(The following is a page in my record of Our Life Together as Blanco Family which I started to write in the early 1990s. It is my pleasure to share and write about my beloved grandfather who was a vital influence to me in reading the Bible regularly. The image of him reading the Bible day in and day out has been permanently imprinted in my mind).
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n Friday sunsets, Tatang, my maternal grandfather, usually gathered all of us in the spacious living room of my aunt whom my siblings and I fondly called Ima. There we all prayed and sang hymns before and after Tatang's exposition on the Bible. After the closing prayer, we all kissed the hands of my grandparents, uncles, aunties and our respective parents.
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| Tatang and Inang |
This gathering was always followed by
feasting on the long white covered dulang
[table] of native foods and cakes and lengthy talks by all the adults.
We could not appreciate then the
beauty of this gathering. It was only
when Daisy and I became SDA in the later years that we were able to understand
its meaning. Tatang was observing the seventh day Sabbath, the day which is
meant to be a memorial between God and mankind during Creation.
Tatang was a devout SDA. He believed in Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord, whom we now know to be the prime reason for our celebrations. He read the Bible day and night. This was a common knowledge to all of us. We always saw him on the rocking chair at the balcony of Ima’s house reading the Bible. He had done this while his hair was black till it became salt and pepper and then all grey. He went to church every Saturday.
Tatang
abounded in good works. He healed people
with asthma, muscular pain and pilay
[dislocated joints] by his gift of hilot [this
term sort of equivalent to physiotherapy].
This good deed became known from people within or outside the
neighbourhood. Not surprisingly thence,
people came to his house to seek healing.
Tatang
did not accept payment from any of the
people who came to him. He always quoted
in the vernacular the Bible verse “freely
you have received, freely give.” However, these people came back,
oftentimes, with fruits and vegetables to give Tatang. It was funny,
though, a few of them also came to ask Tatang
for our home-grown vegetables and fruits.
Tatang
actively served God then as elder in SDA church in Lerma. Caloocan City. This church also had a school where few of my
siblings and I went at some stage.
Tatang
was also the foreman during the
building of the Philippine Union College at Baesa, Novaliches [now called
Adventist University of the Philippines but relocated in Silang Cavite].
Unlike the overly fanatic SDAs,
however Tatang was not absolutely an
Ellen G. White enthusiast. As his
English skills was not as fluent as his Spanish, he asked Kapatid na Kiko {Brother Kiko] to translate parts of the writings
of Ellen G. White.
To other people in the neighbourhood, Tatang was a man with exemplary
character. He and Inang begot Tata 44Doming,
Kaka45 Pacing, Tata Pepe, Tata Berting, my mother, Tata
Juan and Ima. To their children, Tatang was a godly, loving, caring and respectable father. For us his
grandchildren, he was simply our loving grandfather. Rarely did we see him get angry. Instead of getting angry, he read the
appropriate Bible verse in disciplining us.
