Tomorrow, May 17, is my father’s birthday. It will be his 90th, I think. It is not unusual that he is dead. His family, Gonzalez with two Zs is short-lived. If he had not been killed by the Japanese on Feb. 8, 1945, he would have died in his 40s or 50s. Once, that was the trait of his family. His father, my lolo Javier, died at the age of 35, of anthrax, which he caught when he went to visit his brother Bienvenido, who was then the dean of Animal Husbandry in UP Los Baños. His brother took him for a walk to see the cattle. My grandfather had a big burst pimple on his nape. He caught anthrax.
He was in the same hospital as my grandmother, who was delivering their youngest child. Lolo Javier died a few days later. Lola Josefa was so broken- hearted she took to her bed, rising only to visit lolo Javier at his grave. Two years later, she also died, leaving nine children behind. They say she died of a broken heart.
They had, from the few stories that survive, a lovely life together. The people from Sulipan say my grandfather was a very successful lawyer, so successful that when my grandmother said she wanted to learn how to cook, he put her and their children on a boat and took everyone to Paris where she went to a culinary school. They had a big house with a music room that had all sorts of instruments because they wished their children would form some kind of orchestra. My father played the piano well. He also drew and painted.
But then they — my grandparents — died in their 30s leaving nine children behind. No one knows who was making the decisions then but whoever they were, they decided to divide the children among the Gonzalez brothers. My father and his brother Ben went to Bienvenido Gonzalez, my lolo Bindo, whose family became my mother’s in-laws. I still see them until now. Whoever made the decision to divide the children among the Gonzalez brothers failed to consider that it was their wives who would have to take care of the children who, given the circumstances, were probably difficult.
One of my aunts wrote about her earliest childhood memories. She kept crying and crying, she wrote. It broke my heart to read that. In the end all the four daughters ended up in an orphanage. After the war my mother and I visited them there, I remember vaguely. But I was so little then.
I was only six months old when my father died. I have no real memories of him. I have one solo photograph of him that remains. I look like him. He looks like his mother therefore I look like my grandmother. One of my aunts on my grandmother’s side Adelina Rodriguez confirms this. I cannot tell you how it strengthened my heart to hear her confirm something I suspected all along. But there is another thing I know now. My father’s early departure from my life turned me into him. I worked for my living. I stepped into his shoes. Until now I am both my father and my mother though I do take care of my mother.
My grandparents dying, my father going to live with his uncle, all this happened long before I was born. To this day I grieve that my father was killed by the Japanese less than 24 hours before the Liberation Day of Manila. He almost made it through the war, but at the 11th hour, he, my grandfather on my mother’s side, and my uncle were picked up, brought to the Masonic temple and killed there. They just never returned. For the longest time we had no family crypt to visit, in spite of so many deaths.
I grew up meeting my first cousins at parties. Or I met them when someone would call to announce the death of one of my uncles or aunts. Then we would see each other at the wake. But we are better now. Now we have an e-mail circle and there are more invitations to meet relatives that circulate. Slowly but surely our Gonzalez circle — the grandchildren of Javier Gonzalez and Josefa Mercado — are getting together and knowing each other again.
I think I may be the oldest of my generation alive in the country on my father’s side of the family. Often I wonder — will I die before my mother or after her? My stroke told me I have my father’s genes. Maybe I will go before I’m 70. I am convinced that there are only two dates in our lives we do not control, two dates that prove there is a God. First, our birth date. Who knows when that will happen? Second, our death date. We don’t know when that will happen either. Oh and there’s a third. We don’t know how we’re going to die. That will happen according to God’s will.
My father, if he were alive, would be turning 90 tomorrow. Would we be having a party? My mother has Alzheimer’s, she is not aware any more. My daughters are all out of the country, only my son is here. But the strange thing is I, who never met my father, still miss him, still wish I had known and loved him, still spend time thinking about him and talking to him, still love him even if I never knew him. And this missing him, this calling out to him and talking to him, this grows with every passing year. I don’t know if we in our own way have become better friends or if I am getting crazier with every passing day.
Anyway, Vladimir Mercado Gonzalez, my Pappy, will be 90 tomorrow. Happy birthday, my beloved Pappy, lots of love from your only child, who grew up to be like you is spite of your long absence.
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