When she grew old, my late Inay Aurea was fond of telling stories about her life when she was growing up in our hometown. It’s her way of transmitting our family’s history. Her stories were full of fun. Now that I’m in my senior years, I’ve got my own to tell. I picked the best ones.
INAAAY! Circa 1938. I was two-and-a-half. I woke up in the middle of the night crying, “Inaaay!” I was looking for my Inay but she wasn’t there. My Lola Genia was trying to shush me by feeding me boiled eggs, which I refused. I was inside the mosquito net and I felt imprisoned. I kept crying, “Inaaay!”
Back then, Inay Aurea was recently widowed, and she took a five-day-a-week job as a pharmacist in Los Baños. I was left under the care of Lola Genia on weekdays.
Like safety nets, we need our mother all our lives. We are tied to her umbilical cord forever. When our mothers are long gone, we miss them terribly.
Ice drop, circa 1939. I was 4. It was a hot day when I licked ice drop for the first time. I discovered the thrill of cold food. A stick of red, strawberry ice drop—sweet, cool, and melts in your mouth. Every day I sat by the stairways waiting for the ice drop man so Inay could buy me my daily happiness.
Ice drop was my initiation to the wonders of gustatory delights. It made me aware that my taste buds were the source of many pleasures. Prior to ice drop, my favorite food was limited to viands like ginisang monggo, ginataang laing and dinuguan. After ice drop, my foodie life became exploratory.
Hot and spicy
I worked in Bangkok for a few years, and there I enjoyed the appetite appeal of hot and spicy foods every day.
Next thing I knew, I was eating Indian dishes with curiosity. I began to appreciate the role of aroma and herbs, the mélange of sweet, sour, hot, and pungent gustatory delighst.
Anak, luhod! Circa 1939. At 4 years old, I had already gone to Sunday masses looking spiffy. With newly pressed clothes, neatly combed hair, and shiny shoes, I was a little man already, naka-postura. Inay Aurea and I would be seated in the front pews. My Inay wore a veil and was glued to her missal during the mass.
“Anak, luhod!” exclaimed Inay Aurea. I’d be told to kneel and gaze at the host and chalice during the consecration. When the priest raises the host and chalice as offerings, Inay Aurea would whisper to me emphatically, “That’s the body and blood of Jesus Christ. He’s for real. He lives.”
I never doubted nor questioned Inay when she taught me about the Eucharist. It must be God’s gift to me. My catechism started when I was young, and I’ve kept my faith in the Eucharist all my life. The rest of my catechism, I learned from Inay and from doctrinal Jesuits when I studied in Ateneo.
I hold the theory that fidelity to the Church is fidelity to Christ. Obedience and humility are conditions for being a faithful Catholic, or any religion for that matter.
Patay! Circa 1941-1942. I was six. During the war years, people were dying left and right from malaria, tuberculosis, and gunshot wounds. There were wakes and wakes for my dead grandfathers, grandmothers, uncles, aunts, childhood friends, and neighbors. The Japanese killed lots of people. Guerillas killed the Japanese. One day, while playing, my friends and I stumbled upon a man’s decomposed cadaver by the riverside.
While walking home one day, there was a loud thunderclap, and the man walking ahead of me fell flat like a log. When I approached him, he was dead and I scampered away. Someone hiding in the Nogales rice field in Majayjay, Laguna, shot him. I grew up accepting death as a fact of life. At 6 years old, I wasn’t strange to the thought of seeing dead men.
Aruuuy! Circa 1943. I was 9. I got wounded pretty bad twice. I fell from a tree and got my arm caught in a barbed wire fence which tore my flesh with a two-inch open wound. I ran to the puericulture clinic, bleeding. The doctor sutured my wounds with five stitches without any anaesthesia. Every time her needle pierced my flesh, I would grit my teeth and holler “Araaay!” aloud.
Pain must be endured
Months later, the workhorse I was riding entered an area with bamboo thickets, and my head caught a sharp bamboo cut and got me another two-inch open wound at the back of my head. My uncle-doctor sutured eight stitches in my head. As usual, there was no anesthesia, so hollering “Aruuuy!” at the top of my lungs was the only recourse.
As I grew up, I learned that pain must be endured. I learned how to endure pain physically and emotionally (two broken hearts when I was in college). I never expected pity nor sympathy for my pains and heartaches.
Pam-pam Joe! Circa 1945. I was 10. We moved to Manila right after liberation. It was a different world from my bucolic hometown. Manila lay in ruins from World War II bombings and street battles.
Manila was crawling with American soldiers, all called “Joe.” Bars, girlie strip joints, and whorehouses (called pam-pam) mushroomed in Avenida, Rizal, Sta. Cruz, Grace Park, and Culi-Culi.
Our family lived in a cramped one-room apartment in interior B. Orquista St. Our next door neighbor was a thirtyish plump whore named Fiona Jo (not her real name). The American Joes’ queue to Fiona’s house sometimes reached our front door.
The boys from M. Natividad all went pimping for Fiona. They’d accost every G.I. Joe in Avenida, Rizal with, “Pam-pam Joe!” When Fiona went out, she was chauffeured, her face thick with pinkish rouge, her eyes with thick, dark lashes, and her full lips fiery red with lipstick.
But for all her voluptuousness, Fiona was friendly to Inay Aurea. She never failed to greet Inay when she passed our house. “Magandang umaga po, Aling Auring!” she said sweetly.
Whores took their job as routine. Miss Fiona had nothing to be ashamed of. Or so it seemed. I learned that persons can also be manhid.
Konduktor. Circa 1947. I was 14. In my hometown, the most coveted job for out-of-school guys was to be hired as a conductor for the L.T.B. Bus Co.
If hired, it meant that he can marry his nobia and feed a family. Early in life, I wanted to have a job after school.
It was very clear to me that a man must have a job in order to be the family provider. Just that and just like a bus conductor, one must go to work early and work hard to do a good job.
We are what we remember in our early years. Some of our happenstance make a lasting impact in our young life, resonating all the way to our adult life.
All of us are vulnerable to our memories. The first, the earliest, the vivid ones, the ones that stick to our minds. They remind us of how things began; the start of faith, the end of innocence, and what the facts of life are.
I’m sure you, too, have lots of images in your album of memories. The ones that stick to you forever. Keep them in your hearts. They are a source of your strengths, your happiness, and your originality.
E-mail the author at hgordonez@ gmail.com.