Magdaragat, p.15
Magdaragat, page 15
Two months. They’ll all be together again soon. Things will get better. Things will be easier.
“I’m sorry, anak. That was not kind of me. Mama’s just tired and in a hurry, okay? Look around. Whatever was here is gone and I would never let it hurt you. Mama and Papa are here for you and your sister and we will always protect you. And remember, soon your Lolo and Lola will be here too! Now, can you be a brave big brother and come with me so we can take care of your sister?”
“Okay, Mama. I will.”
* * *
The rest of the morning is pretty uneventful. Thankfully, Joy is still secure in her booster chair, and after two cups of milk and several chocolate chip cookies, both children are placated. By the time they do the drop-off at the babysitter’s and finally arrive at the schoolyard, Jun-Jun is carefree and at ease as if nothing even happened this morning. He stops and turns to her as he reaches the front doors of the school.
“Love you!”
She smiles and waves back, watching him skip down the hall and around the corner. Finding herself standing alone in the empty schoolyard, she suddenly feels very alone. The unease of what her son said he saw creeps back into her thoughts. Did he really see something? What was it? Who was it?
“Tama na, Delia. Stop scaring yourself. Now it’s just my imagination. It’s nothing,” she reassures herself.
On the slow, rumbling streetcar ride to work, she says a few Hail Marys and Our Fathers to calm her disquiet.
She also reminds herself to buy the wool blankets and cereal at Bargain Harolds after work.
* * *
At dinner, Junior is tired from his first day shift after three consecutive nights at the water filtration plant, and they continue their debate about making the move to Mississauga in a few years. They can sell this house and get a much bigger one for less money, she tells him. Everyone can have their own room and they’ll have a big yard for the kids to play in. He argues that the suburb is barely a city, mostly just farmland, joking that he doesn’t want cows for neighbours. Jun-Jun excitedly talks about what he wants to be for Halloween, either Luke Skywalker or Bruce Lee. The latter, he decides, might be too cold for trick-or-treating if he goes Enter the Dragon shirtless with red claw marks on his body. In the midst of all the chatter, Joy happily enjoys the evening’s pork adobo and ginisang monggo with rice.
Not wanting to dim the warm glow that surrounds the family dinner table, Delia opts to stay quiet about the morning’s excitement and the ensuing unease that followed her around for the rest of the day.
Grey smoke … turning into a face … following me … saying something.
It’s Jun-Jun’s and my own overactive imagination. It’s my excitement, my anxiousness to see Mama and Papa again soon. That’s all. Don’t spend any more time giving thought to it, giving life to it.
It was saying something.
“Everything okay?” Junior sees the tension on her face.
“Yeah, we were just late again this morning. Was late for work. But it’s okay na.”
She offers him a vague smile that she hardly believes herself, pushing away the doubt and fear by busying herself with the kids’ bath time, with the preparations for tomorrow’s lunches, with the taking down of the Presidents poster, with the washing of the new blankets she bought for her Mama and Papa. With the busy-ness of making this new life a better one.
* * *
The harsh, metallic ringing cuts through the blackness and immediately fills Delia with dread. The dimly lit plastic flip numbers on the alarm clock read 02:51. She’s frozen in place as the urgent ringing continues but can only lie there and wait for Junior to groggily shuffle out of bed to answer the phone downstairs. She can’t, doesn’t want to. It’s a wrong number. It’s not connected with anything. She frantically fights back a torrent of irrational fears. It couldn’t be. It’s not. No-No-No. She can hear Junior walking down the stairs. Please God. It’s nothing. The ringing stops, he’s picked up the phone. Please don’t let it be. His voice sounds tired and distant. Who is he talking to? No. It’s not. Hail Mary full of Grace …
“What!?!”
That’s all she hears. All she needs to hear. It’s the shock, the pain, the sadness in it. Her husband’s voice slices through the air right into her heart and everything goes cold.
* * *
* * *
There’s a soft knock at the door come in it’s Jun-Jun what time is it what day is it the doctor said these meds would help ease the pain why why his heart I’ve stopped crying the tickets were refunded exchanged must of been the excitement how many days have passed Mama doesn’t think she can go without him why no one coming I have to get myself together for Papa for the flight Junior says he can manage with the kids his sisters will help we can’t afford to all go why it was only just two more months why there’s no reason why he was old they said don’t worry about it his heart my job will be there when I get back there’s not enough money I have to return those blankets I can’t bear to —
“Mama?”
She can’t do this right now. So tired. Sad. Hopeless.
You have to be brave, anak.
She takes a deep breath and braces herself. Be strong for your son.
“Yes? Jun-Jun? Come in.”
He stands by the bed. Hesitant. Holding a piece of paper in his hand.
“It’s okay, come here, sit beside me. What do you have there?”
“I … I made this for Lolo. Can you please bring it to him for me?”
It’s a drawing in crayon of the Philippine flag. At the top he’s written “PHILIPPPINES” and just below the flag is a man, a boy, and a silvery-white horse. In the careful scrawl of a six-year-old, it’s signed: “I love you I will miss you always Lolo. Jun-Jun.”
