscure town of Hagonoy in Bulacan. And we want to celebrate this occasion come December of this year.

But since many of us in these past twenty years have relocated due to work, family or ambition among other reasons, we have to track down one by one those who form part of our elementary batch, school year 1989-1990. Well, thanks to facebook, I think so far only 15 remain unaccounted for out of around 55.

I am happy to be seeing my old friends again. Most of them I actually last met on our graduation day in April 1990 because I entered the seminary immediately after grade school. Though I have remained in contact with a few and have from time to time seen others at certain occasions, I am still excited and happy knowing that we are now reconnecting and renewing our ties.

Evertyhing is grace! It has been twenty years of grace. And I can only be grateful to the Lord for all these bountiful blessings--the memory of a wonderful past, our childhood friendships, those years of growth and joys and challenges and this opportunity now to celebrate and recall together those times that we have shared.

It is sad though that I don't have now many pictures to remind me of those care-free and innocent years of our childhood. The regular flood that visits Hagonoy every year has destroyed much of those photos. But as I one by one confirm an FB friend invitation or add another 'new-found' old friend in the net, memories of those wonderful years suddenly flash back--clear as though they are not from 20 years ago.