Tatay Bebot

My earliest memories of him were of being carried in one strong capable arm while the other held a bottle of his favorite San Miguel Beer. He was the first person who taught me how to eat with my bare hands: dried salted fish with leftover rice crust scraped from the bottom of the pot. Shirtless. With one foot propped on the chair. All the while, my mom scolded in the background, scandalized at our apparent lack of civility.

One time at a big family dinner, an aunt caught me scratching my itchy ass with a huge fish bone. The table went into an uproar. He was the only one who chuckled and showed me how to relieve itchy body parts by rubbing them on the rough edges where the walls met. From then on, I never needed any help having my back (or butt) scratched.

After a night of heavy drinking with the neighborhood toughies, he would lay himself facedown on the bermuda grass, a hung-over penitent, allowing the rough patches of greenery to ease the relentless itch of his alcohol-related allergies. I would jump up on his back then, leaping and shrieking with glee, something my own dry humorless father would never allow. And I endlessly wondered how they could ever be related.

One day, I told myself, I would be just like him - my uncle. He was, for me, the epitome of freedom.

I missed him when he left the country, and whenever he arrived, my siblings and I would unanimously declare a school holiday. The three "salawayons", he would jokingly call us. And by doing so, he acknowledged that he was one himself. Blood always tells.

I would throw myself in his arms and begged to be carried just like a little girl. How we laughed. When I got bigger, I grudgingly accepted the proferred lap instead. And while he puffed on his cigarettes and chugged at his beer, I would listen to all his stories, and complain to him loudly about my own father's harsh discipline - something I could safely do when I was with him.

He was a generous man, sometimes too much for his own good. Several times he took the shirt of his back to give to someone who admired it. Sometimes that someone was me. I was the recipient of innumerable shirts, a pair of purple corduroy pants (which I wore constantly when I was pregnant), and a handsome 20-year-old leather belt that Woog's behind has had a passing acquaintance with from time to time.

I did try mightily hard to be like him. I did a pack a day (too bad my asthma and I were in constant disagreement), drank like a fish (and was rushed to the emergency room with gastroenteritis in the middle of exam week). I even strove to cultivate his laid-back brand of humor. Alas. I was destined to be as dry as my own father.

Just as he was godparent at my christening, he stood as godparent at my wedding, as well, smoothing over the rough spots and declaring to all and sundry that I peed on him at my baptismal party. Promise me, he exhorted my husband and I, visit your Tatay every Saturday. He needs the company. We promised.

He showed me how to cook sarciado and dinuguan, a great revelation for this eldest daughter who grew up in a non-cooking household. Heavily pregnant one Christmas, I gobbled up his delectable spicy prawns simmering in a stew of thick coconut milk, a dish he had cooked for his own in-laws. Never mind, you go ahead and finish that, he laughed, I'll cook up another batch.

The happy years seemed endless. He and my aunt came home for their 25th wedding anniversary, and when they renewed their vows, Atch & I laid gently lay the binding cord across their shoulders while three-year-old Woog bounced in his seat - a ringbearer on steriods.

Two years later, I talked to him over the phone for the last time. The cigarettes had finally done a good job on him. My aunt said the diagnosis was terminal - he had lung cancer. I'm coming home, he gasped on borrowed air, you wait for me, I promise I'm coming home.

And I fought against tears. And I waited.

My sister called me a day after the New Year, sobbing. He had died peacefully in his sleep.

I cannot think about how he is never going to walk through the door again, unannounced, surprising everyone and calling for a bottle of "whatever" - his favorite San Miguel Beer. Or that I am never going to sit on his lap again and listen to his rough soothing singsong talk. Or that he will never meet my second son. And that no matter how I look, I am never going to find a better father.

He is in a good place, my aunt tells me over the phone, I know because he has told me so. And please tell your husband for me, she begged, convince him to stop smoking...

But if this is a lesson, then it is late in the telling. I write this to try to ease the tightness in my chest each time I think of my Tatay Bebot. I write this to pave the way for my hot scalding tears to fall, as an ode to what he was for me. Because I will always prefer to remember him as he was: that tall, lanky, chuckling, laid back man. My uncle.

I sometimes wish he would visit me in a dream. Maybe there, he'd let me sit on his lap again. Even for just one more time.

A-Pickah-Bah!

"A-pickah-pickah-bah-pickah-bah-pickah-bah!"

Eli has a new catchphrase, which could mean something, nothing...or everything. He uses it now, as he circles and circles his new sleeping domain.

"Do you mean 'peek-a-boo', Pet?" We ask him.

He merely flashes a toothy triangular grin, "A-pickah-bah!"

Yes, time does fly ever so fast. Just yesterday the baby was struggling to pull himself up the bars of his crib. Now, he's moved himself into a new bed. The milestones are zooming past faster and faster, my blurry eyes and pounding heart can barely keep up.


Ok, so the effort at intelligible speech is taking a little bit longer to catch up, but still...

In an effort to get in some quality time with his sleep-deprived wife, Atch "confiscated" Woog's little boy fold-out and assigned it to Eli. All things considered equal (or more likely to prevent catastrophic sibling envy), he assembled his old wooden single bed for our older son.


The boys took to their new beds like...like...well, like little boys to new toys. It took us quite a bit of convincing before we could get them to come down for lunch.

At the risk of sounding like a broken wind-up toy: where have my babies gone?

Sometime soon, in a future which looms too close for my own comfort, these boys will be grown men sleeping in big beds with their own wives....er, partners (whichever the case may be). And their dear mom will be a little old lady with silver hair, grinning toothlessly up at her progeny. "A-pickah-bah," she will drool.