“It’s beautiful, anak. Thank you.”
He moves closer into her and settles into her embrace. They sit in silence. He smells like Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo and sunlight. She feels better with him here.
“Mama?”
“Yes?”
“He said … he said he was sorry. He told me to be brave. And that we have to take care of each other now.”
“We will, anak. We will.”
Kay Costales
If I Talked to Death
For Lolo Pete, who passed away on November 4, 2021.
You nearly made it to eighty-three and that’s amazing. I wish we had more time together.
When Lolo passes, it is in the middle bits of autumn, cold like a meal left exposed and untouched. The hunger to reunite scoops the belly empty, preparing the body for food. We won’t get a taste of what we crave. All we have is aching unfulfillment.
It’s been a long time since we shared a meal, sat at a table together with plates filled with something in thick sauce paired with jasmine rice. It’s been a long time since we were together. It’s important that we remember it with satisfied stomachs near bursting at the seams with the results of old family recipes.
Before we know that it’s goodbye, we prepare the home for his coming.
* * *
One night, we’re on the phone with him, trying to use video to communicate and settle the plans for his arrival. He and I wouldn’t understand each other with only words to speak. Language is a wall between us, almost as divisive as the land and ocean that force us to live on opposite sides of the world. The video cuts in and out like the rise and fall of waves. The static on the audio is as frequent as regular inhales and exhales, sharp as a needle point pressed to the eardrum.
It’s frustrating to try to make plans like this. He can’t hear and can’t see on his side. On ours, the image is pixelated, boxes and blurs, indistinct colours on a dark background. The volume goes up and up, the screech of poor connection and unstable communication.
Wave and smile, say hello again and again. Say love you and miss you and try not to weep when you’re hoping it was heard. It’s hard to know what manages to reach across the space. Already, we squeeze ourselves into the small overlap when both sides of the world are awake but weary. Sun rises at the ancestral home and sets in the migrant’s new nest.
“Will you be there?” I ask. “We’ll be waiting.”
“What?” Lolo says. “Huh?”
“They can’t hear,” my mom explains.
“Can you ask?” I feel guilty making the request, but I don’t know how to learn the language. We found a book the last time we landed on home soil, trying to turn the text into lessons. Reading the pages and notes and explanations led to a feeling of being and feeling overwhelmed, buried alive in what I don’t know. I know I should learn but I don’t think we have the time to catch up. I am lagging behind by decades.
My mom repeats the question in a translation.
“Oh!” they say in sudden understanding.
It’s defeat for me, a blow to the belly that knocks the air out of my lungs. I try to smile, try not to look like it hurts. There’s no blood, no cuts or bruises, only the injury that comes from tripping on the steps to the front door only to find out I don’t have the key to get inside.
What we understand is limited in scope. I can catch a few here and there, like scooping up fish with my bare hands. We lean in toward the camera like it will help us translate better. When I catch myself, I look at my mom and laugh.
Most of the time, I whisper to beg for a translation, to ask what was said and what I can say back.
I know that on the other side, he’s smiling. It doesn’t matter what we say. There’s love here and it doesn’t need to be spoken. In the end, we say our goodbyes. I shuffle away until the next time, embarrassed by my limitations. I am the young one, the one with all the years to come. I should be putting in more work, but I don’t know where to start.
Guilt puts my tongue in chains. It shackles me to the ground and tells me that there’s no point.
At least we’re planning to have them fly to be with us and see them all again.
It’s a rush to get to that day, trying not to glance at the hourglass with its sand spilling from the abundance at the top to pile below.
“It’s okay,” my mom says. “You can still learn.”
I’m embarrassed that it’s easier to speak French than it is to understand my family’s native language. I hope I can better carry a conversation when I’m immersed in our history and culture again, whenever that may be. Maybe I’ll feel less like an outsider the more I’m in the homeland, where I almost look like I belong.
Lolo will be with us here this time, flying through the stars for the first time to spend however much time is allowed before he’s on the next journey.
* * *
During the months that Lolo will be with us, it will be his ninetieth birthday. He would hit the miracle of becoming a nonagenarian. We want a big party in his honour, something to celebrate the man who raised four children in a house built on joy. There were cracks in the floor and stains on the walls, it got too warm inside during the hottest season of the year, but it always smelled like food and music played every morning.
We get a record player solely in anticipation of his arrival. It’s an unfamiliar place to him despite its long since established position as our home. I imagine him leaning over to listen, closing his eyes and smiling as he enjoys the songs. It’s his favourite pop band, the one whose albums he blasted at full volume to ensure he could hear them.
He’ll love it. We know he will. At first, he might be confused.
Why would you buy that? he might wonder.
It could turn a strange place into a safe one.
I have a new house with rooms to spare. It’s the first big space that our family knows in the years since leaving the last in the countryside. It was my idea for all of us to stay here during his visit so we can be close and make the most of however many days would be allowed.
