Grandmothers

April is celebrated with a lot of birthdays in the family. One is my grandmother’s which makes her 79 today. I have written about my grandfather in a previous post. This time, I celebrate the life of one who has taught me everything that I needed to know about love, life and family.

Aurora

I lost my grandmother, my father’s mother, when I was in grade school. But the memories are as fresh as the events of yesterday’s. I remember how she would ask us if we’ve eaten. I find this Ilonggo trait unique and familial. I’m not saying though that my grandmother would ask us, her grandkids, if we’ve eaten or not out of culture but because she’s genuinely concerned. My father never had enough growing up and so from the eyes of my beloved cousin Nene Jocelyn, she witnessed how our grandmother would scour for food for the family. It was probably her motivation why my cousin did everything in her power to improve her chances in life. Indeed, the sacrifices of our OFWs.

I have known death at a young age. That was when a family friend’s son got sick and died after falling from the second floor of an old school building. I was nine years old. But it probably prepared me with the many deaths that I’d face in the family. One was when Lola Auring died peacefully in her sleep.

Leonarda

My grandmother, Lola Narda, was born in a family that placed value in education. My great grandfather, I was told through the eyes of my amused Titas, worked hard to make his family’s circumstances better. He acquired lands in an island province at a time when hectares were cheaper. He encouraged his daughters and later on his great grandchildren to pursue education because it is the only thing that cannot be stolen away from anyone. I used to listen to stories of his honorable acts of kindness through the voice of my mother, his first born granddaughter from his first born daughter, who happens to be my grandmother.

I had known my great grandfather when I was a very young boy. When he died, I wasn’t able to attend the funeral because we were stuck in Mindanao and there was really not enough money for the family to go; only my parents did go. I did not really mind back then. I was a kid. All I cared for were my neighbors and my playmates.

Three Sisters

Growing up, I would lose the memory of my grandmother in the image of two more dominant sisters. The other a former Cabeza de Barangay with a knack for diplomacy and another, a feisty grade school head teacher with the spite of a lady. My grandmother, too sickly to go to school and become a nurse,chose to live her life outside the demands of the societal structures.

But I didn’t know her life when I was a kid. It was when I came to live with her, when my family moved away again and I decided to finish high school right where I started my freshman year because I was afraid of adjustment, that I came to know her more. I shared most of my teenage issues with her. I would wake up to her quiet business in the kitchen and hurriedly take a bath and skip breakfast so I wouldn’t be late. I would accompany her early in the morning to look  for casoy. We would talk about almost everything and mostly about family memories.

I may understand how fathers love their children but there’s so much to say about how grandmothers try to make something out of whatever they have in order to keep their families. My grandmother has always been fair in her dealings with her grandchildren. She has tried to repetitively reach out to my grandfather who probably felt a little alienated when his children started having a life of their own.

As humanly possible, my grandmother also did try to irk my perspectives. I almost blamed her temperament once when I observed that she didn’t seem to be as authoritative as her sisters. I witnessed her placing Xs over the days in the calendar when my Tito, who’s now happily married by the way, would pass by the house and stay at someplace else’s. I wondered how she couldn’t have imposed her authority. But her son’s an independent working twenty-something badass. What can she do?

Fading away

There was a point in my life when I felt that my grandmother did not stand up for me. I just felt that after all these years, in the absence of my parents while I was trying to battle the shark-infested high school waters and the economically-motivated squabble over inheritance in the family, I had always tried to stay in the middle of conflicts. If there was something I learned growing up, it was that it’s wise to stay out of strained family relationships. And this, I learned on my own.

But I felt that my grandmother turned my back on me when I finally decided for myself. Her weakness had always been her tolerant self. I never even got scolded by her. She never raised her voice in my presence. I heard her bang the door or  grieve in silence but it was all there was regarding her disciplinary measures. And maybe this is why I am a spoiled selfish person.

The years when I was lost and in rebellion at the circumstances life has thrown in my face, I’ve always had my grandmother in mind. She told me a story once about a son who became a nurse and never kept in touch with his family. But all the years this son had been away, he was preparing for his family’s migration abroad. The story struck me as an astute description of my grandmother’s personality. She loves in silence. And though distance is a physical barrier at expressing her love, she does not shy away from the very thought of just loving. Selflessly. Almost denying her own desires for her own children, and for the most part, her grandchildren.

The story has also been in my subconscious all these years. For I have existed in limbo ever since I have shown the world how wrecked I am. And that my only redemption was to prove to the family that I could be anything I wanted to be. But I still am a wandering vagabond. And the very same family who lavished praises on achievements, on extra-curricular participation, on diplomas, on financial stability was the very same family who motivated me to loosen up a bit and remember that the family accepts.

Family and Success

My greatest fear is that in my quest to find my purpose in the face of the earth, I’d lose her just before I would consider myself worthy of the word successful. And though the definition is exemplified by the life of the very same woman who instilled in me the importance of reaching out, my idea of success is not encapsulated in the degree or the title that is attached in someone’s name. For in her life I have seen and felt that the greatest success one could ever accomplish is when a family becomes, well a family and not just some basic unit of society.

When I went home for the Christmas vacation last December, I have witnessed how my grandmother has aged. But I also have come to realize that all these years, my grandmother loved me from afar. Just as how she loves her family scattered in the face of the country and the world.

I have seen her joys as a mother of children with varying circumstances, her shrewd satisfaction as a grandmother trying to adjust to the teenage life of her grandchildren, her struggle as a sister in becoming a moral compass between two younger sisters with strong personalities and her hurts as a wife braving rejection to reach out to a misunderstood husband.

More than anything else, I have seen how she never wavered in her faith. How she basked in the blessings showered to those who faithfully cling to their Creator, in plentiful and in scarcity.

One day when that eventful time comes, I hope the realization of my struggle to live would not be too late. I only have now.

 ***

To one of the two best grandmothers of my lifetime, Happy Birthday! We love you. I love thee.

I dream because you loved me from a distance.

Regal