Purosive CoMMUNICATION Note as well that his personal reflections have not been explicitly stated nor revealed in one go—but they are given to us in bits and pieces, implicitly through the questions, so thal toward the end we realize why this event is significant to the writer. | mutter my thanks to the woman, the man, tothe slowly spilling afternoon, land start the walk home, leaving the passage between light and dark, between past and possibilty, eaving the men to the questions we wish never to have to answer. Abola’s insight not only gives us a glimpse of what he feels about the entire cexporionce but also lots us 500 the largor significance of the event. Ho makes us realize (ust as he did) how lucky we are that we stil have our sense of sight, and invites us to fool ompathy (ust as ho di for blind poop. By dong tis, tho narration ot the event becomes more than just about Abola and is experience ofthe massage. itis actualy about us and how litle we understand about the experiences of people with eisai This is the heart of the personal reflective essay—an expanded, it not better, understanding of the world through your subject, an insight from pondering and probing, which you want to share withthe rest of the word Following are two other samples of a personal reflective essay. SK ENRICHMENT 1 ‘Spaces in Togetherness Kloyde A. Caday + I can never write about how my father fell in love with my mother. haven't seen them kiss, except in those pictures of them smacking each other's lips on their wedding day. They'e not like Meg Ryan next to Tom Hanks in any chick flick where they portray their less challenging role as lovers, 2. You can't compare tham to my father's older sister, Aunt Gam, who, hearing her husband's offtune rendition of “Love Will Keep Us Alive.” runs toward her firstborn and says, “Eng, that's our theme song!” | remember her dragging her daughter in front of the videoke machine beside Uncle Raul, snatching ‘away half of the song from her better half. As early as midday, the three of them regale our tipsy relatives with “I would die for your Climb the highest 190z Desicain Toots FoR ACADEMIC PAPERS ‘mountain Baby, there's nothing | wouldn't do” It's much clearer to me why her black shirt is printed with large "V" and “E” and Uncle Ric gets the “L’ and *O” on his. She might have asked me to put them on Instagram, but | couldn't because my attention is on my father, who must have taken gallons of tuba because he cries hysterically for no reason. ‘Mang and Pang never have those moments. They don't celebrate their wedding anniversary because they got married during the Santo Niho Bula Patronal Fiesta, arguably the grandest barangay fest in General Santos City. Every Jan. 15, you'd see my father in my grandma's kitchen, chopping gatlic and slicing ‘aarrots in a crisscross pattern, He'd set up a banquet on her veranda and lit ‘monobloc chairs upstairs, but his favorite task is sharing beor and a small bow! of afitada as pulutan with his cousins and childhood friends. Meanwhile, my mother stays in our store in Marbel, eats alone, and feeds Melal, Marky, and some of her pet dogs. | wonder: If my father revels in the streets of Zone 7, does he think about the time when they tied the knot? Also, in my mother’s solo date with the same (but colder) dish for lunch, does she put one chair next to hers and imagine he is there? | don't know their soundtrack, if there's any. I don't recall my mother singing, though she always rented a videoke machine on special occasions. | stress that because I get my interest in music through my father, who played the guitar during the Sunday Mass when he was my age. A paternal bond is apparent when you see us sing a Cat Stevens during a birthday I share with ‘my twin—only that | take my father's line, and give the mic to him as the key ‘changes. ‘Then again, my parents have to own at least one song. They dont tall me, yet by deduction, theirs could be any of his favorite acts. Simon and Garfunkel's ‘Sound of Silence’ is less probable, but | have to laugh while thinking about it because somehow, that's how they are to each other. I'm pretty sure it's any of the Beatles hits, as there was a time my father boasted possession of a vinyl record of, perhaps, "Rubber Soul,” but it got burned along with his house before he met my mother. It may be “Words of Love,” “Tell Me What You See,” ‘or*Hore Comes the Sun’ I dare ask them, would they care to tell? I havan't brought love into the dinner conversation. I's a phantom I've locked up in my poems. Perhaps they'd struggle not to feel seeing me sweat up while explaining my ways on relationships, or confessing how my heart has been shattered over and over again. Id take a lot of courage to be all giddy before them as | ponder on the ‘wonders of love and, as a result, not got to listen to their story. 