Of lost loves and found objects

In our family, wakes and marriages bring us back together after years of separation. We kiss and chat and laugh and confide in each other just like we used to. We were closer than ever when we recently celebrated my Auntie Nelda’s ascendancy to heaven to join my Uncle Bimbo Manzano up there.

We, my first cousins and I, had a rare photo opportunity where we didn’t know who belonged to whom. Whose wife is she or whose child is this, we would ask. And who had returned from abroad? Who migrated where? It seemed the Manzanos had split up in all directions, populating different parts of the globe. "Is that your new wife?" I asked a cousin. "No! She’s my brother’s new wife." C’est la vie! Nothing can ever be so bad or so wrong among us cousins. Soon, we’d wonder what branch of Lopez-Manzano our descendants came from and say, "Aye, maybe in the distant past we were related...and maybe...and yes!"

My Uncle Mon Manzano reminisced about his departed sister-in-law Nelly. He spoke about his brother Bimbo or Jaime, a former PAL pilot who fought in the Sierra Madre as a lieutenant in the USAFFE 91st Infantry Division. He later became one of the leaders of the 29th Guerrilla Squadron. Tito Mon also told us how he courted Nelda Feliciano of Magalang, Pampanga, and sent her orchids every other month. A courier walked all the way from Mt. Arayat to give her the orchids in Magalang that my uncle had picked in the mountainous jungles. "How romantic," I said. "No," Tito Mon answered, "how informative. We never heard from him. It was the only way we knew he was alive." I spent many childhood excursions in Tita Nelda’s beautiful Spanish-style stone and nipa ancestral house, which was the provincial residence of Tito Mundi and Tita "Sister" Tess and their parents.

* * *

"How about you, Tito Mon, how did you court Tita Pil (Tuason)?" I asked. It’s wonderful to hear stories that are usually kept in the heart and narrated openly to nieces and nephews. He told us, "I first saw Tita Pil when she was with her sister Naty. They were about six or seven years old. I was on the balcony of the Legarda house in Aviles Street with Bobby Velaso, our cousin. I was 13, looking down from the barandilla on the second floor. I thought, ‘Look at those two girls with haircuts, bangs and short hair and so Chinese-looking.’ Well, I married one of them!"

"Six years after that day, Tita Pil and I met again in California and we were both schooling. Not ready for anything permanent I went to Spain to study." One day, his parents who are my grandparents, Angel Lopez Manzano and Lucia Hernandez Manzano, appeared in Spain to find him sharing an apartment with Geny Lopez. Neither of them had been attending their doctorate courses for eight months. Compelled to board a plane back with his parents, off he went to Manila and met Tita Pil again and he married the little girl with the bangs and lived happily ever after.

"What did you do then in Spain?" Rene, another cousin, asked. "I went to Asturias and met two women, about 70 years old, who were once in love with Pappy and Tito Sising, that’s Col. Narcisco Lopez-Manzano who became an officer of the US Army. They courted both women and promised to return. They never did. The women remained single waiting for both men to come back and marry them." They showed him the Bible on the side table these gentlemen used in their youth waiting to be re-used for the marriage rites! Men can be such creeps to keep women on the wings waiting and hoping.

* * *

And then I saw Jenny Clemente at the dinner. The last time I saw Jenny was when Mikee, Mai-Mai and China were taking art classes in her San Lorenzo home. Mikee was then perhaps 12 years old when Jenny left for somewhere. We lost her talent and friendship. Same thing with my cousins Clarissa and Chiquita Manzano who settled abroad. One went to Los Angeles and the other to Switzerland.

I learned that Jenny is now a San Francisco resident teaching little children at her day care school. She also teaches the English language to Hispanic migrants. I got to meet Jenny after Mikee came home saying her teacher had the unique gift of extra perception. "Mom, my friend’s mom lost her ring and she called Jenny and it was where Jenny said it would be." I remember the story went like this: Mikee’s friend said her mother, having lost a ring at their home, called Jenny. Jenny concentrated over the telephone while a harassed woman worried on the line and suddenly, a vision came. "I see a cabinet with drawers in your room. Am I correct? Open the top drawer and feel all the way to the back. Call me after you do that." Guess what was there? The ring!

I had my turn consulting her twice. The first time I couldn’t find my gold flower necklace for a whole week. That I scolded all five children and the maids didn’t help. Call Jenny, I commanded Mikee. Jenny concentrated and said, "I see a room with lots of men by the window." Correct, for I had carpenters working there. "I see a statue standing by the window. Go to the window and see what you find there." Not quite believing her for I had searched that part of the house three times, I went nevertheless. Behold, there was my necklace on the neck of the standing gold leaf Buddha from Bangkok. No, it’s not the Golden Yamashita Buddha. The color of the gold necklace blended with the Buddha’s. Upon investigation, my then five-year-old China had naughtily put my necklace on the golden Buddha that I bought from Chona and Hans Kasten. And she had forgotten that she had done that.

* * *

Another time, I lost my oval diamond ring. I called her. "Jen, you have to help me." The line went quiet. "I’ll return the call and just concentrate." Calling later while I prayed to St. Anthony, she said, "I see it, go to the bathroom and look there." True enough, there was my diamond ring shining in the water closet. "Who put it there?" I screamed. Mai-Mai came forward to admit it, "Me, me. Mom, sorry." She had tried it on and it fell inside the bowl. In fact, she flushed it when she couldn’t pick it up from out of the water being too tiny. Whew. That ring survives today in a daughter’s safety box.

More importantly, Jenny was one day called to help solve a murder in San Lorenzo Village. Word had traveled in the Assumption studentry about a scene she envisioned that solved this murder mystery.

* * *

Jenny may not remember the many incidents where she’s helped but I do. Some are kept secret or in the recesses of the mind like the anecdotes my Uncle Mon told us. You have to catch the proper time for memories, reveries, anecdotes and, most of the time, it comes unexpectedly. When that time comes, make a go for it with your questions. Time and age are precious. As Tito Mon says, even if I wanted to interview a lot of people about their lives then, their generation is passing away. As for Jenny, she’s leaving again soon and who knows when we’ll meet again.