Catholic or Public School-when giving is a gift

Dear mouse,

A friend who never called me during the months when I was “dealing with my mortality” called. Just like the old days, she was whining. She complained about her quarrel with the husband on matters concerning their only girl’s education. She wanted to enroll her in a Catholic school while the husband decided that they would be sending her to the public instead.

The husband’s reason is not about quality education because the public school where she will be enrolled has a high performance ranking. They married late and it took years before she became pregnant. I convinced her to ask for prayers from the nuns in the convent in Bicol. She was happy when she got pregnant and doubly happy after the safe delivery because that’s the last chance that she would be having a baby.

The husband thought that it is a wiser decision to save the money for her College education at the time when the two of them must be retireable. He likes her girl to go to College as full time student.

The wife was saying that they were all schooled in Catholic schools in the Philippines and she would like her only girl to do the same. The husband on the other hand finished College without having to work because they were all supported by the older sister which up to now he recognized as a “debt” to pay.

My thoughts about it?

As we continue to talk, I sensed that the real problem was not in the kind of school for the daughter. It was more on the “debt” to pay to the eldest sister.

The eldest sister who was the first to migrate to the US helped in the education of her younger siblings. She also petitioned her parents who in turn petitioned the children.
As they arrived in the US, it is the same sister who provided during their first years of adjustment, looking for jobs and for their own places.

Recently, two more siblings arrived. It tooks years of waiting so when they came, they had already families. The eldest sister required the siblings who have already settled well in the US, my friend’s husband included to chip in and help the new arrivals. They contributed a monthly allowance for the brother who has already his families with him until he and the wife can find gainful employment. My friend considered this unfair, depriving their daughter of private education because the husband was helping a brother.

She has been complaining about the generosity of her husband to his family. Before it was the parents and now the siblings. The amount was a very small fraction of their income pooled together. They got two houses and two cars and right now they are paying the daycare of the girl for a monthly fee of nine hundred a month. I helped the husband set up the business before I left San Francisco and I came to know him more closely.

He was a person who tried to balance married life with his role of being a loving son to his aged mother. He was quick to go out of his way to help other people. Sadly, my friend is not as generous as he is.

She would hate me if I will tell her how lucky she is to have such a husband.

I have a mixed education–Catholic school and public. In the school of life, I learned that it is better to give than to receive. In the school of spirituality, I realized the feeling of blessedness when you can help people improve their lives. What you give, you reap a thousandfold in return.

She would remind me of those whom I have helped who turned their backs on me even during the time that I needed their help the most.

Then I could tell her, I had been through with that. I asked God why did he allow these people to forsake me.

Call me schizo but God responded to my question, “but I have not forsaken you”.

True, indeed While they were quarelling about the money for the hospitalization of their loved one, my surgeries and my expensive battery of tests which may have run to hundreds of thousands of dollars were paid for by “God”.

In closing, she was asking me to pray for her husband to change. I said yes but in my mind I will be praying for her to see the light. Generosity does not go uncompensated. Someone has to pay for it forward. I just know.

The Ca t