homage to the lamp

(source)

A house will be full of darkness and chaos without a lamp. But even the tiniest  flicker can spark a ray of hope and make all the difference.

She emitted a faint, modest glow. Many people thought that her light was too muffled to brighten a huge room enveloped in uncertainty and too hazy to illuminate a long and dark road ahead. But no matter how little she could emit, she was capable of producing a sensation of brightness and that shimmer did not waver even when strong winds blew past it.

My mother became a widow at 39, a strong wind blew for a quaint little light that she was. I cannot even begin to imagine how “that” life had been for her. Of course, we, her children shared in the uneasy aftermath of my father’s death, but ours were only that feeling of not having enough. Hers was that and the burden of responsibility of suddenly facing the tedious job of single parenting. Perhaps, it was a lot more. How lonely her nights might have been and we have selfishly let her endure that throb since her children decided that she will not remarry.   

No matter how dark the road was ahead of her, she kept a stark faith that she will get through. She has to get through since she has 6 kids in tow that she has to bring to the light of day. I cannot seem to measure the strength of her character or how stern her will was. It must be the kind of will that leaned on something greater and stronger. Sometimes waking for a midnight pee, I can see her on the stairs, her Bible on the step, her hand wiping something that got in her eye and asking me, “asa man ka?” (where are you going?). She forces herself a smile. I knew even then that she sometimes cannot sleep and that she will just wait on the steps and her Bible for the crowing of the rooster.  

Mamang was a very plain woman. Simplicity was her core. She was just without pretense, her laugh was calm yet unreserved. And she is often silent to a point of being misunderstood. But her being inarticulate, she made up for eloquently in deed.

She was a very hardworking housewife. She was good at keeping the house in order and she can do chores for the whole day if she was not occupied looking for means to be able to serve decent food on our table or put back the electricity connection on or give us some baon to school.  

She did not earn her degree, reason why she moved heaven and earth, mortgage and debt, just to let us get one. She wanted us to realize the dream that she only weaved in her mind. She had worked to send herself to school for a while until she was forced to stop schooling to look after her sick father. She will marry anyway, her mother told her, and she wouldn’t need a college diploma for that.   

My mother lets us be. She is nowhere near that image of a stage mother but she had always been a proud one. However, in letting us be, we, her children made many choices which failed to consider her affections and shattered her ambitions for each one of us: grandchildren sans in-laws, years of schooling sans the degree, children seeking desperately for their independence and morph in the shape of the pop crowd. I know she was hurt, maybe to an extent deeper than she allowed us to notice. But in all these mistakes and failures, she gladly embraced us back to her arms as if nothing went past. It all seemed like an embrace of a mother when her child who was gone for a while comes back home.

I know many wrangled about her lack of iron hand. That she had been too soft. And at some point, I was one of those who did. But could a rigorous claw have prevented some things to happen and altered the course of events? The mistakes made us grow, perhaps even in a more mature and broader sense. I have seen her shrug off the question of being faint-hearted. Authority and control is but a tiny component to a job called parenting. What she gave us was her steadfast love and profound understanding.  And it will be a long list of things that she did and does for us. 

Many years have passed and through her labor and love, we were brought out to the light of day. Or at least, we are already seeing what not being in the dark is like. It’s about time for her to just sit back and enjoy the setting of the sun, knowing that even though the night will be long and dark, the sun will always come up in the morning. Perhaps, that is the single most important lesson that she has instilled in me.  

  

A house will be full of darkness and chaos without a lamp. But even the tiniest of flicker can spark a ray of hope and that can make all the difference. I wish God will give her a longer life to keep the home aglow.

homesick

(source)

Flashback:

You step down from a trike and your pamangkins come rushing “Tito! Tito!”. O, how sweet is that even if they were actually after that package of siopaos or burgers that they have been nagging you about when you left that morning. Sometimes, arriving empty-handed you tell them, “oh, the baker was sick today and was not able to make siopao” and tell them anecdotes instead. Or pull some tricks or hunch your back for their rodeo ride.

You slouch on the sofa and sister calls out “dinner is ready” while Noli de Castro screeches “teeveeeeeeeee patrol!”. A steaming bowl of your favorite law-oy or sinigang. Or grilled fish with guso salad. Then a long chat over that matter that caught your and your siblings’ collective awareness or curiosity during the day. The laughs will be hard you’ll be reaching fast for a glass of water while choking on your food.

Majority wins on which program to watch on TV after, which all the time, will be the teleseryes. You wanted to get another TV but decides against it. And finally, you get to reconcile with Jhie’s shrieks over Coco Martin's dramatics amidst his lisps.

You lay in bed, the jalousies open while the chirps and flapping of the kulansyangs’ try to lull you to sleep. Or a few pages of Milan Kundera. Tomorrow will be a long day and you’ll beg high heavens that insomnia will not pop in tonight, more than you pray for peace on earth.

