SHORT and simple encouragement to my granddaughter Danika when I bade her goodbye: Exceed your grasp. Shewas on her way to the renowned College of Charleston for further studies. “Just exceed your grasp in all subjects, in whatever way you can.”
Danika is familiar with my advice which I picked from the English poet Robert Browning (1812-1889). Browning’s poem was the topic of our dinner conversation a few days ago: “For a man’s reach must exceed his grasp or what’s a heaven for?” What has become a quotable quote, the famous lines originated from Browning’s poem Andrea del Sarto: “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, Or what’s a heaven for?”
With revered admiration, Danika looks up to her parents for inspiration: my son-in-law David Dingus and my daughter Randy Raissa Lagoc-Dingus. Her dad David, a magna cum laude graduate from the West Virginia State University, is a CPA (Certified Public Accountant) serving clients from various places in America. Her mom, popularly called Randy by family and relatives, is a well-known internist at South Carolina’s Hilton Head Hospital where she was awarded a plaque: Extraordinary Care – 5 Years of Dedicated Service 2004-2009. In their house here in South Carolina where I’m presently residing, photos and souvenirs of accomplishments don their shelves of trophies.
What about me? What has this Lola contributed to Danika’s upbringing? (By the way, she lovingly calls me Lola, the popular Filipino term for grandmother.) As a long-time teacher of English and American Literature, I could only give Danika gleanings from poetry and novels like Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, so appropriate for her rollicking teen-age years. As high school years went by, what could be more thought-provoking than a dose of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables with its call to activism, and so thus our very own National Hero Jose Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere. The latter I’ll take up with her on more relaxed vacation days.
Fast-forward: In 2016, I was awarded Columnist of the Year in the 2016 Globe Media Excellence Awards.With the plaque was a P20,000 check which I shared with three senior organizations in Oton, my hometown. The prize money I did not expect because I consider that column I titled Big 3 little words: “humane, just, fraternal” nothing more than a paraphrasing of Pope Francis’ speech in the White House. I think the clincher was my addition to the Pope’s own dissertation: “Humane, just, fraternal — big three little words — for us, brethren, to be good members of the great family of human kind.”
Did I exceed my grasp? Maybe. (jclagoc@gmail.com/PN)
