In the dry month of July, the very same day today, twenty-eight years ago, Mama was brought to the hospital. At first, you two would not come out of this world—and take the reins of your lives. Tita Nenen, Josie Galacgac nee Jordan would accompany Mama in the ambulance that sped off going to Iloilo City to a hospital with better facilities. That’s when, as legends say, Alpha was born. In the ambulance. The ambulance came back to Guimaras Provincial Hospital and that was when Omega, was born. In the hospital.
Living with three other kids in the family seemed fun, with Harold, JM, and Mae Lann. When we lived in Camp Nikos, Guimaras, I really had no memory so much of how I was dealing with your birth thereafter. All I can vividly remember was that, it took extra effort for Mama to take care of the two of you. And so, most of the time we were left to fend for ourselves, to play in the green grounds of Camp Nikos, and sometimes, visit relatives in Millan.
In 1995, our parents decided to move to Davao del Norte. You both were less than a year old. You probably had no memory of the travel via Super Ferry from Iloilo Port and how Tita Neneng Pet accompanied the family as we embarked on a new adventure as a family. Mama, and Papa, had a difficult time looking after the six of us. But I remember that Papa would join us—Nonoy, Harold, JM, and Mae Lann—and we would roam the seemingly, at that time, gigantic ship. Tita Neneng Pet and Mama would care for the two of you as we sailed for two (or was it three?) days towards our new destination.
When we arrived in Davao City, it was early in the morning. Papa hired a porter to help him with the baggage that we’ve brought from Camp Nikos, Guimaras. But, the goodbye started in the house of Lola Deding Gantala Jordan. I distinctly remember Lola Narda and Lola Apa were one of those who sent us off, and when I looked down from the passenger level of the ship as Super Ferry’s massive horn toots as a signal that it’s sailing away, I could see Lola Narda wipe a tear from her eyes. Or was it my imagination?
I could not remember in detail what kind of transportation we took from Davao City to Davao del Norte. To be fair, Mama probably never had a hard time dealing with the two of you, as young and innocent as you two were during that time. You were probably thrilled that we were traveling as a family. I only remember that we were very tired.
When we arrived at Feeder Road 3, Sto. Tomas Davao del Norte, we stood at the the red gate of the compound which separates the neighboring house of Abigail’s and her siblings. In the compound stood the church and the old two-story school building. We were brought to the place where we would reside for the next year. It was a one-bedroom with a kitchen, a front door and a back entrance, with stairs that lead to the second floor of the building, and the room where Tita Neneng Pet would occupy. Ma and Pa would sleep inside the room, together with the girls, while the rest of us, would sleep in the sala.
It was forgivable. It was quaint. But we were together.
There also came a time, when our parents hired yayas for the two of you. One of those, I remember, was a recommended friend, who’s religion is a 7th-Day Adventist, and who almost influenced me to not eat pork and blood, and to go to church only on Saturdays. She was not the best yaya out there, but she cared. She did not last.
One of those who lasted was the daughter of the member of the church, who’s already in the United States. Her name is Nang Baday, and I was close to her family. She loved the both of you like her own siblings. I remember their house is located going to Marsman, an estate plantation of bananas and sometimes we would drop by at Nang Baday’s house and we would feel that we would always be welcome.
If I’m not mistaken, it was 1996 when Lola Tata Demit died. Lolo Tata was one of those who put value on education. Whenever we would visit Tigbi, at Lola Deding and Lolo Robing’s house, I felt like I was in the presence of someone great—like my childhood hero. Lolo Tata always said that education is important because no one could steal it away from us.
As Mama was extremely close to Lolo Tata and Lola Bandi, Pa and Ma, together with the other siblings went home to Guimaras when the family received a telegram that Lolo Demit passed away. As the eldest child in the family, I was tasked to take care of the two of you for a week, together with Nang Baday, because we could not all go home together as a family, and we couldn’t afford the fare going back and forth.
Ma’am Carol, my 2nd grade adviser, even announced to the whole class that I would be taking care of my younger twin siblings. I didn’t care that she had to make known to my other classmates the reason as to why I would be absent in class for the whole week. I thought of that one week as play—free from the rigors of the school.
