Silver and Platinum

DB squinted through the heavily tinted window of the Mercedes which was parked in front of the Shrine, trying hard to get a glimpse of the girl in off-white gown inside. Fed up of the futile exercise, he walks off and looks around for familiar faces. Guests with smiling faces composed of family, relatives and friends were sprinkled here and there around the church. He bumps into their friend Bumblebee and he solicits for a cigarette to overcome the nervousness that was creeping inside as he felt the need to barf.

GM sat motionless rather than poised inside the car. She felt nothing of the knotted stomach, it was empty but she felt no hunger, only a long blank, and no fluttering butterflies inside. She touches her neck and suddenly feels worried; she forgot to wear the necklace her mother had given her as a wedding present.

DB looks at GM intently and takes her hand. He nervously puts the platinum bond on GM’s left ring finger. GM looks at him and recognizes that this person is indeed that one that brings calm to her turbulent nature. She traces his face and feels quite proud and wishes hard that their future children would inherit DB’s sovereign nose. She smiles some more as she sees DB’s hand, he still wore the old silver on his left ring finger, the one they used to sport as a new couple and he never took it off. And so his wedding ring was placed next to it. She then whispers to herself, “This is the best day of my life!”

Happy 7 years Bee! Thank you and I love you!

vivi, ama e ridi,

The Old House (s4. Scar Story)

It disappoints me to the point of irritation that some people just don’t get it.

When confronted with a major decision, I’ve always relied on myself first. I believe that you must at least attempt to carry your own load before you could actually seek someone’s help. It’s essential to test the waters for us to answer the basic question – “Will I sink or swim? Ok, I’ll go figure". While others see you as (too) proud, I call it self-reliance.

I remember when I was little my grandmother won’t let me play with her newly refurbished vanity table. Since we were roommates then, I couldn’t resist touching this piece of furniture, it looked so shiny and new, quite appealing even to a child who knows nothing about vanity. I had a strong impulse to touch it that I even imagined the vanity table summoning me to do so.

Being a true-blue inquisitive vagabond in my grandmother’s old house, I finally found time to go beyond looking one afternoon. I run my fingers on its big round mirror and newly varnished smooth wooden surface, opened and closed its drawers and touched its glass top. I again run my fingers on the glass top including its edge, and started gliding my hand on it like the way you smoothen a wrinkled cloth, feeling the cold surface until I accidentally cut the back of my hand which jolted me back to reality.

I found the wound in my left hand bleeding, the gushing scarlet liquid scared me a bit and I rushed for the bathroom. I even rolled the front of my shirt on top of my bloody hand to conceal it from the adults in the kitchen as I passed them by. I made a number of back and forth trips to the bathroom as the bleeding did not stop. I found solution when I took some cotton from my Tita China’s room and pressed it against the cut.

I stayed in the garden swing all afternoon to keep my wound a secret from Nanay and all the other adults in the house. The expected amount of scolding as well as the fussing on me was not something I enjoyed. Days after, the wound dried up and became a scar and still nobody noticed it. A month passed and the scar never lightened even up to this day because it was not just any scar but a keloid half the size of a 5 centavo coin. It became my permanent mark, a symbol of my stubborn streak, but at least I handled it myself.

Image: FlashGlitters

The Old House (s3. 8 oz Coke)

The health and wellness concept is getting on everyone in the office except me and as health enthusiasts are increasing like tenfold, I wonder, how come it hasn’t hit me yet? Not even when the doctor advised me to look after my weight since my cholesterol level is frying hot and my blood is getting sugary each day. I promised myself once more to eat healthy and exercise and get disappointed by myself all over again for not taking the extra effort to commit to it.

I have a penchant for deadly combinations, well aside from the public admission of being a caffeine addict, a foodie and a sweet tooth, I am a loyal client of the Coca Cola company since 1st grade. I am a Coke fan. I refer to the classic Coke, not the Light one or the Coke-zero. I find these variations hilarious, how can you have Coke without the sugar? It’s like eating pasta without the sauce. While some people recognize the intricate connection between wine and spirits, I can say that I share the same line of thinking and belief that sugar and Coke should not be separated at all. Thus, the sugar component must remain. It’s a non-negotiable. It is the price you have to pay for the great taste.

