Ties that bind

What is it about reunions that nourishes the soul as it feeds the body with potluck cuisine, generations-old gossip and never-ending laughter? Reunions are like the clasp in a necklace. One snap, and they bind a string of people and emotions.

I grew up with half of my dad Frank Mayor’s siblings abroad. My dad’s oldest sister Auntie Nellie Loleng, my baptismal godmother, was a constant presence in my life. Growing up, my best friends were her two eldest daughters Cheryl and Natalie, whom I looked up to. Auntie Nellie was the Martha Stewart of the clan, the compleat homemaker who served delicious food that was brimming with nutrients as well. She and her husband Uncle Pedieng had a big and beautiful home in Quezon City that was to be my benchmark whenever somebody told me so-and-so’s house was beautiful. Uncle Pedieng taught us that suerte was no substitute for hard work.

My dad’s only living brother Uncle Bob was always the strong one. He always called me “Wang Wang Rae.” Wang Wang was their pet piggy and as my relatives know, I was quite a bundle when I was a baby.

My dad’s three younger sisters Auntie Mary Anne Ancheta, Auntie Coney Tamayo and Auntie Lorraine Hamn started their families in the US and we would see them and their children only on special occasions, as when there was a wedding or a death in the family. Those were the days before direct long-haul flights, and air travel was one big undertaking.

Auntie Mary Anne, a nurse, was always the prim and proper one. With high cheekbones and fair skin, she looked like a Sampaguita star. I remember her as very meticulous and organized, raising her five children seemed to be a breeze.

Auntie Coney was always the bejeweled one, with laughter that could light up a room with the brilliance of an eight-carat.  She was also a most engaging storyteller, and always the life of a party. The party only started to swing the minute she walked into the room.

Auntie Lorraine is the aunt I hardly know. She has not been back to the Philippines in four decades, but I’ve met her children Michael and Alexis, now a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco.

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Now, those are only the aunts and uncle of my dad’s immediate family. My Grandpa Nazario, a bemedalled veteran of two world wars, was the second of 13 children of Leandro Mayor and Josefina Villanueva (who died past her 100th birthday) of Romblon. Each of the 13 children had big families, too, so you could imagine that it would take a village to accommodate the entire Mayor clan if a reunion would be planned. Thanks to my Auntie Nellie, who is a repository of relatives’ names and memories, I would meet some relatives during birthdays. As time went by, sadly, it would be during wakes that we would bump into each other, and in some cases, meet relatives for the first time. 

But amazingly, there is really truth to the sayings “blood is thicker than water” and luksong dugo (literally, when the blood ‘jumps’ in recognition of a relative.)

 My sister who works in the US embassy once had to take a second look at an applicant who looked vaguely familiar, although she had never seen him in her life.  She took one look at his application form and there it was, his middle name was MAYOR. According to my sister, his eyes and eyebrows gave him away.

Another sister who runs a chain of gas stations also had this uncanny feeling about one customer. Again, the eyebrows. When the cashier swiped his credit card, she took a look, and true enough, his surname was MAYOR. She introduced herself.

Once, I was at the domestic airport’s gate 5, waiting for my flight to Cebu. Suddenly, a voice announced on the PA system that a flight for Palawan boarding on gate 6 was waiting for a ROBERT MAYOR, and that he was going to be left behind and his luggage offloaded if he did not show up soon. Well, what’s 20 more seconds of delay, I thought to myself as I positioned myself by gate 6, to see if the ROBERT MAYOR was my Uncle Bob or his son Bobby Boy, both of whom I hadn’t seen in decades because they had migrated to the US. In a minute, a man in his thirties ran to gate 6. “Bobby Boy!” I screamed. “Ate Joanne!” he answered as he paused before the boarding gate, much to the consternation of the airline personnel, to embrace me.

 What’s a few seconds’ delay in a lifetime where people are always coming and going but never connecting?

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A few Sundays ago, my Auntie Coney, now a widow who has chosen to retire in the Philippines, organized a reunion in the sprawling Tamayo compound in Biñan, Laguna to mark my Auntie Nellie’s birthday. She took pains to make sure that as many of us could attend. It was like a dry run for the BIG Mayor reunion.

Anyway, she was in for a pleasant surprise. Three generations of Mayors showed up. The last of the siblings of my Grandpa Zario, Grandaunt Long and Granduncle Lening, died two years ago, so there were no more representatives from their generation.

Present were representatives of five of the 13 first-generation Mayor siblings. Ching Lugtu from Maria Mayor Patiño, Nellie and Coney from Zario Mayor, Aldo Mayor of MMDA from Ramon Mayor, lawyer Yongyeng Martinez of DBP from Nitang Mayor Martinez and Kit Ravana, Edgar and Junjun Mayor from Leandro Mayor. Plus lots of children and great-grandchildren who frolicked in the swimming pool under a slight drizzle.

Luksong dugo, indeed.

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