She never even gave it a thought: Providing food and shelter for a family of seven who were not her relatives, giving refuge to a member of media during the first days of Martial Law, risking her friendship and stature with the new dictators just to show kindness and comfort to a friend of her “in-law.â€As if that was not enough, she continued being a comforter to the afflicted and then mother not just to us but to so many others we came to know through the years, people who also found comfort, assistance, refuge or counsel at her side. That was “Tita Nene†a.k.a. Azucena Vera Perez.
She should already be in some mythical hall of fame for best mother maybe even saint, but in her lifetime I always saw her in the background, proud and approving of her children as well as of anyone in her extended family of stragglers who somehow won awards or got elected or appointed into high positions or public office. As comforting as she was, she was also forgiving. I’m sure we individually riled her at one point or another, but she never allowed such things to get out of hand or grow out of proportion. She was as gentle in her corrections as she was in her protection.
She was, and still is one of my favorite non-relatives, closer to the heart, than by blood. Later in life, when I heard that the ravages of old age had left her fragile and her memory robbed, I made the difficult choice to stay away. While writing this piece I tried to check out what was on Google but I lasted all of 3 seconds. I never saw her as 96 years old, I did not want to read of what had become of her just before her passing, and I imagined it would be painful to listen to people’s accounts knowing she won’t be part of the conversation as mahjong tiles rumbled in the background. I can’t imagine the void she will be leaving in “Valencia†where the grand ancestral home stands.
We all have bittersweet memories of someone like “Tita Nene†in our lives, but in me she instilled the value of being there for people in need of aid, in need of comfort, and a place in the heart where people are given refuge. I was 16 years old when Tita Nene and the Vera Perez clan took us in on the day that Ferdinand Marcos declared a state of emergency and two days later when he declared Martial Law. Days, months and even years later there would always be a plate of food for each of us at her dining table, while my father struggled with unemployment, harassment and rejection, but never at the Vera Perez home.
Some people wonder why we do things the way we do. Perhaps it is because someone like Tita Nene taught us how.
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Much like salmon and sea turtles, Filipinos usually come home to their place of birth to retire. A relative who’s now working on his retirement plan 20 years ahead of time, just called to ask for my inputs about his plans to return to “Manila,†either as an academic-mentor or perhaps shoot for a government position or to be a writer.
Somewhere, somehow, one of our “Filipino†ancestors practicing animal sacrifice must have accidentally cut himself and mixed the blood of a homing pigeon to his genes. After listening to all his reasons and plans, it made me wonder why Filipinos sell off the farm, the Carabao, even their sister just to get out of the country, work like slaves for decades, live on spam, chicken butt, and salmon in sinigang. and just when they’ve achieved “The American Dream†or the European version of it, they start to scratch an itch for adobo, init and trapik. I told my relative that it happens because all they ever did was work, eat, sleep, and dream of “living the dream†but forgot to have a life, develop hobbies or pursue things they wanted, instead of taking out loans and paying loans and mortgages.
At that point, he butted in and declared he would be getting a sizeable pension so money won’t be an issue. He also pointed out that he has spent a couple of decades pursuing academic and professional excellence that has earned him the status of being an international expert of sorts. I let him savor his repartee for a few seconds and then I curtly told him: That is if you live long enough in the Philippines. Coming from Europe I would put out a bet that the heat alone would kill him within 30 days. If he survives long enough, he will probably get shot by a drug crazed “riding in tandem†or some endangered businessman with a permit to carry but too little brains! Unfortunately he had no idea what sort of gang the “riding in tandem†were. So I had to explain to him that it was a unique Filipino criminal evolution where drugs combined with two men hugging each other on a motorcycle create such a violent reaction that they have to go out and shoot someone else. Eventually when old age catches up with him, he will discover that his “pot of euro gold†was not gold and that after 30 years or so inflation has a way of deflating your sense of security, your wallet and money suddenly becomes “an issue.â€
To be kind I spared him the fact that there is no world class airport, but we have traffic jams in the air, on the ground and at sea. Trains in Europe are accurate to the second while the Philippine No Railroads (PNR) nearly expired and is being resuscitated, internet speed is as fast as traffic on EDSA, the length of time it takes to pay bills is so long the electric company sends you a threat for being late.
Congratulations to the DOT and the P-Noy administration, their campaign propaganda works so well they even got my relative thinking about coming home. Not anymore!
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