I recently came across this picture of Lola, my paternal grandmother. For as long as I can remember, this has always been the way Lola looked. She was thin as a stick and slightly bent, but she possessed a strength unnatural for a woman of her stature. Strength in her feet, walking for miles through the Philippine countryside. Strength in her legs, hiking mountains even when children had grown tired and turned back. Strength in her shoulders, carrying baskets of corn or freshly cut bananas. Strength in her arms, to hold up her husband when he had been struck down by illness. And strength in her hands, to pinch the cheeks of her grandchildren (Oh, you thought you were just going to get a light squeeze? Nope! Get one of Lola's pinches and you'll be rosy-cheeked for days).
Lola lived in Quezon, several hours' ride from Puerto Princesa City where I, my family, and the rest of her children, and grandchildren lived. Every once in a while, we would make the trip over dirt roads and narrow winding paths across hills and mountains. According to Google maps, it's only 100 km (62 miles) from Puerto to Quezon, two and a half hours by car. I'm not sure how true that is, the length of the car ride that is. It's been more than 12 years since I was there so perhaps the roads have improved. However, when I was a kid, it took most of the day to travel the unpaved roads. My family didn't have a car so we took public transportation, taking either the big blue Charing buses or a smaller van. Charing buses were much slower but I preferred them to riding in a van. Drivers made money per passenger they delivered and the number of passengers wasn’t restricted by the number of seatbelts. The vans were packed with people and I often sat on a parent's lap or on a crate behind the driver's seat. Because vans were air-conditioned, the windows were always closed and heavily tinted. Enclosed in a tiny dark space, constantly jostled, and often facing the back of the van, I would get dizzy and sick, always keeping a motion sickness bag nearby. The Charing buses, on the other hand, were cooled by the outside air, I should say, "warmed by the outside air", it is the Philippines after all. Like a dog lapping at the wind, I would stick my head out the window watching the scenery pass by.
There was this one narrow road called the Zig Zag that cut through the mountains. Small cars could pass each other slowly, inching out of the other's way, with the mountain as a solid wall on one side and a steep drop on the other. But Charing buses were too big. If encountering a car going in the opposite direction, one would have to drive backwards all the way through the pass until the road was wide enough for one vehicle to pass. As daunting as it was, people usually got through fine and the bus drivers were skilled and practiced at maneuvering their vehicles, the tool of their trade. But there was still the occasional story of a drunkard or reckless driver who would misjudge a turn, barreling through the barrier. Sometimes, their poor decisions affected others, taking innocent people over the edge with them. As a child, watching the curving road, this part of the journey was filled with so much apprehension but even then, I preferred the big buses over the enclosed vans. However, even with the Charing's open windows I still sometimes got sick as big old buses traveled over the potholes, mud, and unpaved roads.
Once the bus or van dropped us off at the terminal, we would then take a tricycle to get to Lola's house. The tricycle is a motorcycle with a side cart that has two benches, a bigger one that could fit two adults and a smaller one for two kids. Another passenger could fit behind the driver but sometimes, especially when making a trip to the remote areas, more people were crammed into one tricycle to reduce the number of trips needed to deliver a group. If I recall correctly, tricycles charged per trip and not per passenger, making it worthwhile for the customer to suffer a little discomfort and pay for only one trip. I for one have tried riding in the baggage basket at the back of the cart, on the motorcycle in front of the driver (this was when I was much smaller), and a cousin of mine has even tried riding on the roof of the cart. That was the journey one had to take to arrive in Wonderland. That was my rabbit hole and any chance I got, I would go down it. The trip was an adventure in itself but the real fun began when we arrived at Lola's house.