It came to a point where the two of you would get sick often. It was probably because Davao del Norte is a different environment altogether than Guimaras. So, when Tita Neneng Pet decided to go home to Guimaras and get married, Ma and Pa brought the two of you. Omega lived with Lola Narda, and Alpha lived with Lola Deding. You were separated but you would see each other during church, and during family functions.
Back in Davao del Norte, we would receive letters from Tita Bucay how Alpha has learned to turn on the electric fan, how she learned how to sing, and all the progress that she made, and how during one time, Omega had to cry outside the church building during the wedding of Tita Nenen because she was not included as one of the flower girls. I could not imagine how unfair that would be, and how privileged the other was. There were also updates from the letters how Tita Libeth would visit Lola Narda’s house in Talangban and would demand to take Omega and Alpha with her.
Reading these letters from a distance seemed like it was happening in a totally different dimension, in a totally different universe, and yet I could not feel anything. I could not imagine how Mama and Papa felt that time—reading those letters from Tita Bucay—and realizing that they missed out on the growth and your firsts. But, I felt like it was also difficult for them to hear about the updates of their two youngest daughters during that time and they could not do anything about it because Mama teaches High School Science and Math and Papa, a Senior Pastor of the church at Feeder Road 3. We had to get by.
I felt like, the separation, and the seeming abandonment, had to happen in order for our family to survive. And although during field trips in the Crocodile Farm in Davao City, and the time when we went to Samal Island, the two of you were not in the pictures, when we were asked by Mama’s students and other acquaintances during church fellowships how many of us were in the family, we would always answer 6—the youngest are twins and they’re back in Guimaras.
When we finally went home to Guimaras in the summer of 1998, and we were reunited, and we would spend our summers in Loblob together with Lolo Narding and Lola Auring, it was one of those times when I felt like our parents were the happiest. Despite the fact that after a few months, Lola Auring died from leukemia, and years after, when I was in third-year high school, Lolo Narding departed this world. Coming home was what brought us back together again, albeit in a non-traditional way.
The months with Pastor Toto Carbon, when he went with us from Davao del Norte to study at Doane Baptist Seminary, and helped in the construction of our old house in Mama’s lot during the summer of 1998, made these memories as fresh as though they happened just yesterday.
How Mama taught kindergarten within the church at Millan, the two of you became her Nursery and Kindergarten 2 students, together with Mae Lann. It was the same Mother who homeschooled Keith, and who made use of my drawing skills by having me drew objects that start with the first letter in the alphabet.
As someone who lived with Lola Narda, and spent the last two years of my high school with the family in Talangban, I could understand your abandonment issues, if there were any.
But it was never really abandonment issues that made you, Omega, became full-time caregiver for Mama when she was undergoing chemotherapy. It was love from a daughter. It never really was about duty when you sing, Alpha, at Antique Medical Center, while Mama was sitting at her chair oblivious to the praise and worship song that you belt—glorifying our Creator amidst pain and suffering. It was because, despite the heartbreak and the inevitable end, you knew that you are going to be reunited with Mama someday, even if death is, at that time, her destiny.
There are issues that we don’t talk about in the family. There are disappointments and struggles that we live through alone, even if you have been with each other since birth.
And although these familial, relational, and intergenerational traumas were not talked about as a family, I’m quite proud that in one way or another, you rose up from the choices that our parents made for us as a family and you became the unique versions of yourselves—you became readers and lived, and continue to live a thousand lives; you came to know how to think independently; and you two are about to finally wear your Sablay—a flimsy reminder of the struggles and the hurdles that you had to endure but an enduring testament to the grace of THE Father, who was with you both when you were born, in the most interesting of circumstances.
Happy 28th Birthday, Alpha and Omega! We cheer in the sidelines. Every step matters.
“Then He said to me, “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost. He who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son.”
Revelation 21:6-7
Blessings and Light,
The Prodigal Kid
The Prodigal Kid 