From Dawn Till Dusk

It’s another Manic Monday and I’m feeling kinda low today. I got a lot of baggage of sadness after witnessing grays yesterday. I just came from my parent’s home in Morong yesterday, as it was the town fiesta there. Unlike the past fiesta celebrations we had, our home didn’t have that festive ambiance anymore. It was just like there’s plenty of food in the dining table, but it’s just like those ordinary, usual, lazy days. No other people in the home but my Mom, who greeted me with seemingly a harassed face, still on her ragged/duster clothes when Nico and I arrived at 11AM. “Hay, buti na lang at nandito na ang poging apo ng Lola. O teka’t ako muna’y maliligo, kain na muna kayo,” Mom said then heading off to the bathroom for a quick bath.

While Mom was briefly fixing herself up, I took the chance to wonder around the house that looked so blunt and lonely. I couldn’t help but take deep breathes of sigh seeing and feeling the emptiness in the house. It was not a usual scenario especially when its the Morong Town Fiesta. Mom used to decorate the home so elegant, in quite a theme that she was even known by many (and we are all proud of it) to be a certified homemaker with an incline to interior design. But that was before.

For months now, Mom and Dad’s room has been dusting in gray already because since Daddy died, Mom hasn’t changed or moved anything in their room—even the maong pants that Daddy wore the day before he died was still hanging somewhere near their clothes hamper. My former room as well as my sister’s room looks somewhat like a bodega with all the tambaks of balikbayan boxes, old computer monitors and other electronic devices, old curtains and other unnecessary stuffs still in there. Not to spare my brother’s room whose stuffs too looks like it’s been passed by a mighty hurricane. Well, the kitchen and the backyard has some excuses for being so messy that day as all the chopping, broiling, frying, steaming, and cooking were done there. The only parts in the house that looked decent (but still in lonely moods) are the family room with a huge TV that’s seldom been turned on, the dinning room (but of course, it’s Fiesta), the terrace with all the Narra garden seats empty, the Bahay Kubo in the backyard, and the living room that caught much of my attention, the reason being this:

This is a console cabinet that holds some of our family mementos. These still frames, as well as the other voluminous family albums in our family room continue to bring back good and happy memories way back my childhood. God knows how much I missed those sweetest days. It’s just so sad that these mementos failed to grow more, as we siblings get older, went to school, had our own set of friends, had our respective jobs, and now with our own families.

Being too occupied raising and rearing our respective families however, we somehow lost connection to constantly bond with another maybe because our geographical locations continue to hold as a main barrier. Added to this barrier are sometimes misunderstandings, disagreements, quarrels in some of the members in the family. Just two weeks ago, Mom phoned me a miscommunication between her and our bunso who now have his own family in Chicago. I am not so much familiar with the details of their misunderstanding and I am definitely in no position to be in favor of either side, but it sure troubles me witnessing a friction in the family. I can very relate with our bunso, whom I believe is much hurt without ever seeing Dad before he was laid to rest. I know too how hard it is being in a foreign land, living independently, and striving hard to earn a living for his family. It sure is lonely out there and rumors and gossips (whether they are true or not) adds to the hurt he is feeling more and more each day. I just pray to God that in the end of all these tribulations, Mom and bunso will soon reconcile for the sake of having peace in the family.

I too had my own share of qualms with Mom that sometimes these problems would force me to give up. But after a good thought, in the end of the fight, I’ve come to realize that I (more than Mom) should understand more and give up my precious pride, more so at these times when Dad passed away so untimely. I realized that afterall, Mom is the only living parent I have and that I do not deserve to be called a parent myself should I have not been more patient, more understanding, and more assertive with the one Hero who raised me up to be the person that I am now.

As for Mom, I know the lost in connection pains her day by day living all by herself in a big house with no other person to talk to, except for quite a few friends and sometimes my brother (the only sibling I have who is not yet married) whose often found in the company of his barkada. I pity my Mom that most of the time, I’d feel too guilty not to always be by her side. Unlike Dad who have a strong and authoritative personality, she is not that courageous and confident to manage everything so smoothly. But with Dad’s passing, she’s now forced to manage and fix problems regarding the businesses and the properties that Dad left.

How I wish that a one sweet day would come into our lives when we, even at a no-occasion at all, can reunite and bond once more in the house that we once called a home. I am sure Dad would be more at peace out there.