The Word “Morality” and the Word He no longer Remembered

Juicy Peppah

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FUNNY how some people could easily drop words without care, and as quick as they do, so how they write those in the sands. It is even funnier that the slower some people receive it, the longer the message dwells in their thoughts.

For an aspiring teacher, it is an utter disgrace to drop expletives incessantly. He or she becomes a role model, and would a teacher ever want his or her students to grow up in a place conducive for swearing? Professionalism-wise it’s a shame.

But at a very young age of eighteen—not even barely acquainted with the piercing daggers of reality—I was too foolish to drop swear words as if they were empty plastic cups disposed on a crystal clear sea. For some reasons I was just so inside the four corners of our small office one afternoon, filling the room with a deafening air of @#$#@, %#$@*#$, and $#@$@#$ without even thinking hearing those words was worse than being soaked in a pot of boiling metal.

Then there was this section editor whom I used to treat as a big brother because he used to approach me that way [I’ve never had a big brother, although our youngest sibling serves the same purpose]. He told me, “Angel, wag kang nagmumura (Angel, don’t swear),” in the coolest manner he could.

And I was just too taken by the idea that someone somehow cared about me. But the meaningless expletives were just too stubborn as allergy. They just won’t go away; they have become a part of my daily living, so instead of surrendering to the will of a caring big brother, I was forced to answer, “’Tangna (an expletive implying mother is a whore).”

Again, I would start swearing until my co-workers’ eardrums nearly hit explosion. Had it not been for the worst expletive I could ever hear from a caring big brother, I wouldn’t have been stopped. He uttered a three-letter phrase that had me swearing for the last time then never again.

“I love you.” He said simply… for my ears only [though I heard someone joking about it].

Words no one in the office but me could ever remember any longer.

Words that misled me to thinking that he was falling for me as I was, for him.

Words that led to the death of our friendship.

Words that could have catapulted him to the gates of indifference.

Anyway, when I opened my Facebook account this week, I happened to read one of his posts, saying that wherever he was that day, there was a lady and her mouthful of expletives. That, with children around, he was inclined to tell the lady to stop swearing [implying it might influence the children]. The woman asked him, “Pastor ka ba (Are you a pastor)?” before carrying on with her foul endeavor.

Course, he gained sympathy for that he almost deserves a Gawad Urian trophy. And my sympathy too [by the way, I believe I have regained our friendship. I desperately hope so]. I told him, “Let them be. Someone will correct them in the future.”

And after a series of sympathy-throwing from his ‘pastor’ brothers and sisters [I don’t want to think they’re making fun of church leadership there], out of the blue I wrote: “Why didn’t you just tell the lady the same words you said to shut me up?”

Lately when he wrote his comment, he said he remembered the expletives I mouthed off, but never the words he said, even asking me to help him do so.

Never the words he carelessly dropped… the words that boosted my ego and whatever that had me falling in love with a great man [see It’s not Love, After All].

I replied, “Trust me, you wouldn’t want to remember…”

Why would he? Going back to that might bring our mended relationship back to the crater of boiling lava. Besides, I don’t really think he means ‘it’ in the first place.

Oh, and by the way, he even reminded me how our co-workers used to think him a ‘moralist’. To boost his ego, I’ve never had an idea, I said. True indeed. I thought those were just words from a caring big brother.

Moralist?

Now that I have an idea, I can tell he’s not, if it means ‘avid-saint-fanatic’. It is every person’s duty to correct what he or she thinks is wrong. However, there are different ways, approaches, and times for doing so; maybe he just spoke at the time no one understands.

Still, I’m not going to question his way anymore; that’s his. Here’s only too glad he’s too courageous to step up and make a difference. Only a few people in the world have the guts to stand up and fight for what should be. ^________________^