FOOD TRIP IN NARVACAN

OTHER than the scenic or rather memorable places of my hometown, one thing that made me so eager to go home again, is the food.

Fortunately, in my latest homecoming, I was not deprived of this rare opportunity to indulge in as many of my favorite Ilocano food as I can. My family, particularly Manong Ben and his wife Cion, were tireless in serving me the food that I crave so much. 

Good thing, Lloyd and Melchor, my classmates in PUP College of Law who joined me in my last visit to Narvacan, joined me in this gastronomic foray. My friends were only familiar with the popular pinakbet, dinengdeng, and the bagnet, while the rest of the Ilocano foods are exotic to them. That’s why I could see either a reluctance of a Fear Factor contestant or that why-not-try attitude when some of these foods were served to them.

Life was tough in Ilocos, but there was always food to give you a bit taste of heaven. Oh my, I have always loved these foods that were served during my homecoming.  

Imbaligtad. This is my number one in the list, because it has always been my usual request that my father would cook one as a welcome treat for me everytime I arrive here for vacation. Unlike the papaitan, which uses beef tripes and innards that are cooked over medium heat until tender, our delicious imbaligtad uses the freshest beef (laman or any lean part). The beef is just stir-fried with garlic, ginger and onion, and some hot chili to spice. Imbaligtad literaly means flipped over (“binaliktad” in Tagalog), so the beef is just quickly stir-fried at high heat on a few turns or flips. The effect is a steaming half-cooked fresh meat that tastes sweet and not rubbery. 

 

Sinanglaw. This is a pinapaitan minus the bitter taste of cow’s papait (a part of the stomach of a ruminant or a bile). Instead of bitterness, it is sourness of sukang Iluko (Ilocos vinegar) or a young tamarind (kamias can be an alternative) that dominates its taste. Thanks to Manong Ben who ushered me and my friends to a well-known sinanglawan in town, those found adjacent to the town hall, for a late-morning breakfast. I haven’t tasted a real sinanglaw (literally means “steamed” in the local dialect) for many years now, although according to my father, that type of sinanglaw we ordered in town is just replication of the better known Vigan sinanglaw which uses meaty portions of the cow, instead of cow’s heart, large intestines, tenderloin, lungs and skin that we usually do here in Narvacan. The ingredients are cut in small sizes and stewed with ginger, onion and pepper. For Melchor and Lloyd (who is from Batangas), sinanglaw tastes a lot like bulalo except the vegetables and ginger-y taste. 

 

Warekwarek. This is sometimes called dinakdakan by the non-Ilocanos. It is usually made of grilled pig head and face, similar to the Kapampangan’s sisig. Pork inards or entrails are also used for our local warekwarek. But I like it best when it contains liver (submerged in vinegar, not cooked or grilled) mixed with pig’s brain (or mayonnaise as alternative ingredient), onions, pepper and sukang Iluko, and spiked with calamansi. I usually prepare a dinakdakan at home for my kids and they really love its taste. And sisig, which is very close to warekwarek in taste and presentation, is my all-time favorite in carinderias. But whenever I have the chance to go back North I always look for the original warekwarek of my hometown. 

Kilawing kambing. The real thing or Ilocano way of this kilawen (eaten raw) uses the goat skin and meat, which is sliced into small sizes or thin strips just after it is grilled. It is mixed with sukang Iluko and finely chopped fresh onions and ginger, seasoned with salt and pepper, and usually with the goat’s papait for more flavor. I always associate kilawing kambing with a big clan reunion in Ilocos. We can’t have one without this favorite pulutan of the Ilocanos. During my youth in barrio Nanguneg, I would always help in the preparation, together with my brothers, cousins, and uncles, from the pulpog (burning off the hair of the carcass through fire) up to the slicing of the grilled meat and other ingredients to the tasting and the ensuing tagayan or drinking for celebration. That’s why for my father’s birthday last November, I volunteered to share an amount to buy a goat for his party, just to ensure that we have one for the gathering. 

