Lessons from our neighborhood hairdresser

Perhaps, in our neighborhood, Jose is the most famous hairdresser. A stocky single man at 45, he opens his simple salon as early as 6 a.m. and closes it a little after 7 p.m. every single day. Haircut at “Josie’s Parlor,” as his customers fondly call his shop, comes at P25. If Jose, an intrinsically jolly and kind person, personally owns a customer a debt of gratitude, the haircut comes for free. Or at least at a discounted price. Other services like hair coloring or perming, which he also single-handedly does, are a bit pricey but Jose is known more in Gulod for his haircuts.

He does not only cut hair for a living. He cuts hair because he wants to sustain a lifestyle — a lifestyle to nourish the life of his septuagenarian ailing mother. Whatever he does is not solely for him. What he keeps for the day is used to buy a small can of Ensure or vitamin supplements that his mother needs. He gets himself a bottle of local rum in some occasions but he will only have that luxury when he has already assured the welfare of his mother.

Two Sundays ago, a little after dusk, Jose gathered all the empty cans of Ensure and stacked them in a corner of their humble home. He placed all his mother’s medicines and vitamins in a white plastic bag. He wiped the bamboo bed of his mother. He also wiped his tears. It was the day Jose buried his mother. 

If the number of people who walked with him to bring his mother Doray to her final resting place would be an indication of his popularity in the barrio, Jose, indeed, is a neighborhood celebrity. His customers in the community and even those from other villages condoled with him and practically never left his side in the days his mother’s wake was held for a week in their home.

Because he was earnest in his friendship with his customers, they came to sincerely hold his hand in the days he most needed them. “Ulilang-lubos na ako ngayon pero nagpapasalamat pa rin ako at marami akong kaibigan na parang pamilya ko na rin (I’m totally orphaned now. But I will always be grateful that I have friends who are like family to me),” he said. Jose said friendship is important for him to keep him at bay, especially in the coming days.

“What will you miss most about your mother?” I found the courage to ask Jose, an hour before his mother’s burial.

He stared long at his mother’s casket and, with a faint smile that camouflaged the sadness inside him, said in the vernacular: “Who will be there to assure me that everything will be alright when I am not feeling well?”

At 45, Jose told me that his mother was his cove of comfort. Her hands were his security blanket. When he was near his mother, never mind if she was bed ridden, he felt insulated, secure, strong, loved, driven with a purpose. She was his paracetamol when he ran a fever; his Lipovitan on days when he felt lethargic but needed to hold his cutting scissors with a steady hand. She was Jose’s everything.

“When I am sick, all I have to do is to sleep beside my mother. And I will wake up okay. When I feel bad or I have a bad day, all I look for to make me feel good is my mother,” he said.

Clearly, Jose instills in the mind that there will never be a time that we will not need our mother. Or at least look for her. No matter how old we are. No matter if she is near or far. Or gone. The ordinary things she does for us are the extraordinary moments we will always cherish.

Jose’s father died when he was two years old. Ever since then, it was his mother who had been there for him and his siblings. “When we were still kids, it was our mother who was there for us. We felt her presence early in the morning when she cooked our breakfast. We would see her again at night just in time to give us our dinner,” he started his eulogy at the cemetery.

In between night and day, Jose’s mother would be taking care of other kids in the neighborhood as a nanny. In another household she was an all-around helper and yet in another, a laundrywoman.

“My mother was a helper, a laundrywoman, a nanny. I want to emphasize that because I want the world to know I am very proud of what she did. In every job she performed, she made sure to do it with dignity. She taught me to have dignity all the time. She was a joyful labandera, a loving yaya, and a trustworthy maid. She did all those things to make sure her children would survive. And for that I am most grateful to her. I will forever be proud of her,” Jose said.

Long before she fell ill, Jose’s mother enjoyed a tad of comfort in her life. Jose, for lack of money, stopped going to school. But he continued to be a good person. He also went on to take seminars in cosmetology to back up his in-born knack for cutting hair. He survived and whatever he earned in cutting hair domino-ed to his loved ones. Jose was thankful for the opportunity given him to be the anchor, this time, of his mother.

“I may not have the riches of the world but I was loved by my mother and I was also able to show her my love and that is what matters to me the most,” he said.

Jose is back to cutting hair now after closing his little parlor for a while. His customers again queue up for their P25-haircut. To some, he still gives his services for free or at a discounted rate. Early morning today, he will close his parlor again because Jose is excited to bring his mother flowers and to greet her “Happy Mother’s Day.”

(For your new beginnings, please e-mail me at bumbaki@yahoo.com. I am also on Twitter @bum_tenorio and Instagram @bum_tenorio. Have a blessed Sunday!)