BENCHWARMER

Ramon Dacawi
When life gives you lemons

After topping last November’s nursing board examinations, Jovie Ann Decoyna is into working on her next wish: Land a stable job so her mother, a domestic in Taiwan for 15 years now, would come home for good.

She needs to see the family reunited, perhaps to let her parents slow down, work the rice plot together again, but no longer driven by the need to toil hard for her education.

Was it Dale Carnegie who said that when life gives you lemons, make lemonade? Jovie Ann had wanted to study medicine as it would empower her to help many who have less in life. When that choice was beyond the financial givens, she took up nursing at the Baguio Central University, after a pre-med bachelor of arts in biology.degree at St. Louis University.

This barrio girl from Bakun, Benguet came up with the best lemonade, so pure and so sweet not even the dearest wine could compare. She obtained an 89 percent rating, one of the highest ever, to lead 39,455 who made the cut for new nurses out of over 88,000 examinees. Hearing it on TV, I almost punched the air in jubilation, abandoning a computer game I was engrossed in to hear more about her.

(I also dreamt of becoming a lawyer, convinced that those who have less in life should have more in law. Not in-laws, folksinger Conrad Marzan used to say. Thanks to a University of Baguio scholarship since high school, I got my AB after five years in those college days of activism. Having memorized the first two letters of the alphabet, I thought I was ready to be a provincial newsman. My classmate, Daniel T. Farinas, became a lawyer. He is now city vice-mayor and I’m still a newsman, with all the early credentials of many a successful politician: former newsboy, bootblack and even pony boy.)

Jovie, who turned 24 last Feb. 16, attributed her triumph to the sacrifice of parents and relatives, friends and teachers, plus a rich mixture of prayers, hard study, patience and discipline. And, I add, her grace and unusual optimism.

(I attribute my being a newsman to a parody from InnocentEnglish,com., a humor website: “When life gives you lemons, ask for salt and tequila.” It was gin in our case with Baguio editors Eliral Refuerzso and Sam Bautista and former U.S. Navy men Camilo Candelario, Norman Rulite, Nad Kollin, Joel Aliping and Miggs Meru).

Jovie Ann was in the third grade when she saw her mother off to work in Taiwan. The girl may now well be on her way to near the league of Booker T. Washington, the noted African-American ex-slave, educator and pioneer civil rights leader.

Washington wrote of his own struggle for education in his famous autobiography “Up From Slavery” He was nine when his mother, Jane, cried upon hearing the Emancipation Proclamation and as she bent down to kiss her children. Now free to go wherever they wished, the young Booker and his mother went to toil as salt packers and in a coal mine.

Jovie was emotional when Victoria, her mother, called to congratulate her, the Philippine Daily Inquirer story on her said. It noted she spent hours planting rice in the family plot when she was a child.

Unlike others, she doesn’t want to leave. She wants to work in Baguio and give back something, to help her hometown. Were she in the United States, her daily summer work-home route might include stopping by every kiddie lemonade stand, as suggested by a book title I found in a thrift shop.

Feel-good stories like Jovie’s service-driven feat help insulate us from the gnawing pessimism over a deeply troubled world economy. . That’s why Manny Pacquiao is our national treasure, for transcending poverty with grit and art, not only for himself but for the humanitarian cause that earned him an honorary doctorate in humanities. That’s why we love “Slumdog Millionaire”, a must-see film about what we value in life. It just slammed into the Oscars with eight awards and catapulted to stardom boys from the slums of Mumbai, India.

That’s why I take the queue to the lotto outlets with what I can spare for the next draw, dismissing a reminder popping up on my scoreless “Family Feud” computer game. It’s about luck favoring those who don’t depend on it but work for success – as Jovie did and will, for family and community. (e-mail: rdacawi@yahoo.com for comments)