"Do you mean 'peek-a-boo', Mom?" They might ask indulgently.

"A-pickah-bah!"

Indeed.

One Day, When We Can Afford A Horse...

The carriage of a true horseman....

On second thought, I'd rather be a jockey. I prefer speed in my steed. Hyuk!

"Manong Woog, I got me a horsey!"

"Giddap....but Eli, this horse is dead."

Someday, my babies....someday....

Once-Upon-A-Holiday (or a story of how one family attempts some quality time together)

The recent spate of holidays found us with nothing to do on a Sunday night. No homework, no chores, no cars to clean, no dishes to wash. Nothing but the baby's dirty diaper to worry about. Dullesville.

What do four people with less than two hundred pesos between them do on a warm balmy night? Why, go to the Lagoon, of course.

In the middle of a bustling city, sits the "people's park". Wide and tree-lined, it has the requisite pond, jogging paths, stone benches, ancient naked statuaries, rusty playground equipment.... and most importantly - it's free.

In the early mornings, the Lagoon is a gathering place for power walkers, joggers and tai'chi-ers. A donation-run aerobics class. The occasional aged stroke victim and pregnant lady. All moving to their own version of rhythm to the piped-in music.

In the late afternoons, children run amok among the playground leaves, their parents resting weary bones while keeping a wary eye. In the evenings, the Lagoon teems with couples: flocks of young giggly tweens on the pretext of study group. New couples. Old couples. Seriously intense couples in want of a room. At the periphery, itinerant vagrants wait to occupy their favorite sleeping benches.


In this setting, we parked the car a stone's throw away from the very tree where Atch & I used to make out, several young and carefree centuries ago. Woog yammered excitedly. He had spent a lot of fun and memorable moments here. Eli clutched at me in anxiety. This was after all, his first time.

Carrying a packet of stale crackers for the tilapia, we made our way down to the fish pond. Woog ran ahead, narrowly missing a trio of septuagenarians out on an after-dinner stroll.

The fish were ecstatically grateful. The surface of the water in front of us violently churned with silver tilapia bodies as Atch, Woog & I scattered bits and pieces of crackers. "Ssshhhh!" Eli lipsed, laughing, holding fast to the metal railings "sssssshhhhhhh!"

It looked like the start of a wonderfully relaxing family evening.

Not.

The moment the crackers were gone, Woog ran off into the grass quadrant, intent on checking out some young show-offs having a somersault showdown.

"Come on, El," I called, beckoning to the wild-eyed toddler who was still super glued to the metal railings, his eyes darting around in ferocious anxiety.
Atch walked a short way off and lit one of his poison sticks, while his older son meandered on the rain-damp grass a few meters away, thinking to attempt a tumble of his own.

"Nwaaaa-aha-aha-ahaaaaaah'! Eli wailed, plunking his butt down on the concrete. The pond, the fish, the grass, the passersby and the wide open night sky had overwhelmed my poor housebound boy.

Sighing in resignation, I picked him up and gagged at his sudden convulsive choke hold. From that moment on, he refused to be put down, whimpering intermittently every time a stranger passed. For the umpteenth time, not without a trace of maternal pride, I halfheartedly wished he didn't weigh a ton.

"Mom!" Woog yelled, ankle deep in wet muddy grass, "I lost my slipper, Mom! Mo-OOOO-om!

Atch tossed his cigarette into the nearest bin, and went to rescue his panicking son.

The recent rains had turned a portion of the grassy quadrant into a swampy quagmire of mud and moss. And Woog, in a typical encounter with prime splashing opportunity, made the most of the situation.

Standing on one slipper-clad foot, mud splattered from the knees down, Woog was a study in comic relief, occasionally bending down to feel around in the ankle-deep grass and muddying his arms as well. "I can't find my other slipper," he whined.


"Well, where'd you last put it?"


"I don't know."


A grandfather figure was creeping alongside him, feeling his way into the grassy marsh. His teary-eyed granddaughter stood a few meters away on the dry sidewalk, barefoot. Apparently, she had lost her slippers, too.


"Is this it?" He wearily asked, holding up a pair of muddy pink maryjanes. The granddaughter shook her head and commenced her silent weep.


Atch & I exchanged a disbelieving glance. Welcome to the bayou of lost footwear.


"Oh, throw your other slipper back in, Woog," Atch advised his frantically searching son, "maybe tomorrow, some poor little boy will find both of them, and you'll make him very happy. You'll be like Rizal." In reference to Woog's pre-school reader book where the young national hero had tossed his remaining slipper into the water for some poor fisherman's son to find.


Woog grumped all the way to a faucet where I washed off most of the mud as best I could. He stepped gingerly all the way to the car, urging us to please hurry let's go home already. Eli continued to whimper in Atch's arms, a scared and timid version of his normally cheerfully brusque self.


Sitting in the car for a breather, trying to console a cranky Woog and a weepy Eli, Atch & I exchanged long-suffering glances. "How's your sense of humor, Atch?"


Atch rolled his eyes heavenward.

*****

The next morning, we gave the Lagoon another chance. Eli giggled merrily at the fish, and shrieked with terror when we tried to urge him to explore.


We searched for Woog's missing slipper in the bright morning sunlight. It was gone of course, just like Atch said. Some poor little boy was somewhere happily sporting a pair of size 4 lime green flip-flops.


The next few moments were spent watching Woog & his Tatay race the remote control Ferrari down a sidewalk, soaking in our requisite Vitamin D, and letting the morning breeze fondle the stray strands off our foreheads.