Suddenly, I have to travel to the Philippines. I have to be
in her funeral and bid my last farewell. This time, even if she could hear me
no more. While my mind was wandering, clueless what awaits for me in this
sudden and very long journey yet a very short trip to the Philippines, memories
were rushing back to the days of my rebellious youth, when I lived with my
parents. Thoughts about what Nanay kept
telling me came afloat. Her words I thought, were meaningless, as I trekked down
the ‘teen years’ of my life. Her words
were, to me, like a ‘broken record’
which kept playing over and over. My brain’s prefrontal lobe, obviously, was not
quite in shape yet back then.
And as I continued indulging with my self-reckoning back to
that ‘glorious past’, I had to put up a fight against my lacrimal glands,
holding back tears that build up from rolling down. For ‘grown up guys never
cry’, so says a song!
I was in a small plane on the first of the four legs in this
journey. I was seated next to a mom, may be in her late 30’s or early 40’s, with an
unpredictably friendly months’-old baby
girl on her lap, another baby girl may be less than two years and probably a
five-year old son, both sitting in front of us. The baby, obviously having
cold, smiled at me when her mom sat back as I claimed my window seat. The mom,
obviously had her hands full with the kids, stopping the son to catch wireless signal for the iphone she just switched
it to airplane mode, the friendly baby mumbling something gibberish demanding
for something as she played with her mom’s credit cards and driver license
card. The two-year old was busy playing
Dora on her electronic gizmo. At take off, the baby started throwing tantrum and cried so loudly. Mom was trying to
appease her, making sounds every animal shown on each page of the baby book
she leafed through, while at the same time trying to keep the two-year old
buckled up as she was standing on her seat. I watched them as I leaned my head
against the airplane window.
The scenario reminded me of my Nanay, who had to deal with
more than three kids. Personally, I found it highly unthinkable how my parents
raised us. And it is even more unimaginable how my Nanay shaped and molded us.
------------
How well do I know my Nanay? Not well enough, especially
about her childhood life. I thought she was a child out of wedlock. Orphaned at
an early age, when her single mom who raised her and two other siblings, died. Her uncle (her mom’s
brother) took custody and raised her and her sister. Perhaps, the strict and
disciplinarian way the uncle raised her made her a strong woman with a keen
sense of vision.
She grew up wanting in many things. Love of a family growing
up as a child, formal higher education, wealth. I wondered if she ever had
friends. She got married to my Tatay at age 16, during the height of the World
War II. And that was when our big family started! Through the years that
followed, she was held hostage in domesticity, single handedly raising kids
which kept coming every two years, while Tatay was away, his menial job took him away from home. Just like the mom I met in the plane, who
seemed a little unkempt and oblivious about herself, I thought, this was how
Nanay lived her life, for so long.
Nanay, by default, exemplified living a life of modesty and simplicity. Minimalist when
it comes to material things. Her clothes could very well be outnumbered by the
fingers in her hands. She brushed aside and laughed at a comment of my older
sister’s high school classmate that ‘every time he saw Nanay, she was wearing same dress’.
But nothingness is not all there is for Nanay. She had big hopes and dreams for us. In her
broken English, she would keep telling us not once but over and over, ‘when
fortune, passes no more!. She kept teling us if we would not do good in school,
we would end up porters or hire-per-day laborers. Not that she had some things
against these jobs, she was just envisioning a better and more stable future
for us. Nanay’s visionary crystal ball saw things differently for us. Instead
of sending us down the streets begging for money or asking us to work and earn
a daily wage, she sent us to school. She and Tatay had the thickest of skin,
armed with courage and readiness to accept rejection as they approached many people to owe and loan money for our
school needs. They both did not give up, despite of the humiliations they
sometimes endured. And there were times, they got encouraging support and
admiration from people who understood and believed in what they were doing. Doing this was, so we their children would not share the same experience they have had, their joint strategy out to break
the cycle of poverty!
It took years before my parents became somewhat emancipated
from the entrapment of nothingness. Their hardships and sacrifices somewhat
paid off. They may had apparently reaped what they sowed. And for certain, they took pride, and
experienced great joy and sense of accomplishment, for what they dreamed about us came to fruition.
So Nanay, as you leave us now, thank you for everything that
you went through and what you did for all of us! You conquered the nothingness
which entwined you, and gave it light to make the truth shine that poverty is
not a hindrance to success.
Well done, Nanay, well done! Time for you to get that eternal
rest!
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