A room is ready for him. A soft bed with pillows and a window that offers a view of open fields and a suggestion of the cityscape. I hope he will be impressed. My parents left their roots to build a life like this.
The house is stocked with Philippine products, brands that he would find in his own kitchen. We plan out every dinner that we’ll make during his stay, things that would be new to him and recipes that Lola would make for him too. Clothes are ordered and delivered to prepare him for the winter months. It might be his only opportunity to experience snow for the first time.
He knows of it through pictures and videos, through television shows and films.
Christmas decorations are on display on the first of September when there’s still heat and golden sunshine. The leaves are still green without a tinge of orange and brown. It’s hardly at all like we’re approaching the cold season and slipping into holidays. That’s what it’s like in the malls back home though. They paint the country in red and green and silver and gold, play music on the speakers, and blast air conditioning to get the right chill.
“Will he like it?” I ask my mom. I feel like I’m four years old and I’ve crafted a little papier mâché with my hands. I want to present it with a flourish, cross my fingers behind my back, and offer a toothy grin.
“Of course,” she says, like it’s nothing.
Her eyes are on the photos dug out of storage, a box of film that was developed before I was even born. She keeps them with me now for safekeeping. I guard them like a dragon with its treasure, hoarding it like an archeologist has gifted me with pieces of the past. I will be the museum to all our memories even if I don’t understand what happened in them.
“Maybe he won’t be homesick,” I say.
“He’ll be happy to be here.”
“With me?”
My voice is small and trembling, and I am, once again, like a child. My grandparents didn’t know me when I was a baby, didn’t get a chance to cradle me in their arms as they crooned lullabies.
“That’s all he wants.”
We miss each other and feel the hollowness in the gaps of time. I want to offer him more than the comfort of this new home we built and furnished and filled.
* * *
It’s early morning for us, late in the evening for them. We have the sun and they have the dark sky, the moon and stars hidden behind a layer of the city’s exhalation. The phone rings with the ominous music of a funeral and we dread having to pick up. My Tito is there when we answer, and he looks tired. He says his hellos and speaks to my mom — his sister — before sharing the reason for his call.
Lolo isn’t coming. He’s too sick to make the journey.
The news comes packaged in heartache, shared on the phone again with crackling sound and blurry video.
When the camera turns on Lolo, he’s all smiles and laughter like there isn’t any aching. He’s lasted longer than anyone’s ever expected and his whole life is a miracle of survival.
“Sorry, sorry,” he says. “Doctor says no.”
The Christmas tree is up behind him. There are garlands on the wall decorated with shining ornaments and flowers from the market. They curl around the frames like arms over shoulders, holding on to pictures taken in different parts of the world where his children and grandchildren have travelled. I imagine him looking at them like windows, arms crossed as he examines them with pride.
I want to tell my Lolo that I only know the world the way I do because of the love he offered my mother that she passed on to me. Our family heirloom is of raising children in a house that might not be fancy but one that’s filled with a variety of nourishment that goes in the belly and the heart. His legacy is his teachings, the example of love he offered.
He speaks in Tagalog and I can’t keep up. If I follow the chatter, I can find my way back home. My mom holds my hand as we sit together. I have to turn my eyes away every now and then to compose myself.
Lolo looks older than he did the last time. More wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. His cheeks sag lower and I want to scoop his face in my hands and touch my forehead to his. Lola isn’t on camera but she’s talking to him and they’re joking with each other again. He laughs and her hand is visible for a moment as she swats at him. They’re a funny pair, both hard of hearing these days and both still in love. It’s so unlike my father’s family. The relationship between his parents was sliced apart years before I was born. Love does not exist as echoing laughter in their home, not like it does where my mother grew up. I prefer the noisy evidence of affection.
“When can we go?” I ask.
I am thinking of our work schedules and the cost of plane tickets. I am thinking about the sacrifices necessary to take time away from my normal life. I am thinking about the numbers in my bank account and if it’s enough to get there and back and to make all the time in the middle worthwhile.
Lolo’s on camera again and he’s confused for a moment like he has forgotten he was on a call. My cousin holds the phone and points the lens in his direction. You can hear her laughter, muffled as she tries to stay calm. He squints his eyes and then they brighten, like he’s happy to see us.
His birthday is weeks away and we’re trying to organize something to celebrate it.
Most of the grandchildren are young adults now. All his children except my mom are with him. What can we do for such a milestone? We’re thinking of an abundance of food the family has grown over the years, offering more than what was possible in his youth.
He continues to speak in Tagalog and he’s trying to talk to me. I catch a few words, but the meaning slips between my fingers. He’s talking about the next time I come to visit. He wants to show me more of the neighbourhood and the secrets between the buildings. I remember that it doesn’t have any of the refinement of what I’m used to. The colours are more vibrant while other things are muted. Despite being within the same world, his experience in it is vastly different and he seems to want to show me how. He seems to want to ensure that I don’t miss out on the beautiful things I wouldn’t have noticed without his aid. I like that he wants to share pieces of his life with me and I imagine that knowing such details enables me to fit with the family.
