BY JULIA CARREON-LAGOC
BEING here on the other side of the globe — in what others call Uncle Sam country — without full grasp of the happenings in the homeland, I search for topics to gad and gab about.
I visit my personal archives and lo! Here’s one I consider a classic: “Grandmothering.” Kind of common ground for all.
To remind us of our dear oldies whether they’re still around or across the Great Divide, the second Sunday of September is designated as Grandparents’ Day. Below are my best memories of my grandmother. What’s yours?
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This is about a grandmother of some 30-odd grandchildren gifted (this was her favorite term) by her three daughters and four sons. She died at age 86 and must be well over a hundred years old were she alive today. Dolores Calantas Rivera was my grandmother lovingly remembered by this granddaughter every Grandparents’ Day.
I myself am a grandmother of four grandkids – two in native terra firma and two on the other side of the globe. I’m not writing about me as a grandmother. I leave the scorecard – the pluses and minuses – for the grandkids to fill up as I journey on to my own grandmotherhood. It is but right.
What I am to a large degree, I owe to Lola Loling, some of whose habits, beliefs, likes and dislikes I imbibed via my mother. First page in my book of remembrances was that Lola was not a believer of superstitions. I’ve always believed that Lola was born ahead of her time. In that age when other grandmothers won’t allow using the broomstick at night, she would tell us to sweep clean the mess under the meal table. The belief then was that whatever fortune you possess will be swept away in the dark when one uses the broomstick at night.
While others will have to wait for the morning before separating from their pesos to pay out debts, Lola was the type to make good her money obligations any hour of the night. “Magbayad ka sang utang mo para maka-tulog sang ma-ayo (Pay your debts in order to have a sound sleep).” The same readiness to pay debts she expected from some poor folks in the community who came to her for financial emergencies.
Talking about debts and debtors, I remember Lola to have a bad word for usurers — money lenders “nga naga-puga sang balhas sang mamumugon (squeezing the perspiration out of the workingman).”
Lola understood microfinance as early as in the 1940s and 1950s. She would have been happy today to know how microfinancing benefits the little man without having to run to “5-6” bloodsuckers.
Lola had her way of going against traditions. At the day and age when the practice was to wear black for one whole year to mourn the passing away of a close relative, Lola defied the custom. Not in outward appearance do you show your grief over the death of a loved one; what counts is what is in the heart. I could almost hear Lola asserting that in crisp Ilonggo. I lost my mother ahead of Lola. Nanay died of breast cancer at age 56. Before the one-year mourning was over, I was pregnant with my second child and wearing black was very inconvenient as the black outfit absorbed much heat. Lola said to stop wearing black if doing so was uncomfortable. Wear what’s convenient was the advice. Yes, dear Grandma, it’s not the outward appearance that matters; what counts is what one feels in the heart.
Where’s the chink in the armor of this formidable woman? Others may not consider this a weakness, but I consider it a flaw in her person: being a habitual smoker of the dobla (rolled tobacco). The strong tobacco leaves must have contributed to bouts of asthma that finally did her in. All her three daughters didn’t take after her smoking. Neither did us, her granddaughters except one in Manila.
I deplore the fact that Lola was a pangging-gi (card game) addict. After every lunch, she would prepare the pang-ginggi table for her friends. Only one of my three aunts followed her footstep on this aspect of her life. But she didn’t go nuts over the popular game of chance, the small-time lottery. (Oh no, not the jueteng for her, Archbishop Oscar Cruz.) One of her daughters, however, got infected with the pang-ginggi habit.
Lola was a wide reader. Using a kingki (gaslight in a recycled bottle), she would read late into the night the “Hiligaynon” and “Yuhum”, the two popular vernacular magazines of her time. She made clippings of her favorite novels. Voracious reading was one aspect of her life I inherited, and which I abused. How? I would readily pick up a book to avoid household chores. Lola would tell Nanay, “Pabay-i ang bata kay nagatu-on (Leave the child alone because she is studying).” Lola must have seen through the ploy, but she left well enough alone.
The nicest thing about Lola was that she was not a nagger, not your typical grand matriarch on the ready to spill out grandmotherhood statements over and over. I could never remember having been nagged by my grandmother. Credit that to the one writing here being a good grandchild (conceited?), or just knowing when to stay away from creeping sermon time.
One memorable picture clearly etched in my mind was the picture of Lola, misty-eyed, as she looked at the gracefully curved, concrete staircase — the one remaining structure of her and Lolo’s house – being eased out of its foundation to give way to the construction of a grandson’s house. With a teardrop, Lola accepted how the old passeth away to give way to the next generation.
Being a columnist of this paper has given me a chance to sing paeans to my grandmother. Send me your own best memories and we’ll see about sharing these in print. (Comments to juliaclagoc@yahoo.com)/PN