I always thought of the Quezon house as "Lola's House", even though it was also my grandfather's (Lolo's) house. He had a stroke when I was 7 years old, leaving his right side paralyzed. I don't remember much about him prior to the stroke. My siblings have memories of him singing but in my memories of him, he struggled to do the most basic tasks. As far as I can remember, he would never be able to call me by name. Even then, I could still hear the fullness of his voice when he laughed and, like Lola, his fingers had the strength to pinch one's cheeks to show endearment, leaving them rosy red. So, as far as I can remember it was Lola's presence that dominated that space. It was Lola who moved around the house and tended the garden. It was Lola who helped Lolo walk. It was Lola who drew water from the outdoor well or collected rainwater in blue barrels. It was Lola who grilled fish and worked the stove, controlling the height of the open fire. It was her silhouette I saw by the kitchen window when I woke up in the morning.
Lola's house was the castle, the center of my childhood fantasy land. It was Narnia, Neverland, Terabithia, and any other childhood kingdom you can think of rolled into one. And the best thing about it was, it wasn't pretend. It was real, every bit of it. It was the place of endless forests, tree houses, and hand-made rafts floating down a river. It was the place I rode water buffalos and attempted to stand on one while it was moving. It was the place with big wooden beams my brother and I would climb. It was the place with the windows that lead onto the roof. It was a place of wonder, kerosene lamps, and shadow puppets on mosquito nets.
I remember this one time my brother and I had spent the whole day swimming at a nearby river. We were supposed to harvest some vegetables for dinner but we had forgotten to collect them before getting into the cold water. At the end of the day, as the sun was low on the horizon, we trudged back home in our wet clothes. Remembering the vegetables, we stopped by the little plot of land my grandmother had planted. As my brother harvested the greens, I shook from the cold as the wind dried the water off my back. I squatted on the ground wrapping my arms around my legs trying to retain some heat. We got home, showered, and crawled into bed. My brother was fine but I couldn't seem to get warm. He pilled comforters on top of me until I disappeared beneath them. Still, I could not feel enough warmth. In reality, I was burning with a fever. The next day I had a horrible headache and the fever persisted. A day or two later, I would return home to Puerto. The fever lasted long enough that my mom would take me to the hospital to get tested, thinking I had pneumonia. What I remember most about that time was Lola, singing me to sleep at night, her callused hands running along my back. In my mind, she was strong and timeless. It was as if she and Old Age hand met but she refused to let him pull her down Time's narrow street. She didn't get younger or older, she just was, a constant variable in a changing world.
Three months after my eleventh birthday, I would leave the Philippines and all of Wonderland behind. And for eight years, I would not see Lola or Lolo. When I returned as a young woman, she pinched my cheeks, commenting on how I had grown. But at that moment, I was a young girl again. Everything about my childhood home had changed. The once familiar buildings had morphed into unrecognizable structures. The town with only one stoplight was now filled with traffic. My cousins had, like me, grown-up. But Lola was the same.
Four months later, Lolo would pass away. Two days short of his one-year death anniversary Lola would also leave, her strength finally spent. It has been four years since my visit and I have yet to go back home. I have yet to return to Lola's house and visit my grandparents' final resting place. I wonder if Quezon is like Narnia where some characters from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe are able to return. Or if I will (spoiler alert… lot's of spoiler alerts) like Susan, be too grown up to return. I wonder if the magic of Quezon died with Lola. Are the flowers still blooming in her garden? Is the water still fresh in her well? Is the castle no more than a rundown wooden house? I choose to believe that I am more like Lucy. I am that young girl who walked through the wardrobe and saw wonder. I am that young girl who stands on a train platform and is taken by wind back to Narnia. I am that young girl who is hauled into the Dawn Treader when the ocean spills from the canvas of the painting. And I am that girl who gets to return to Narnia during the Last Battle. Lucy grows up but she still believes in Narnia. One day, I will return to Lola's house. I will walk through the rooms of my childhood. I will walk out the front doors, past her garden, to the mango tree under whose branches they are buried, as they were in life, side by side. May I be like Lola in my old age: timeless and strong.
Note: "Lola" is the Tagalog word for grandmother and "Lolo" is grandfather. Their real names were Lilia and Sofronio but always Lola and Lolo to me.
Comentários