Remembering papa and mama

CEBU, Philippines - Traveling during the Christmas season is a bit of a challenge. Well, traveling for that matter anytime or anywhere is a global challenge. It is the 10th anniversary of our mother’s death (Papa died two months to the day after that) and the siblings are gathering for another Family Reunion. I will be leaving my daughter and her family including my two grandchildren, ages three years and nine months. Maria, my only child, born and raised in the US, asked me why we celebrate a death anniversary and not the birthday. I explained to her that this is in reality a commemoration of our parents’ lives until the day of their departure to begin another one.

Our parents were diametric opposites. Mama was outgoing; Papa was the reserved one. We would discover much later that Papa was an “activist” in his own way. He would quietly send letter to newspapers and people in authority of what he thought about over population in the Philippines and why Cebuano should be the national language. Papa had an eloquence in his words. The many dicta he reminded us everyday have become a part of our consciousness: “You hold on your destiny in the palm of your hands.” “If you cannot say something nice about anybody, don’t say anything.”

Mama was always writing. When I complained that she keeping us (Maria, Mama and I were traveling through Finland and Sweeden) awake at night with the light on, she went to the bathroom and wrote there. Some of her essays included, “And God Walks on Brown Legs.” She had a penmanship to match her prose. No one could imitate that perfect script. (I am a physician so I have an excuse.)

There are moments when my heart cries out for them. As the eldest girl, I suppose I got some preferential treatment, or so I thought. I got first dibs on most anything, but that was also how the familial hierarchy worked when we were growing up. The only one above me was brother Joseph (Dodong).

Education was an integral part of our upbringing. The love of books and knowledge was prescient. This was included in us very early in life. I was always an avid reader and continue to be one.

Certain memories stick out not like ore thumbs, but more like warm feelings. Mama liked to dress the girls in exactly the same outfits, and the boys and Papa were not exempt. We all fidgeted on the church bench that the whole family occupied, but we were powerless against Mama’s will.

That will and willfulness have put many of us to the test which we often failed. She always got her way. On her way to scheduled surgery, she finagled her way to the one more appointment before showing up at the hospital. Much later, at one of our many family reunions, when she sensed a lack of interest for picture-taking, she sent out a memo asking everyone to sign up or to decline. No one declined.

Our parents visited us once a year and when they were up for US citizenship, Papa stayed with us for a few years (Mama was still working.)

Papa became Maria’s babysitter. He helped her with her math lessons. She helped him, or rather corrected his diction, i.e. American English. It was a fun repartee to watch. Papa’s favorite story goes like this: Our neighbor had a black cat that liked to stray to our lawn. One morning, while grandfather and granddaughter were waiting for the school bus, the cat streaked across them. Papa asked, “Maria do you like cahts?” He repeated this a few times, until Maria realized, seeing the cat, what he meant. She replied, “Oh, Papa, you mean caat (with a long “A”.) The fun was in Papa’s telling and he would be the first to laugh at his own story which he would recount several times at any gathering.

The funniest one was after a dinner at home in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. All of us were present including Dodong who was visiting. We still love to recall that night, one of the many endearing stories when Papa and Mama were still with us.

We expected our parents to live long lives. Mama, especially, appeared indomitable. God had other plants. One December, 10 years ago, Vince and I hurriedly came to bring Mama back to the States for medical care. We were too late in many ways. My grief at seeing her so cachectic brought a flood of tears. I am a physician after all and I did not take care of her as I should. I have since sorted out the medical events that led her to passing. She was on Celebrex for her gout and that had led to a stomach bleed, then to a pulmonary (lung) infection. Death came from Adult Respiratory Disease Syndrome. I have stopped asking the question if we could have altered the outcome.

Two months later, our father died. Those were two most unbearable months of my life. I had intractable headaches at work, at home, anywhere. Then I read somewhere that it was probably unreleased grieving. I do not like to remember anymore the circumstances of Mama’s death. Papa followed Mama willingly. He had said so at Mama’s funeral, quietly, “I’ll follow you soon, Inday.” We found this out after his death, when we reviewed the video of Mama’s funeral. The siblings were all torn up after we watched it. We had not realized the enormity of our father’s grief, wrapped up as we were in our own.

Papa was like that, the stoic figure, only stepping in if and when things got out of hand. We could always wish we were better children but wishing won’t bring them back. We choose to honor them instead in the actions of our daily lives. From where they are now, we hope they can see that we have tried to live by their example. We have children and grandchildren of our own now, and we try to instill in them the values that Mama and Papa lived by. Their love for each other inspires us to this day. We think there is no greater love than what they had for each other. It is out bias, of course, but we all believe it. It was always there for the children to see.

A part of me died with them. There will always be a hollow in my heart. That missing part I try to fill in with all the happy memories of our childhood, our parents’ struggle to give us the best education, and their counsel to continue loving each other after they are gone. This is the legacy we received that we now hold sacrosanct, next to our hearts. (Writer is the second child and eldest daughter of Atty. Miardo Gacrama Baduel and Dr. Consesa Milan-Baduel)