This story originally appeared in the Philippine Daily Inquirer on February 21, 2006.
I knew she would eventually pop the question after watching Nova Villa ask John Lloyd Cruz the same question countless times in her favorite telenovela. And she finally did, one afternoon when I got home from school.
“May boyfriend ka na ba?” my grandmother asked, her voice lilting, her expression uncannily like Nova Villa’s.
“Wala pa ho,” I said. “Hindi ko nga po ma-imagine .. ”
“Kung paano umibig at ibigin?” Lola finished.
Ugh. That wasn’t what I meant to say at all. I like to think I at least have some idea of love, however flawed or vague. Mills and Boon introduced me to romance back when I was in fifth grade. Now at 20, I’ve been to enough drinking sessions to witness several declarations of love.
“I was about to say I can’t even imagine how my parents got married when they were just about my age,” told my Lola. Real, enduring commitment, that’s what I can’t imagine. I, whose great commitment is to follow the antics of the animated fat, pink starfish, Patrick.
Lola considered me thoughtfully, probably thinking of my afternoon cartoon viewing. “Innocent ka pa,” she decided. She said it as if love were vulgar. Judging from historical romances and drunken revelations, I have to admit that love can get nasty.
Lola folded her hands over her belly and stared into the distance. I thought that it would come then: the stories she usually told after the marble table had been wiped and she had changed into a fresh duster and had her feet propped on a chair, the stories about the great loves of her life.
There was brown-haired Finley, whom her family spurned because his mother was a washerwoman, when in truth they were running a successful laundry shop. There was broad-shouldered Juanito, her best friend and constant companion, with whom she shared afternoons and sweet corn cobs. There was the brilliant uncle who, long before “The Da Vinci Code,” had told her about Mary Magdalene’s marriage to Christ. And then there was Lolo Doming, whom she describes as the least remarkable among her loves (“ugly” was the word she would use when she was annoyed), but the most loving and persistent of them all.
The stories did not come this afternoon. And looking at her, I remembered another time, some months after Lolo died. Her hands were also folded just so, although she was sobbing and rocking herself softly back and forth. “My husband has gone,” she lamented. “ My brother and sisters have gone. All my dearest friends have died. Sometimes, I feel so alone.”
So that’s how it goes. Nearing the end of your life, you are left with yourself. Strange, but at 20 and 80 we feel similarly lonely.
I’ve lost friends, siblings and younger cousins to their lovers. They had been caught up in bliss and swept away to worlds my innocent mind couldn’t possibly imagine. Unreachable even by text, giddily distant even across the dinner table.
Sometimes, I’d feel a loss for loves I never actually had, not knowing Lola, whom I care for and live with, could be silently grieving for the loves she had lost.
Lola was still quietly staring at that something, something that could be decades in the past. Her lined face was smiling. The afternoon was waning.
We make quite a pair, I realized. And for now, we can continue being lonely together.