You look forward to weekends for catch-ups and rest. You do not worry about doing the laundry or the ironing since Jhie already took care of that. You are the king of the world despite that you reign over the basket to flea market and the kitchen on Sundays.

You caught the flu and Mamang rushes to the city with leaves that she will boil and forces you to gulp. That is so sweet despite how awful the concoction would taste most of the time.

You have a trip for a few days or weeks, and since Mamang protests against how you simply dump your stuff in the luggage, she volunteers to do the packing. Never mind that you will have to rush to the department store nearest to your hotel after discovering that she missed to put in some underwear.  

O, life is sweet. The benefit of family and community.

Fastforward:

You step down from a trike and your landlord greets you, “nagabin-an man ka?”. After a long day, you manage a smile for a reply. Silence and shadows envelope your unit. You unlock the door and turn the lights on. Stillness, the scent of solitude sprayed all over. You open the fridge, debate with yourself whether to re-heat last night’s left-over or not and decide it will be sandwich for tonight. Tomorrow will be cereals, then sardines and bread the following day. You sigh. Ugh.

You did not get a TV yet so you open your computer and play Winamp. Go online if you were able to load credits to your plug-in. But the prepaid connection can be very sloooooow you'll get dizzy to the circular motion of the loading icon on the address tab.

You lie in bed and the tuko beats your lullaby. Or an article in the newest issue of Reader’s Digest.

Saturdays will be laundry and office or laundry and sleep. Sundays will be church and ironing or church and sleep. If you lazed and chose the latter, then just squeeze in the ironing after taking a bath on Monday and the rest of the week.

You caught the flu and you call your nurse-sister for some medical advice and try not to play the doctor part, which you often do. You take a pill. 

You have a trip and you simply dump your stuff in the luggage. You will make sure you will put in some underwear this time. 

Such a drag. The price of independence.

Now I’m sick. And I want my old life back. I want to be tito and king once again.

I want to be home.

(Musings while finding hard time sleeping on the fourth day of nursing the flu and headache from sinusitis. Manang manghihilot did not show up. I know, this too, and the flu, shall pass. I shouldn't have called home and talked to the kids. But still, I just so enjoy this self-regulating, sovereign life that I will persist.)

the father's day club

The idea came nonchalantly during that SSS (Say Something Substantial) prologue during my freshman religious studies course. One by one, all forty one of us stood in front of the class, our feet fixated on a one square foot marking the professor drew on the floor, intently warning not to let loose of a toe outside, and decanted fragments of ourselves to people who were merely strangers back then. One by one, the stories poured out and I found myself listening to some narrations that were as if mine, as I understood the chronicling which climaxed to that all too familiar throb and longing.

I lost my father when I was nine. He was the former chief of the local police when he was gunned down by a perpetrator still unknown to us until now.

As the sole breadwinner for a family of six children, the cupboard was turned upside down after he was gone. Difficult may not have been an exaggeration of the life we went through without Papang. I will not want another retelling.

During the course of that SSS, I came to know other classmates whose stories were closely allied with mine. We were four in the class. We met another one year the after although her story was a bit different from us while the sentiment was the same. I hope they would forgive my lack of authority to recount these fragments which my memory can conjure now:

Z's father died by accident; a land mine was detonated on the plantation he was working at. H's and R's succumbed to illness. T's is a complex storyline and I digress to even set a backdrop. Z, H, T and I became good friends, but then again, all in that class had been. But I suppose, we understood each other better because of that nexus that linked us. We exchanged stories about how things were when our fathers were still around (all of us lost our fathers when we were young). We smiled at bittersweet memories but the tears we left to dry on that SSS floor. I know that we were made different by our circumstances and losing our fathers early in our lives etched some sense of maturity early on in our minds. Although I know that those experiences fortified us, there are still times that we needed some ounces of strength that we know we could have gotten so easily from a father's love and encouragement. These times often hit a raw nerve. But we get to live by the strength of the love from the people who were left and given to us.

These experiences also made us more bonded with our Mamangs or Mamas. On several occasions, we talked of our wishes and plans, not only for ourselves but for our mothers, the only parent left to us who also took on the uneasy task of fathering. But I will devote another write-up for that. Too bad, a get-together with our mothers still did not happen but someday I hope it will.

Over the years, the paths of life have brought us to our spots under the sun. We seldom see each other, although some, I often do on a social networking site. We still struggle with other battles that life throw at us, but I know the lessons learned and stength gained from our experiences plus the love and guidance of our fathers, wherever they are, will pull us through.

When I joined a Catholic community, I met many others who share the same story. In my previous cell group, I used to have four brothers who tell the same tale of throb and longing. I know at one point or another, everyone will join us in this club. When that time comes, I know you can always come to us to shed some of the pain and we will not mind. We shed some of those many times ago. But for now, I'd say, hug your father tight while he can still hug you back. For when the time comes, all you can do is wish even for a short moment when you still can.