 

Put away all those marketing frills and fads, I have my loyalty tied to Coke original because I have one great memory of a person attached to it, my grandfather, Tatay Mateo. He is a Filipino Spanish mestizo from Tacloban and my mother inherited his lustrous skin and high bridged nose while all I got was his fondness for a dark sweet beverage called Coke.

 

I remember him as one silent man who used words sparingly and still had a powerful presence around people. I felt that power every time he arrives home from work to eat lunch with me and my cousins in the Old House. This is one of my earliest lessons in life; silence does not always mean timidity or coyness, for silence could outperform spoken words; it is a way of speaking soul to soul where communication is at its highest form and class. Grandfather must have mastered this art and found speaking through words a futile exercise.

 

He seldom smiles and during those times he did, I could see his eyes lit up a handsome face. Though I spent less time with him compared to my grandmother, I could still remember the stance he assumes while walking around the Old House with his cane. The pounding of the cane against the wooden floor was my indicator of his presence.

 

Every afternoon, coming home from school, I would proceed to the nearby hotel’s billiard center. I would play-pretend not to see Tatay Mat in his workplace to make it appear that I was sent to the same place by sheer luck. I would wait patiently in a corner and look towards his direction discreetly, like a decisive billiard player projecting her next move. At the instant he sees me in my quiet solitude, he suddenly disappears from my view and then I know our game is nearly done. My grandfather re-appears from the diner with an 8 oz Coke in one hand and a smile on his face. He waves at me and I walk towards him, taking all the time in the world to show that I wasn’t in a hurry at all to claim my prize. This was victory for a little girl and it tasted sweet.

 

As a parting sign, I would take his hand and dab it to my forehead (mano) as a gesture of respect and my thanks. My grandfather looks at me smiling, his handsome face imprinted in my mind and his silence, powerful enough to last me a lifetime.

The Old House (s2. One Sad Lomi Story)

Do you remember one wounding incident in your young life? I do.

Some say that children are bound to forget both pleasant and unpleasant events that have transpired in their lives from age 1 to 5. However I got this memory lodged in the inner corners of my brain, reminisced unexpectedly with great fondness whenever I am into contemplation. A memory of an event that I never imagined would merit laughter as the story ages and the “owner of the memory” finally grows up.

It happened in 1981, I was 5 and living with my grandmother in her old house along Calye Callejon. Living away from my parents was easy because in the old house, there also live 5 of my cousins. My grandmother’s house sort of served as a repository/boarding house of her grandchildren ages 5 to 16. Nanay looked after all of us and managed the household with precision.

Among my cousins, I grew fondness for Kuya Jay and Ate Bing during my long stay in the old house. I stuck with them despite the 4 to 5 year age gap and we were a troupe.

Kuya Jay was tall, gangly and inventive. His imagination has often resulted to playtime innovations such as turning the mosquito net into a moviehouse. I will never forget the red Coca-Cola yoyo he gave me. It was the hippest toy in school then. Ate Bing on the other hand was my constant playmate. We were like Batman and Robin. Whatever she does I copy to her detriment. She had a gift with her hands and she drew really good images of flowers and houses. Not to be outdone, I remember racing ahead of her towards Nanay to show off my drawing of stick-like people. We would pester our grandmother to choose which drawing was better and to it she would only say, “parehong maganda.”

Dinner on a Sunday in the old house was special. Nanay would put extra effort in cooking the meals. To compliment the special meals, she buys a bowl of great tasting Lomi from the nearby Chinese restaurant.

In the long table I was seated most of the time next to Kuya Jay. A blessing or a curse, I do not know but in this case, being OC was a curse. I have this practice of eating my meals orderly. I would first sample the basic dish before savoring the centerpiece meal. The Lomi was to be eaten last for it was my centerpiece meal. The noodle soup was teeming with meat balls, squid balls and my favorite quail eggs. It’s save the best for last for me and I would set aside the quail eggs from my bowl to a saucer while eating the rest of the soup. All of a sudden Kuya Jay dove his fork to the helpless quail eggs and gobbled them all. I was stupefied for a moment with my eyes large in disbelief until I let out a loud cry in protest.