191PURPOSIVE COMMUNICATION ‘8 But | remember that when our class clown visits our home, he asks my father how he met my mother. My father says they met in a shop where she worked {as a cashier. Eyes gleaming, we ask for an elaboration, but she cuts the story forever through her tinolang manok and buko juice that she puts on the dining table. ‘9 Don't get me wrong. | can't say they love each other less. Maybe the marital bond includes developing a distinct language only they can comprehend. It might be that they articulate their gestures through their silences and stares meaningless to us. It might be that we succumb to orchestrated circumstances that we glean from romantic stories, leading us to believe that love is kissing in public places, giving her a bouquet of flowers of different ‘scents, and chasing each other by the sea, barefoot. They didnt need to 10- When the Prophet spoke to Almitra about marriage, he reminds that there be ‘spaces in togetherness." What restrains the intimacy, and why, in marriag does the bond have to be loose? | look at my parents’ ways and see that they have grown silent not because they're done with each other. They have accepted that when they decided to get married, things would change. Sons. would stand between them. And it's as though their love for each other transfigured into responsibilty in painstakingly raising two knuckle-headed ssons like us, 11 cant begin to romanticize my parents’ story. 'd rather pick out fragments of ‘memories that, when put side by side, would make an imperfectly fascinating ‘montage of tham. a, There's a blurred family portrait taken when I was in Grade 1: One night, our ‘mother forced my twin and | to wake up and wear identical barong with our shorts. Our father held a camera, stretched his arms, and took a photo of us four, from the chest up. b. I'd consider boasting that she would always turn the TV off when he starts to snore, and tell him to get to bed and share her blanket. When he gets drunk. again, she'd badger him for hours but would still cook soup for him, ‘c. When she lost part of her intestine, he never left her side. In fact, when she Was frail after two months in hospital, sho asked me if | had run out of clean clothes. | nodded, and she offered to wash them for me when she got home. He nixed that idea, but she insisted on washing the white ones, 4. 'm convinced its love when my twin left for work overseas. Mang wept on the back seat, and Pang stared at her. The same vibe recurred one night when | ‘was lulled to sleep while hearing low noises from my books and shirts she's. 192Destcwiixg Toots FoR ACADEMIC PAPERS stuffing in the storage box, and woke up to Pang's footsteps as he lited my boxes from my room to the car. Then thay drove me to Kabacan, wanting to see my new workplace. As | took them around the university, she said her Central Mindanao University is way better in its landscape and building, | knew right after that she meant: Don't leave us here in GenSan. 8. It's enough that | knew through my aunt that Pang regularly sent Mang flowers before they got married, 12: And mayba their song is “How Daep is Your Love.” Xt ENRICHMENT 2 Habal-Habal Wisdom! Hazel Galang 1+ Habal-habal (n.)-a public mode of transport used in the Philippine hinterlands, usually taking on a driver and three, four or even five passengers. Protty tall oder for a typical motorbike. And, if the FX is Manila’s shared taxi for the urban masses, the habal-habal is the taxi for rural folk, earrying its passengers from the poblacion to almost any point in Mindanao, Visayas, ‘or Luzon. Its name is descriptive of the way its passengers ride on the Improvised vehicle, each one sitting very closely behind the other, habal- habal styl. 2- For volunteers who live and work in remote communities in the Philippines, this vehicle is the favored choice over hours of walking through unpredictable terrain in the summer heat or the pouring rain. For me, itis a ride that | will always fondly associate with my first taste of full-time volunteering, 3 I joined the Global Xchange Programme, run by the Voluntary Services Overseas and the British Council. Even before signing up, | had been told that it was going to be an intense roller-coaster ride. And although I have never ridden a roller coaster, | would stil say that my volunteering experience was, fone hack of a ride! 4Galang, H. (2008). “Habel-habal wisdom.” Be Hands On! Inspiring Volunteer Services (pp. 68:71) Philippines: Hands On Marila Foundation, Inc. & Arwil Publishing, In. 193