To all fathers out there, whether we see you or not, Happy Father's Day.

waiting for the choo-choo

I used to frown at the morbidity of talking about death and when a conversation of that sort pops out, the instant reflex is to steer the chat to a different direction. I reckon I'm still 'young' to entertain thoughts of that degree when I have not even started the bottom fourth of the items I stuffed on my bucket. There's still a whole list of places to go and things to do. So thinking about the train ride to the twilight zone should still be lightyears away.

Then somehow, things happen and you get a close encounter with death through the loss of a dear one and reinforces the reality that the train arrives at an unexpected time. The closest experience I have of grim reaper's stroke was the tragedy of my father's death many years ago. That time, I thought the train wheeled on the wrong track.

***
We were a very young family then. We were six children, our eldest was 16, the youngest 3. He was the sole breadwinner so imagine how everything turned upside down after he died: from not having enough food in the table to the threat of letting our dreams go down the drain by having to stop schooling. Death's aftermath can sometimes be a long, treacherous process.

***
Recalling my father's death still stirs some poignance that has never been filled by the passing of time. It happened twenty years ago yet Novembers still evoke a familiar sense. It's been twenty years of sailing in an open sea without even learning how to paddle a canoe; at times strong winds blow and you barely manage to shift sails that they get blown and torn. You wished there was the captain to tell you which rope to pull, which way to turn the rudder. But it's been twenty years of learning the motions of the wheel on your own. I didn't want to be a sailor yet but it's good to know which sails to raise when the clouds darken on the distance.

***
While re-painting my father's tomb, my brother pointed to a new 'neighbor' left to my father's chamber. 'Very young, only 16. Bone cancer, already stage 4 when diagnosed'. The kid's family hung a portrait of him just above the tiny altar where a lighted candle is dying out. I also noticed that Papang had a few other neighbors who weren't there yet a year ago.

Somehow, Novembers remind me of my RS 101's cliches on how short life is. This one from Crowfoot I remember by heart – (Life) is the flash of the firefly in the night, the breath of buffalo in the wintertime, the shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.

***
Late last year, I was finally convinced to purchase a life and memorial plan. (My boss and I had been planning to buy a memorial lot but I could no longer afford it.) I guess I learned to welcome the idea of death as an inevitable something that should be prepared for, like that certainty of a trike stopping by when I'm dressed up for work. There are two sides to this statement: one, something that takes a lifetime hence harder to do, and another one which is easier and will just take a few bucks. I took steps to at least ready the easier one so there'll be one less worry for those I will be leaving.

***
Mr. Crabb hinted that we often look at death as something that happens to others, until it happens to us.

And because the train doesn't choo-choo when it comes, it's best to have a ticket ready.

changes and nostalgia

The late afternoon air unusually wafts a sudden stream of melancholy as we go off to Nang Beny's garden for some fresh picks. I have trekked these tracks between ricefield and irrigation many times before but with two sisters, scenes of early years on this place somewhat flash in random.

We passed by the pond where we used to pick kangkong for food. One sister suddenly recalled the time when we had nothing else as ulam but this green thing three meals a day. I said, "at least now we get to have a choice between kangkong and ginamus" to which the three of us giggled. Silently, I recalled how I used to sigh about this being served in the table like, "again?". Yet unknowingly, this has become a favorite.

The turod (Ilocano for hill) had a different look now. One of its sides was ripped off a few years ago to fill a collapsed side of a river and now, it lost some of its crowns as well. They cut down some of the trees, including the mangga and salumagi (tamarind) where I held posts in childhood camp games. It was climbing on these trees that I negated the branding of being lampa; even as a kid you have to prove some strength to be deemed acceptable. But one buddy, igso and demi-brother constantly took on my side. Jojo and I would pastol carabaos together by the side of this turod, him teaching me how to tame my beast. In time, I had my own carabao budge at one slight tap on the side and my "ho!'s" were obeyed. On the salumagi, Jojo and I also owned branches as our distinct domains where we would camp while looking after our flocks of ducks after every harvest. We were masters of own territories, thing that may be impossible in the real world. But one thing remains true: I realized that proving your worth is really a way of life.

From Nang Beny's garden, I can already see the highway. Bamboos used to hide this from view but they were all gone now. The tale of constant taking without replenishing took its toll on the riverbanks (bamboos hold the banks from collapsing during floods).

Between the garden and the row of houses on the east, the vast field is green. This has always been a refreshing sight even as a kid. Now, more than appreciating the sight is its purpose and meaning in our lives and in the lives of many of my folks. On these fields is where we are rooted. We owe everything to these tracts.

