Brain Contour

Franzine Cole Salas is my niece. We call her Zee. Everyone in the family knows Zee could sing when we saw her tapping the table while watching a variety show on TV. That was when she was still 2. She is now 6 years old and has been singing in school programs. My younger brother who has more exposure in this kind of talent development, suggested that we should enroll Zee to a voice lesson program this summer 2011. This is one way for her to develop self-confidence especially when performing in front of a crowd.

The last time we recorded a video of her singing was when she was 2 years old. Watch this video of her performing a Filipino song “Hindi ko kayang iwan ka” by Sheryn Regis. She could not read yet that time and had to follow what she was hearing.

The doctors said there was no hope for recovery because of too many complications. For three days in the ICU, daddy was fighting for his life under all the hoses connected to him. Manoy Wingwing, my older brother who watched him all day and night, had witnessed how daddy suffered in a very dire condition.

With teary eyes, each stare my father gave to Manoy felt like a plea to end his life. Unable to articulate his pain, he looked as if trying to beg to cut his life support so he could finally rest — right then. That was the time Manoy made a long distance call from Chung Hua Hospital in Cebu to South Dakota, US.

Franzine Cole “Zee” Salas is a joy in the family. She is the daughter of my older brother. From the moment she started talking, we knew she has gotten the singing genes of the Salas clan.

My mom used to tag along with her the title “songbird” of Argao (our town) because she managed to defend her championship title for 12 consecutive weeks in a singing competition during her teenage years. When she had us, her four children, mom made certain all of us could sing. No wonder we had our share of fame too — either from home-based singing contests or from out-of-town gigs.

I have a very beautiful niece. Her name is Leanna Erika. Isn’t she so adorable?

Mama told me not to build castles in the air, but of bricks. She was the one who constantly pushed me forward and stirred me to strive to be the best that I can. In the countless times that things went south and continued to fall apart, there she was, a wonder woman standing by my side swift to shield every unwilling part of me from the falling debris. She was there in each tear that was about to trickle or a smile that was about to break into laughter. She was there where superman failed to show and when any other superhero fell short to save.

Unlike Papa whose character could be likened to a silent harp, Mama harps her subterranean emotions out. The day when she defended my older brother from a wrongdoing and said how much she loves both of us and shed a tear afterwards, I cried with her.

Citizen Army Training Medal

There’s one good reason why this week I metamorphosed into an archaic-photo enthusiast.

A short meeting with a fellow Filipino in Brookings weeks ago got me into thinking to scan my old pictures and salvage them from further wear and tear. Each photo in her stack of albums, she insisted, carries brilliant stories of long ago that should not be expunged simply through waning and yellowing. In as much as she wanted the photos to be reinstated to their original grandeur, there was nothing so much she could do but to clean them from lizards’ debris, having been concealed in the filing cabinet for quite a time.

Numbers and complex solutions fuel me. I crave mind-boggling formulas and mathematical theories. I go where Pythagoras, Des Cartes and Pascal abound. These are the reasons I love the engineering profession.

I never liked the teaching profession. When mom advised me to get a degree in education and be a teacher, I retorted in complete disagreement, “Send me to an engineering school, and I’d make you proud!”

In my country, pursuing a degree in education is the cheapest and the easiest in town. Borderline students or even those below the intellectually deficient category, most often than not, would go for the degree. Only a few would take up engineering or medical courses.