Bagnet. This Narvacan delicacy is a dish of deep-fried chunks of pork similar to the Tagalog’s lechon kawali. What distinguishes bagnet from other fried pork dishes is the tremendously blistered skin, because it is fried longer, which literally transforms the pork skin into crackling, and the exterior portion of the meat well-browned and very crispy. How I love that succulent, flaky crisp pieces of skin and meat oozing with fatty goodness, especially when dipped in bagoong with crushed (I prefer this to sliced) tomato or calamansi! Other than the Narvacan longganisa, bagnet is my favorite take-home goodies from our town. This time, Manong Ben brought me and my friends to the market to buy for ourselves our take-home from a stack of newly fried bagnet at a stall. 

 

Jumping salad. These are shrimps straight from the net of a local fisherman to the dining table. They are literally jumping from the bowl while they are eaten raw. The rawness of the food makes first-timers really go argghh! But not to the adventurous kind like Melchor and Lloyd. I even teased Melchor to just open his mouth and wait for the shrimp to jump into his palate and chomp it at once. And to build up the activity, making the shrimps jump higher, I squeeze fresh calamansi or a drop a pinch of salt over the live shrimps. For the sawsawan (dip), I would pour patis or fish sauce (bagoong or soy sauce is a good alternative) into saucers.   

Ginataang palaka. It was Manong Ben’s idea to buy a kilo of frogs, which were already skinned to tender white flesh. “Let your friends, know we’re eating them,” he told me. Everyone needs to remember his or her first time, he would say, that is, eating this exotic food which to some is yucky or kadiri. I myself hadn’t eaten this childhood favorite of mine for years. When cooked, the dish looked like diminutive drumsticks on a milky soup. “It tasted just like chicken,” I had to explain to Lloyd and Melchor when a bowl of the dish was served to them for lunch. They were easily convinced and had another serving. My memories of these edible farm frogs are actually not limited to just eating but also catching them in the rice farms during rainy season in the barrio. Those were part of my happy childhood that I cherish to this day. 

 

Maritangtang. Next to tirem (local name for oyster) and unnok (a kind of clam), maritangtang (sea urchin) is one seafood that I crave so much when I’m home. According to my sister Mahren, this delicacy, called uni by the Japanese, is very expensive when ordered in a five-star hotel where she is working. Its yellowish flesh is the most expensive topping for sushi due to its scarcity in Japan. But this edible sea urchin were abundant in Ilocos, and it is sold very cheap, but not as cheap as when they were sold decades ago, according to my father who told me also that people of old would simply gathered them during low tide. During our last picnic in Nalvo beach of nearby Sta. Maria town with my classmates, my father upon my prodding, went to buy freshly harvested maritangtang worth P400 from a village sea pen. We roasted each maritangtang, and when it is done, we cracked the shell open and scooped that scrumptious yellow flesh. Actually almost everything inside the spiny shell is edible, including the briny water inside that tastes delicious as well. 

Dinengdeng. Enjoying a serving of my favorite dinengdeng, the real one as it is traditionally cooked by my mother, or my sister-in-law Cion, is another highlight of my food trip. Unlike the more popular pinakbet, dinengdeng, also called inabraw, uses fewer vegetables and contains more bagoong soup base. It is cooked with practically any vegetable that can be placed in the pot, and then simmered together until cooked. We, Ilocanos are, without a doubt, a vegetable-eating people. I think a lot of it has to do with the abundance of vegetables that are common ingredients of our dinengdeng, such as eggplant, squash fruit or its blossoms, string beans, okra (ladyfinger), paria (bitter gourd), saluyot (jute), marunggay (moringa) leaves or fruits, kabatiti (luffa), pallang (winged bean), kamote (sweet potato) tops and roots, and kangkong leaves. I like the dish with bits of roasted fish, like dalag or bangus, for added flavor.  

source of buridobod photo: pinakbet.wordpress.com

Buridibud. I have been longing to try this dish, which is another version of dinengdeng, using the combination of alukon (green worm like flowers of a local tree), patani, and diced kamote to give texture to the broth, and some eggplant, kumpitis (a local pod) and marunggay leaves. Roasted fish, especially the local fish called bunog, is a good sahog or flavoring. It’s truly a unique Ilocano concoction of what’s sweet and pulpy to go with a variety of vegetables, leaves, fruits and tubers. I have also tried preparing it at home in Bulacan with my kids, and among the vegetable dishes that I introduced them, buridibod to them is one of the best. But nothing could beat my mother’s own version, of course.

