Sense of gratitude

Cesar Gorillo .

AFTER I finished college and got employed and received my salaries, the first thing I did every payroll was to set aside the allowances for my parents who were so poor they could hardly eat three times a day. I did it for the next 25 years until their death. I also made a two-story house for them to stay and purchased some parcels of land the income of which all went to them. I had to do it for the sense of gratitude to repay them for all the sacrifices they did to me.

When my sister whose husband died requested that I adopt her eldest child because she can no longer sustain his food and education (she had seven children), I did it, sent the child to school. He graduated and when he got a job, sent all his six siblings to college. All of them now have stable jobs.

Then I assigned half of the income of my coconut area to another sister who financed my high school studies. She was very poor and the income helped to send all her seven children to college and all of them now have stable jobs.

Then a niece of mine (daughter of my first cousin) came to my  house one day and requested that I send her to college. I agreed on the condition that she will take charge of all our family’s laundries. She agreed and finished her college. However, a day after graduation, she shouted, “Tapos na ang kalbaryo ko,” and went on to stay in a family right in front of our house and who never gave her a single centavo to finance her college years. I was greatly insulted but I kept all my heart pain to myself. When she got a job, she spent all her money, not on her family, not on us but on all her new-found friends. Then she lost her job and never found one again and now, she has to live on the mercy of some people on a day-to-day basis.

This thing called gratitude should not be violated. Thus, when St. Peter denied Jesus thrice at that time when Jesus badly needed his help, Jesus went on to ask him after His resurrection — also thrice — if he really loved Him, and St. Peter simply wondered why Jesus asked him the same question three times.  It was simply because He was denied three times. Jesus emphasized the ingratitude of St. Peter, but because He had forgiven him, the curse of God was not upon him.

But for humans like us, it would be a curse not to repay the person who went an extra mile to assist you at that time when nobody lifted a finger to help you.

When I was a bank manager, there was a friend of mine I helped a lot in his farm business. Unluckily for me, I entrusted him with one transaction for which he kept the title of the farm lot for me. Up to now, I could not get hold of that title because he simply refused to give it to me for the most unbelievable reasons. I am surprised why, up to now, he is so poor and mired in hundreds of thousands of debt and owned not even a house and with his marriage in tatters. Never did I utter any form of curse upon him.

Meanwhile, of all the other relatives I helped like the son of my sister and my sister herself, they are now living happy lives and the nephew I sent to college is now a millionaire while my other sister’s children are receiving huge salaries. I never told them I wanted to collect my due but whenever I visit their houses, I am treated like a king, made to eat and drink like a king. That to me is their sense of gratitude to express their thanks for the help I extended at that time they needed it.

Is the proverb “ang hindi lumingon sa pinanggalingan ay hindi makararating the paroroonan” carved in heavenly stone?

Just asking.