Exactly a month ago today, I turned 80. It was an event I didn’t expect to feel any different from my previous birthdays. But thanks to my fellow Inquirer columnist Ambeth Ocampo, who devoted an entire column to the lunch my sisters prepared at our childhood home in Betis, I received a lot more greetings and attention than usual.

Far from the “Kapampangan feast” by which Ambeth titled his piece (1/14/26), lunch that day consisted of the simple dishes my late mother used to cook when we were growing up—easy to prepare, nutritious, tasty, and inexpensive viands. Perhaps the only thing “special” was the callos my daughter Kara contributed. But given how we have come to associate fiestas with elaborate dishes rich in spices and ingredients, I can understand how the faintly familiar but long-forgotten meals of our childhood can strike one as special. Marcel Proust was right: a large part of our memory resides in our taste buds.

But that is the public side of marking a birthday. At my age—or rather, in one’s elderly years—the private side is more deeply felt. The question I ask myself is no longer how many years I have left, but how much longer I can walk for an hour without pain, and think clearly enough to compose a column every week without being tempted to ask ChatGPT for a draft. I realize—and for this I am eternally grateful—that I am still healthy enough to regard these as indicators of successful aging.