chowking couple

Earlier this morning, I was eating my pork chao fan with shanghai with my wooden chopsticks at the Chowking branch in Country Mall. I turned over a page of Ann Packer's The Dive from Clausen's Pier. And I chewed.

Then I heard a voice behind me. I turned and looked at the voice's owner. Old guy in the window table, mumbling about how his wife was taking so long looking at clothes and that he's so hungry. He had short hair, neat-looking, with a heavy-looking cross around his neck, and a yellow JCI badge on his white polo shirt.

I smiled politely, and mumbled in return some other forms of politeness. But he kept on talking, and I was charmed.

He's 85 years old, a layperson at the church nearby. "Ever since I got involved sa Church, wala nay alak, baye. Tanan Ginuo na," he said with a smile. "Have you ever considered teaching?"

I said no, and he replied, "Think about it ra. Mainspire gyud ka pagtanaw nimo sa mga bata."

He talked about his days in the military, when him and his partner were camping in Pangasinan and they got ambushed by the HUKBALAHAP. He thought that the guy was just sleeping, and was pestering him for breakfast when he realized the guy was dead! And that he got grazed by a bullet himself.

"They asked me if I wanted to go back. Di na uy! Di na ko magpakamatay! But that was where I met my wife. She was the chief nurse," he laughingly said.

As if on cue, a similarly old-looking woman walked in. She was waiting at Jollibee, which was right next door. The guy looked ruefully at me, and shrugged as if to say, "What can I do? My favorite is Chowking. Hers is Jollibee."

While they ate and talked just below a poster for Chowking's Happy Grandparent's Day promo, I just smiled and went on to my book.

I didn't ask for his name, which I could have done as they stood up to leave and asked to be excused. Somehow, I wanted to preserve this Sunday morning, them, both 85 with daughters working as nurses in the States, and me, with my chopsticks and book, gazing after them.