Day 35 of Thankfulness. In our new hometown, we stayed with relations... four generations of ORDINARIOS: cousins, aunts & uncles, a lolo and an apong... all under one roof An apong is a term for a great-grandparent. She was Apong Teryang for ELEUTERIA ORDINARIO. She was close to a hundred years old.. most of the time she stayed in her room on the ground floor while we occupied a room on the second floor... went to the kitchen for her meals. Sundays was a different routine.. she would dress in her patadyong with an intricately embroidered and starched scarf around her shoulders... make a neat bun of her greying hair... wear her beaded, Sunday slippers... and with her black signature umbrella amble to church. She occupied the same pew every Sunday and she never missed church. I enjoyed the lazy days we spent together. She would allow me to sit on the edge of her bed, caress and feel the smooth sagging muscles of her upper arms... I would watch her play her favorite card game - solitaire. When I was older, she would teach me how to play solitaire and other card games. Time and again she would make her oft-repeated statement: I am so tired... I wish to God He would take me.. I have lived out my usefulness already. When time came for our family to leave Balaoan, she was in tears and called me to her room. Her big soft frame engulfed me in a tight embrace. She cried and made me promise that when her time came we would return to Balaoan and see her for the last time... that we did not have to worry because there would be a room in her house for us.. her fattened pig would be enough to feed us. Sadly, when she passed away, we would not be informed and I was not able to keep the first promise I ever made in my life. To this day, I am still haunted by guilt that I was not able to keep that promise. Apong TERYANG, thank you for all those days you welcomed me into your room. You have filled my loneliness as a child cut off and conflicted by events around me.... I felt privileged to have sat beside you... to have listened to your stories. Though the details of those stories have faded with the passage of time, the joy and the warmth of times together has lingered. Thank you for allowing me to feed my curiosity when I run my fingers on the softness of the sagging muscles on your upper arms. And for the promise I failed to keep, I ask for your pardon and understanding.
Posted on: Sun, 12 Oct 2014 07:52:25 +0000
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