The adults were caught in surprise since they were busy conversing. The pleasant dinner turned into a commotion as I could not be stopped from my fit of temper. I could not be consoled nor bribed with a refilling of my soup bowl or a new serving of fried chicken leg. I wanted my cousin to produce the quail eggs he wolfed. Amidst desperation and tears, I wailed my lungs and heart out in searched for justice while Kuya Jay disappeared from the crime scene. The bawling did not stop as I recall it went for hours until sleep silently crept and rob me of consciousness.

The next day I did not talk to my cousin. And for the succeeding days I never went near him again for I still shiver at the memory of betrayal. I was young but vindictive I was obsessed with the idea of avenging myself.

Not until my mother took me to live with my immediate family did I see my behavior at the Lomi incident as ridiculous. When I was separated from my cousins for years, I realized that I missed them somehow. I saw Kuya Jay again when he was already in college while I was in high-school. We exchange a few words every now and then but we were never close again. It was more than the Lomi incident I guess. We already grew apart.

I found this bit of my life amusing but worth a pause. I have neatly stored it in my memory library for reference and reflection. There are times when I become the 5-year old girl again in the story who wanted revenge for the pain she suffered from an injustice. Now a grown-up I found it useful to look at pain as also a condition of existence.

The Old House (s1.)

Once, at first glance, it seems to float in a sea of Philodendrons. On closer look, the yellow steel gate opens to a spacious frontyard that displayed an oldish garden swing and an assortment of blooming and leafy potted plants and Santan hedges, the cemented pathway leads you to the main feature – my grandmother’s Spanish old house along Calye Callejon. It was smack right in the town’s hub and was a stone’s throw away from the plaza and a short walk to the church and a prominent Catholic School run by nuns.

The old house is a big structure that quietly loomed on the block and perfectly blended with its surroundings of motley structures ranging from a conspicuous hotel building to mediocre houses nearby. It had 6 big rooms, an azotea, a sala that converts into tv room, a dinning room with a long table and a quaint kitchen. It was built on proud and sturdy posts and boast of well polished and shiny Tindalo wooden floorings. Like most houses built during the olden times, its walls were made of Sawali and its heavy slide windows of Narra.

I love that house dearly. For me, the old house is the most beautiful house I ever laid my eyes on. It brings memories of my early life, it meant comfort and refuge and most importantly it reminded me of Nanay.

Nanay is my mother’s Nanay, a remarkable woman of strength and kindness who became my surrogate mother for the first 6 years of my life. My Nanay tells me that the old house used to be the first hotel in our town. It accommodated a number of prominent political figures including the late President Quirino. Its glory days however were cut short when fire partly ravaged it and a remodeling and reconstruction of affected parts resulted to an oddly shaped kitchen.

Adding flavor to the historical character of my grandmother’s old house is the atmosphere of mysticism it exudes that I categorize as almost magical. My theory identifies the miracle of fresh life springing from a mother’s womb to have blessed the old house. With reference to our clan’s history, the old house had been the birthing place of a series of generations. My grandmother gave birth to all her 6 children in the old house. My mother and her sister and their cousin have followed such practice unconsciously. How many babies were brought forth into this world through the old house? I lost count because I have lots of cousins from the maternal side.

If only it could breathe and tell stories, the old house may have been a great weaver of tales. Only it stood as silent witness to every joy and tragedy my grandmother’s family stumbled into. And whatever it saw became a well-guarded secret locked away from the prying and judgmental world outside.

Sadly, I left the old house before turning 7 upon the bidding of my father who moved his family from the north to the central region of Luzon. My mother, armed with the determination to get the family together, came for me and so I said my farewell.

One day, the news came like thunder on a summer, it was said that the old house was torn down to the ground. Piece by piece it was ripped, like a severely ailing person decaying to death, it succumbed to human fault called greed. Knowing my Nanay, she must have felt that she was about to die too. I picture her pain and agony as she was also torn limb by limb and devoured by an angry giant. She must have been killed softly that day.

At the age of 10, when my young discernment has not yet met its fortitude, I concluded that magic and history were not enough to protect the house that my grandmother built with her love and gentleness. And that human greed does not only take away physical possessions, it also caused terrible pain and bestowed violence on good people. It was greed that desecrated a blessed family dwelling.

Was greed more powerful than love? When I was young I thought the answer was yes. I was wrong then because now when I think of the old house, I am strongly reminde d of my Nanay for my grandmother signified all that is good in this world. Her memory alone brings me back to the old house I will always call Home.