Goodbye for Now

When people talk about someone who is dead, they always talk about them in good terms. I don't do that. When I have nothing 'genuine' to say, I just shut up.

My aunt Nardeng was buried a week ago in Cebu. I feel sad but mostly I feel guilty. I had every opportunity to see her when I would come to Cebu, but I didn't. The memories of my childhood with her now flooding my consciousness, and it won't go away. She was my uncle's wife but she took me in like her own child. I was at their house everyday until I was 7 or 8. Their only child, my cousin Anun also took me in like she was my older sister. I hung around at their house mostly because they ate better than at my house. And Anun didn't mind sharing with me.

Nardeng would always take me with her when she did laundry for the rich people. She did the laundry at her house and took them back to the owners neatly bundled and I would help her carry them on my head. I liked tagging along with her because she was always carefree with her money; she buys bread and Star margarine while my mother would cringe at the thought of buying anything besides rice and dried fish. Snacks were not bought from the store because she mostly just boiled the ripe bananas or sweet potatoes from the farm. She told us she couln't afford oil to fry them.

When Nardeng got paid we would go to Carbon market and she buys me grapes and roasted peanuts. I had a rich aunt who lived in Manila (maybe she wasn't rich but we thought everyone from Manila was rich) who would bring grapes everytime she came to visit my sick grandma who lived with us. Fifty years ago, I associated 'Manila and grapes' with moneyed people, so when Nardeng bought me 10 grapes "just to have a taste" as she used to say, I would hurriedly eat it all before we got home so I didn't have to share it with anyone.

Another fond memory I had of her was when we would go to this lawyer's house. She went there every week doing their laundry and cleaning, I loved going there because we get to stay all day and I had fun with their goldfish. I got so thrilled watching the fiery orange colored fish with big bulging eyes. Nardeng always told me not to touch them, but not only did I touch them when she wasn't looking, I would take one out of the water and make it wriggle out of my palm back to the water. One day I got sad and scared because Nardeng told me I couldn't come with her anymore because the lawyer noticed that one fish was very tired and almost descaled...someone is messing with the fish, he told her.

Nardeng didn't get mad at me because she never took life seriously; (probably why we all just called her by her first name) she took life as it came and lived it like everyday was her last day.
She was carefree with her money and time. Everyone who came across her way experienced her generosity. She worked hard, she laughed hard.

Writing has always been my way of purging my emotional tensions, but I am having a hard time finishing this. Deng, I miss you. When you see Don, tell him I miss him too.