Just before I graduated from high school, my father and I had a heart-to-heart talk about my future. He told me that I wouldn’t inherit anything from him in the form of money, land, or property. “But,” he continued, “what I can give you within all my means is your education.” He kept his word. After five years, I graduated with a college diploma from the University of the Philippines.
My father was one of the early Christian Scientists in the mountain resort city of Baguio. From the time he became a student of Christian Science, to his passing on, he never doubted what he learned from its teachings. When World War II broke out in the Philippines, my father evacuated his family to the mountains, where we lived for the duration of the war. I was not yet in my teens, but to this day I can recall vividly how, on Sunday mornings, my parents and my older brothers formed a circle on the open grass. Then we listened to my two older brothers who read from the Christian Science pastor—two books, the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. During those years, there were no current issues of the Christian Science Quarterly (containing the citations for the weekly Christian Science Bible Lessons), but my father had back issues that he made use of again and again.
After the war, we came back to the city. My father got sick with malaria. Relatives and friends were so concerned about his health, that they offered him medicinal tablets being issued by United States Army medical teams. Instead of taking them, my father—and my mother, who was his mainstay throughout his illness—prayed. Aside from my father’s healing of malaria, which I witnessed, he had many other healings through prayer alone, physical and moral. I cannot help but mention this because my father’s stand for Christian Science inspired me to be a Christian Scientist. He may not have been aware of it, but aside from my college education, I count his love for Christian Science as his long-lasting legacy to me.
