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Blogs by Paul Cuenco
Predicament: Papa Eriong
3/15/2012 8:58:28 PM
My grandfather died in the 1986 at young age of 79. He went back home to the Philippines from Oakland, California and there, he died. They said that that night, he cough and cough and was brought to the hospital; and there, he met his ultimate death. He wanted to live longer. He was the gent I told you about that was so superstitious that he didn’t want to discuss death or dying. Even my grandma, when she was buying up land so she could be buried there, he halted that transaction. I wish I would have been back home, then. But I was on my transcontinental trip across America and didn’t have the chance to fly back. My mom did have that chance and she attended his funeral.
I remembered Papa very much in good light. We visited him in Manila every weekend. And when all the cousins and my sister was out playing, I would be discussing current events from what I read from Time and Newsweek magazines. He even requested the publisher to mail it to his address with the entire current grandchildren’s names. I would run up to their room and take off my shoes and I would read articles and then when I have absorbed the information, we would start discussing. This relationship started of when he visited us in the suburb of Quezon City. We talked about what country produces the highest quality of goods. He said that between the United States and Japan, the United States produces the higher quality. And then we discussed other items that affected the country.
He would normally give us twenty-five centavos. You know that twenty-five centavo was a lot of money for a kid, then. And we would spend it in anything we wanted, normally candies. On one summer vacation, I suggested that I would work for him as a summer job, but he did not take me on that offer. Nonetheless, I still got my twenty-five centavo.
But I migrated to the States and I haven’t seen him for a long time until he visited us in the States. He retired then at the Central Bank and was managing his apartment building. They lived with us for about a year. He would take walks around the neighborhood and when they have lived in our area for quite some time, he would go walk further a field. One night, when it was dinner time, he had not checked in yet. So there was a mad scramble to find him. I walked around Lake Merritt to find him. But when I reached home there he was. He just lose track of time and that was why he was late in coming home.
There was a tall building being built in an empty parking spot. He would spend time just watching the building grow. He would sit at a bench, in front of the building; and on some occasions, he would discuss with the workers and engineers how the building was built. This gave him an idea of buying land that he proposed it to mom and me. I was in my early twenties, then. In this new adopted land of ours, that seemed to be a foreign idea. So even though we did not pursue it, we gave it some thought.
He was very much an inquisitive person. When he needed a doctor, he asked around on how to have one; and he got one. (He was not destined to live the America. He knew that one day, they, my grandma and him, would be returning back to the Philippines.) He was also very friendly. When he was watching the building grow, he came across some people who had become his friends. They played golf. There was a park nearby and there was a putting green in the park. He learned how to putt and play golf, a little. And his new found friends gave him a putting golf implement.
But the reason why he wanted to go home was because of his golden wedding anniversary. He planned to celebrate it in Manila with a big wedding and reception. He allotted a lot of thought and money towards it. He planned dispensing paraphernalia like the abanicos (hand held fans) with the picture of his children’s weddings. He invited a lot of big-wigs. And he wedded my grandma, again I was told at Paco (?) (Mom can’t remember, anymore!) My cousin says that he was married in the Manila Cathedral. How joyous it was, a big celebration and I was not there to celebrate it with them.
But a year later, on my birthday, I was told that Papa died. I just arrived at Port Angeles in Washington, on my way home to Oakland. I was visiting the best friend of my mom, then. They were surprised that I visited them for it was all of a sudden. I was welcomed in and they sat me down. Then they laid the news on me, my “dad” died. I cried. My sister teased me now that I hagulgol (an intense grieving which by now becomes funny.) Then my mom’s friend corrected themselves, it was papa who died, my grandfather.
It was a sad affair. I don’t know why all of sudden I remembered him. Probably, it was a way of him asking me to remember him. After not seeing him for a long time, after not attending his wedding and then the funeral, this was a way of saying goodbye to him. So, “Goodbye, papa. I’ll see you in my memories and until I am taken away from this earth.”
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Website: www.paulcuenco.com
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