Having grown up in a household full of people, I can’t help but feel a tad lonely these days whenever night falls and there are only four of us in the house. Don’t get me wrong—I love it when we’re all tucked in and settled for the night, especially after a great evening meal of salad, macaroni soup, grilled pork with corn sidings, and a pitcher of ice cold tea.
In 1442 Sto. Rosario Street—the place I grew up in—it has always been a full house. Two households sit in our compound: Uncle B’s, my paternal granduncle, and Daddy’s, our paternal grandfather.
In Uncle B’s house, where we stayed till the early ‘90s, lived Uncle B, Aunt C, my parents, and us three siblings. Meanwhile, at Daddy’s, there was him and Mommy, Tita Dolly, and Tito Dodit. At any given point, we had at least one help per household—there was Josie, Tessie, Bebang, Alpha, and Rita—that much I can remember. Oh, and we’ve always had a dog or two: Charlie, Thrilla, Karen, Johnny, Bambi plus a huge family of cats, most of the time simply called Muning or Miming. There were also spaces for chickens, birds, turtles, fish, and hamsters—pets that have come and gone but made an impact on our then young lives.
The house, as I’ve described in a previous post, was what our older family members called the bagong bahay, to distinguish from the old house where our grand folks had lived. It is sort of a halfway house for family, extended or otherwise. Most relatives who lived in Cebu, Ilocos, Malolos, or who were living in the US, at one point in their lives found it the place to stay in, for the night or for the month, for the summer or over the holidays.
There was a time when my Mima, my Papa’s sister, also lived with Daddy, and so along with her were her kids Bucai and Sherwin, with whom we’ve spent countless hours of being happy (climbing up the windows, where we pretend to be monkeys at the zoo) or tearful (things always don’t end up happy when there are many kids around). At the very least, that’s 11 other people I can talk to, poke fun at, or just be with. There was no such thing as alone time or me time in Sto. Rosario!
As if these weren’t enough, our clan calls on every occasion to be together, giving us every reason to avail of Magnolia Ice Cream’s flavor of the month, often twice in a month. January through December are birthdays, fiestas, and anniversaries, graduations or recognition days, homecomings and despedidas, Easter, All Saint’s Day, Christmas, and then back again to welcome the New Year. Oh, I can’t even count the almost weekly visits made by my Lola, my mom’s mother who’s always driven in by Tito Willy, my mom’s brother!
During these gatherings, there would be everyone milling around, laughing, having fun this minute and then seriously engrossed in conversations on health the next. People saying hello, how are you, have you eaten, where’s your papa, is your Tito already here, hindi ka pa nagmamano sa ’kin ah. It is an occasion for the older folks to ask my pop to check their BPs; for our Titos and Titas to crack new jokes at us kids; and for us kids, well, to just squeal and run around and get all sweaty and stinky till someone calls for pansit and cake. Or ice cream, which would be scooped and passed around by our additional help for the day—usually Aling Saling and her brood, or Ate Mary and hers, and oftentimes, even our neighbors.
Yup, it’d always been a full house. Seldom was it a place I would call quiet—there’s always someone rounding us up, reeling us in. And it wasn’t an imposition, or a chore, as what my kids might feel these days—perhaps because they need to be dressing up and packing their stuff whenever we go there—as opposed to us living there and it really wasn’t too much to ask of us.
R had said so many times that he loves my family in that sense. That we could do phone brigade on a Friday and then everyone just troops there for the weekend and call it a celebration—just because it happens to be someone’s birthday week after next. Just today, my mom called and said they were there packing gift bags for my nephew’s birthday party next week. Aside from that, there was—of course—pancit. Who would miss that?
I did. In fact, we almost always do these days. Pass, I’d say, because we can’t leave the house by itself or there was work to do this Sunday. It is a long drive from where we are, toll fees and all, but deep down, I always want to be reeled in, take that bait of pancit. And R kinda knows when I really want to. He’d say, ok, let’s go, and I don’t need to explain why—he just gets it. I love him for that.
Yes, we enjoy our us times, our alone times here in Dao. But a little pancit now and then is just what I need to feel I was—and still am—part of something special.
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Pictured: Garden installation at Pinto Art Museum
Finally Dee 