Honoring My Dead

DEAD LOLAS

The Chinese has what they call as "Ancestor Worship". Although not to the point of worship, like in the movie "Mulan", I do believe in honoring the dead. Last All Soul’s Day, we visited our "dead lolas" in Queen City cemetery. It’s a good time as any to remember the dead & share a little bit of their stories. Although I never knew any of them, there are aspects of their lives that I have picked up important lessons from. In one cemetery plot, we have my 3 lolas: Teodora Otarra, Pacita Cabando, and Epifania Valenzona. The first, Lola Pacing, is my maternal grandmother. She died before I was born, even before my parents married. She met my maternal grandfather during World War II in the small island of Banacon, in Bohol. It was a turbulent time, & since it was wartime, they couldn’t find any priests thus she & my lolo lived as common-law husband & wife, & were accepted as such in the community, & they had my Mom & her younger sister. But when my grandfather got stationed in Iloilo, he was caught in a shotgun wedding & thus he was legally married to another woman, with which he had 5 children. This was a bitter story that affected the lives of my grandmother, & my mother as well, the latter having to bear the stigma of being an illegitimate child, although she was the eldest among her half-sisters & brother. Aside from this tragic bent, the stories I have heard of Lola Pacing is that she worked real hard to support my Mom, travelling back & forth to Manila & Cebu, buying & selling RTW clothes. She was a single mom, who had to deal with a philandering "husband", bore the death of her youngest child(I never really knew what my aunt died of, of a childhood sickness probably, & even my Mom has not shared stories of her younger sister, & I’ve always thought this was because the story was too tragic to tell). But she was able to send my Mom through to Law School. Aside from this hard life, I grew up hearing about how she was the original "singer" in the family, & she would often be called upon to sing during town fiestas & have politicians call on her asking her to sing during crowd gatherings during elections time. Many said she had a marvelous voice, & that I must have gotten my singing talent from her. She was also very gregarious, & in spite of her hard life, always had funny stories to share & songs to sing. She loved my Mom very much, but I do recall my Mom painfully retelling about the time her mother had beaten her up, when she had told her that she wanted to leave home & enter the convent. She did it out of love, & I think she must have been a grand old lady & I would have loved to meet her.

Pacita Cabando, is my Mom’s grandmother. I have few stories to tell about her, but I do recall my Mom telling me about her being such a devout Catholic. She also lived her life in an island, in Banacon, & that she would wake up my Mom very early every morning, to pray her numerous novenas. I wonder about her life & how it must have been for her, to have borne 2 daughters, both unmarried & with children borne out of wedlock. But from what I understand, hers was the steady hand that guided my Mom while she grew up as a child, while my Lola was out working.

My last lola, I know her as Lola Baybay, my paternal grandmother who hailed from Baybay, Leyte, hence the name, as it was my Dad who gave us the monickers for each of our lolos & lolas, depending on the place they came from (that’s Lola Baybay – from Baybay,Leyte. That’s Lolo Carcar, from Carcar,Cebu). To help us little kids, from being confused in remembering the many grandparents we had. Lola Baybay died at sea, when I was three, when the boat from Baybay sank & there were many people who also died in that event. They said, when she was a young maiden, that she had a very persistent suitor, who she had spurned, & who, out of desperation, waited for her in the dark one night & accosted her. He became my lolo, & my Dad came nine months later. Theirs was not a happy marriage due to this tragic beginning, & my Lolo was enscripted into the army soon after their marriage, to fight the Japanese in WW II, & he died in the war. My father didn’t even have pictures of him, for these pictures were burned during the War,in case the Japanese would find them. Or perhaps this was the story that my paternal grandmother shared, for she was still full of bitterness because of what happened, & & seeing my Dad only made it worse, for they said my Dad looked so much like his father. Aside from my mental picture of this pained, bitter woman, Lola Baybay did get to marry another man after all, & had 2 daughters, but my Dad’s stepfather also died, which left him the sole breadwinner of the family & thus he grew up supporting my 2 aunts, & my Lola of course.

And what about the dead lolos? Mine really is a highly matriarchial family, for I have few stories to share about my lolos. They either died young, & left my lolas as widows, or they were quiet, non-descript men who didn’t figure much in the lives of my forebears. I do know, that both my Lolos served as soldiers during World War II, & that they were both part of the Bataan Death March, that 60 miles march during WWII where the Japanese forced 90,000-100,000 American & Filipino prisoners of war to march from the Bataan peninsula to prison camps. My paternal grandfather died along the way, while my maternal grandfather, owing perhaps to his street smarts related to his Chinese descent, was able to make ends meet & escape along the way. There must be a story there somehow, but as its already lost in the pages of history, & I can only make romantic guesses or notions about each finding the other. Or I somehow think about my dead Lolas, & the lives they must have led.

Which makes me wonder, when I’m dead & gone, what stories will my children’s children have of me? I do pray that life, & history will not leave me tales of woe such as these, although I do know that these women in my past have lived full lives, worthy in their pains & substance, & that they have made it possible for me to be here. And make my own story, that’s still in the telling.