My maternal grandmother Simplicia lived the last
thirty-five years of her life without her husband, Lolo German. Last year, on
Valentine’s Day, she was survived by all her eight children, including my
mother Rosita. At her simple funeral at a chapel in Abella, Naga City, I
overheard my aunts describing how Lola met Lolo: She was a teenager nakedly bathing
herself in a river, when my Lolo saw her and, attracted, asked her parents for Lola's hand in marriage. My aunts’ story was almost fictional.
Once, when Lola still managed to come with Aunt Estelita
to our house in the weekends, I pried into her and Lolo’s love stories. I was
not expecting her to engage in that kind of up-close and personal conversation
for she was not the grandparent who had a chest of old anecdotes. She was a
very secretive woman. But one time, she forgot that she was secretive, and
suddenly started spilling stories about her old love affair. Even Mama, who was
then hurriedly removing malunggay leaves
from the stalk, was slowed down by Lola’s sudden generosity in sharing her private
life, but she never tried to interrupt or stop me. She listened too attentively
to Lola like she was hearing a story for the first time. Lola started opening
up when I asked if Lolo was her first dance. She said no.
She explained that Lolo was not her first love. It was a
certain Diego Piero whom she revealed was the real father of her first two children. She never told Aunts
Magdalena and Gloria about this important detail of their identities, though
they already had inkling because they look so much alike, but they look different
from their other six sisters. But Lola’s story with Diego was not a story of
unfaithfulness to Lolo. She said that Diego abandoned her and her children for
another woman. I believed her story. At her age, she had no reason to lie and nothing to lose.
Hence, a more realistic re-imagination of my grandparents’ first meeting is
this: Lola, an abandoned wife and mother of two, was farming in Mataorok, Pili, Camarines Sur when Lolo
German first saw her, got attracted with her, pursued her and assumed
responsibility of fathering her children. Considering the ages of Aunts Gloria
and Estelita, her third and my Lolo’s first biological child to her, Lola was
most likely 23 when they lived together.
Lolo German, on the other hand, was already 52 years old
that time. But before his sixteenth and last relationship, he had experienced the
major historical periods and transitions in the country. He had witnessed the
last few decades of Spanish colonization, the American time, the Japanese
occupation, and the wars in between.
According to my aunts, Lolo had figured in 15 romances
before Lola. He probably had some children before my aunts. This
time, my aunts’ story seems believable. In fact, they know one name of a woman, Gabriela.
Apparently, Lolo’s relationship with her was not successful, but the couple had
a daughter, Conchita, who married Mr. Miller, an American whom Lolo served in
the 1930s. My aunts remember receiving a sack of shoes owned by Conchita when
she died of cancer.
During the Japanese Occupation, Lolo joined the
guerilla movement, but he was held captive and tortured. Mama shared the war
horrors that Lolo had told her: for days, he was hung upside down - his head
facing a deep well, his stomach poked with knife and burned with cigarettes. Few
years after the Second World War ended, again most likely in 1946, my
grandparents met and lived together and had many children. The church wedding
came much later when Lolo was coming to terms with his mortality. In February 1976,
he died at the age of 102.
To some people like me, the stories of my grandparents,
especially the part of love life, may be complicated enough to be interesting. But
to many who are expecting stories of greatness or grandness, theirs may be too
insignificant and ordinary.
Truth is, they lived a simple life. They neither had
luxurious properties nor political powers. The only time that they owned a land
of their own was when President Ramon Magsaysay introduced the National
Resettlement and Rehabilitation Administration (NARRA), which relocated them
from Pili to San Ramon, Tinambac, Camarines Sur. Lolo farmed lands of lords. Lola was plain
housewife for the longest time. At times, Lolo was paid to tell his escapades or sing old verses like La Traviata to farmers.
At other times, because he was strong and fierce as a man, he was a paid
companion of a known land grabber in Campo 6. When life for the family got more
and more difficult, my Lola helped by hand-weaving banig that my Lolo peddled when he was not in the farm.
My grandparents were incapable of sustaining their
children’s education. Lolo’s old age and Lola’s lack of literacy, I think, also
contributed to this incapability. Hence, their children had to depend on their
own for education. Most, however, dropped the idea as soon as they reached high
school. With this sense of resignation, some married early to depend on their
husbands, while others worked as house helpers in Naga, and still others tried their luck outside Bicol. My
mother, on the other hand pursued a dream. But to pursue it, she had to be the top
of her class from elementary to college to maintain the scholarship.
When Lolo died, Lola stayed from one daughter’s house to another.
She even stayed at our house for sometime so she had the chance to take care of
me as an infant. But when our family grew little by little and life for us got
harder, Lola had to be in the care of Aunt Estelita who has been childless.
Mama was very busy taking care her of own family’s needs
that she did not really devote much time for Lola. She was never that close to
Lola. In fact, she was Lolo’s girl. Lolo’s disposition was not to encourage
Mama’s sisters to pursue studying for them to work and help in her studies.
Even in Mama’s stories, Lolo was her bida,
her hero. He was the father who knew how to speak Spanish and Latin, spared her
from doing household chores, and sang his old verses as she slept. And even if
she was already married, he took care of her when she got seriously ill until
she recuperated.
But as a father, he was somehow happy and satisfied. He
died knowing her favorite daughter finished college education (the only one among her children), even became a
school principal in Tamban. When he died, her favorite daughter bathed him, arranged
flowers at his funeral, put a rosary in his hands.
Of Lola, Mama talked very little. But she only said good
things about Lola. She was hardworking, kind and honest. Lolo was a typical
macho and domineering husband to her, and Lola’s being so much younger than him
and being plain housewife further pronounced his authority. She was a very patient
woman, but when she felt it was time to talk and resist, she had her ways. Twice she tried to leave Lolo. In one of these instances, she intended to
go back to Pili but she unknowingly rode the Cuadlalader Gibson train carrying tablon going to Tandoc, Siruma. Lolo
came after her and brought her back home. Despite my Lolo’s shortcomings as her
husband and father to her children, she was faithful to him. She loved him.
My memory of Lola has just been limited to her weekend
visit to our home and, when she was already weakened, our occasional visit to
her at Aunt Estellita's. In our last visit to her one day after Christmas, Mama, Papa and I brought her spaghetti
and burger from Jollibee. I remember that I even assisted her to eat. That was my
last act of kindness to Lola when she was still alive. At her
funeral and burial, my aunts were not very emotional. Even Diego’s
daughters never expressed any hatred towards her for maybe not honestly telling
them a part of their identities and preferring to keep the secret till they were too old to feel pain. They did not feel any of these for, practically, they were Lolo's daughters. Devoid of material expectations, they felt loved by my grandparents.
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