After we picked camote tops, okras and patola, we crossed the wobbly bamboo bridge unto the other bank of the irrigation. I remember enjoying the swim in these muddy waters. "Burarog", they call it which denotes swimming the indulgent type. We didn't care about getting kagid (skin disease) back then. We simply had fun.

As we were heading back home, a flock of birds make a 'V' formation while hovering the power lines above. In the distance, they made a 'W'. Good that we still see things like these. Many don't get this opportunity.

Going home had its usual effects on me. I hope next time, I'd be able to see more of the spots and the memories they will rekindle.

a short letter to a little sister

I reckon that we haven't really talked for a long time. By talk, I meant having those conversations about little things – your assignments in school, side comments on shows we watch on TV, the jokes we caught up with in texts from silly pals, our ambitions and plans for ourselves (though it might have not appeared that I was trying to address this more to you). I may not look like it, but I miss those exchanges.

I suppose many things have changed since a few years ago. I became too rigid, unforgiving and I shut you off too easily.

Everybody makes mistakes. That is one painful fact that we have to live with. Some of my friends committed the same mistake that you did but I felt them. To counsel had been so easy then. In your case, I didn't get it. I put all the blame on you. You had been so reckless, headstrong and plain pointless. You were not content in just inflicting wound - you even rubbed salt on it.

You may have not realized but I was as shaterred as you were. I lost not only my tall dreams for you. I lost all hopes that one day you'd gather your acts together and take that one step forward without taking two steps backward. I started to doubt every word that you say and your actions became a constant disheartening stroke.

Over time, my sanctimony sank you down further. The distance between us became too wide it had been hard for you to reach me. I even waited for another catastrophe before I tried to drift into squaring off. That should be the greatest lesson to us both. But maybe now, it's more directed to me.

I have long forgiven you. More than I care to show, I'm slowly re-building my hopes for you. I hope you do not waste this one last chance. Get up and start walking again.

Do not do this for me neither for your own sake. Do this for your son. From now on, do not lose sight that you no longer live just for your own impulses. You are responsible for the life you brought to this earth.

I will try to bend a little further. I'll pull the belt tighter to make both ends meet. I promise I won't be expecting much just as I did before. Now, I only ask that you do what's right.

I apologize for the times that I kept my distance. I know now you suffered more than I cared to understand. This time, I will try to be more present and within reach. I will try to be a better kuya.

I know saying these things to you personally is very unlikely. We are not used to these melodramas. But I hope we can pick up where we left off. How about talk to me about school?

By the way, those adjusting entries that you didn't quite understand, I will still have to re-read them. It's been long since I prepared one of those. I should already be doing so but I'm driven into writing this. I don't know but somehow, I feel a little lighter.

how deep is your cup?

One night, I had ruckus for dinner.

Two of my sisters back home took turns at my air time after my 15-year old nephew has gone ‘istokwa’ for a few hours after his mother’s (my sister) scolding. That week, he has broken his cellphone, spent all his allowance despite the 4-day holiday and bought ‘expensive’ drum sticks which were beyond his mother’s budget (in my household, money is serious issue – easy to spend, hard to come by). That lunch, he failed to cook viand which was final straw to a hot head and hungry stomach.

It was already past 8pm - my nephew scampered after lunch, so two aunts (more like big sisters actually) are dead worried. ‘He ain’t there yet? Where did he go? And without a cell phone?!’  I snapped, ‘He knows where to go.’ I know he will be coming to my place. ‘I’ll let you know if he’ll be here.’

At roughly nine PM came knocks at my door.

After dinner, came the tribunal. He decanted how bad he felt about his mother’s blown-up scolding. ‘I did not cook lunch because Mamang told me not to. They might grab lunch in the city. And we still had enough left overs.’  But I imagined him on the sofa in front of a blaring TV, slouching, legs spread apart. That typical sight of a ‘tapulan’ could bring the fury out of anyone hungry with the clutter and heat and all.  

I told him about this coined parable of an overflowing cup:  We all hold cups for everyone. Whenever we do wrong, something is put in the cup. So imagine how the contents increase every time we do badly. If we truly say ‘sorry’, maybe a little content is spilled off.  But still the cup is ever ready to be filled in.

‘Maybe when you broke your phone, it was not a drop but a spring. Maybe when you spent all your allowance despite being told to save it, was not a drop but a spring. Maybe when you bought an expensive pair of drum sticks (more than 200 pesos) was not a drop but a spring. When you thought not cooking viand is not spring but just a drop, maybe it was, but when the cup is already on the brim, no matter how few drops you put in, it is still bound to overflow.’

His silence told me he understood it.

Although the story of the cup is now used to tease on my brother’s (or anyone in the household’s) lethargy, somehow, I got the point across. I guess, if I’ll run true to form to being a case in point, I’ll switch to a deeper cup.  Sometimes, what I keep is only a shot glass.