Manang Bola

My Mom dabbles in fortune telling.

By "dabble", I mean experiment but her batting average is quite good actually.

When I was around 10 years old, I'd remember several occasions when my aunts, her sisters-in-law, would cajole her into telling their fortunes. Mom would bring out her cards (regular playing cards that have not been used for playing games) and do her thing.

The only thing that she'd even try to predict in the future are pregnancies, she refused to see anything more. According to her, masama raw.

So anyway, she'd correctly tell my aunts things about their past that my Mom had no previous knowledge of - financial difficulties and huge personal issues during specific years, things of the sort. She also correctly predicted the conception and birth of 4 cousins. I remember my aunts protesting at the time, "ha ? Me ? pregnant again ? Nope. Never again." and sure enough, when the predicted time came, they were pregnant.

There are times when she'll miss the mark completely too. Mom predicted my labor certification approval correctly - now, the story behind that one was amusing - but she missed our Greencard approvals by months and she predicted that we'll get our house sold and will have already moved to Massachusetts by last October - uh, missed again.

She has an explanation though. The future, she says, isn't written in stone. Since we have free will, there are lots of possibilities that depend on the decision that we make at specific forks in our life. I kind of agree.

In case you're wondering what got me started on this topic, let me explain.

I was talking with Mom this morning and she wanted to confirm whether I was pregnant or not. She's sure raw that I would get be pregnant this month and if I'm not yet preggy now, next month. She rambled a bit about how lucky it would be if we conceived last month or this month. Ang gulo.

Come to think of it, I'm not really sure if this supposed-pregnancy was predicted or is only wishful thinking on her part.

Ano kaya ? I guess we'll know in a few weeks. Sana. *smile*