Melchor and Lloyd

I’VE listed 10 here, but I should have more if I was able to gobble other exotic Ilocano food that I crave so much, such as any dish with mushroom (uong saba) and the ipon (a small fish endemic to Ilocos). Some of the local delicacies are missing in my last vacation because they are seasonal.

So I can now characterize my vacation as full of hearty burps.

HOMECOMING

I WENT home to Narvacan, Ilocos Sur (320 km north of Manila) to attend my father’s 71st birthday last November 11. “It might be my last,” he went on when he invited me a month before. So off I went, and gave respect to my father who’s now suffering a heart ailment. But I found the opportunity to visit my hometown and to REALLY get home.

I awfully wanted this homecoming, not only for my father’s sake, but also to fulfill a wish for myself. That is, I went home to unburden what seems to be a heavy load inside me, to return and discern the essence of my life again, and to see if I had achieved what I had dreamt to achieve as a child to achieve, and had done things to make my parents and my childhood playmates proud. 

It’s a perfect moment of reconnecting ties, a rekindling of relationships, and a revisit of that bond that connects me with my kin and the place of my birth. 

And my homecoming would not be complete without a visit to Paraiso ni Juan, a low-profile but beautiful beachside landscape in Barangay Sulvec, and a trek in its rocky shores to a local landmark as if in a pilgrimage for a hidden sanctum.

This time for my latest homecoming, two of my classmates in PUP College of Law accepted my invitation to visit Paraiso ni Juan. This might not be a setup, of course, because while I only have personal reasons to reach the spot, I have desired my visitors to appreciate the beauty of the place, telling them that they couldn’t really say they visited Narvacan when they haven’t gone to Paraiso ni Juan.
 

Several steps away from the rocky shoreline of Paraiso is the Immagamang, the local name for the two-storey-high craggy boulder, where a grotto of the Virgin Mary stands solitary on top. This seaside landmark, which got its name from the Ilocano word agamang meaning “rice granary or storehouse,” is very visible when you are travelling on a curve of the coastal road several kilometers away. 

Although both were first-timers in Ilocos and for this kind of trek, my friends willingly braved the craggy shorelines with me.

There was a part of water which we have to cross to get there. We took off our sandals and folded our pants higher. It was high tide, and the swells were big, while some parts were very slippery. We were fortunate that a relative who also drive us to the place was kind enough to guide us until we reach the wide flat area just below the rock. We lingered for a moment to catch a glimpse around the enticing landscape, that calm and shimmering blue ocean surrounding us, with the verdant coastal hills and mountain ranges providing a picturesque backdrop on the other side, everywhere illumined by the silvery glow of the morning sun. My friends heaved a sigh of relief as they looked back on that part of the shore where we have started.

I took the lead in climbing the rock using the man-made steps on its side (this was not yet made when I was young, so back then only the brave and able would dare to climb the rock with bare hands).

There’s always something about the rock that simply tugs at my heart. As I gaze at the pristine water of the South China Sea at its foot with its intermittent swells breaking at the craggy shores, I can feel the warmth, love, and tranquility of the surroundings.  And best of all the memories it brings are endearing.

During my college days, I couldn’t help looking at the solitary rock while passing this place on my way to Vigan. Because the place is situated in the northernmost boundary of Narvacan, the rock would serve as a perfect marker that would tell me I am leaving my hometown, and when I went home after a week of study in the kabisera, it would be a welcome mark for my homecoming (our home is in Nanguneg, which is situated at the town’s southernmost boundary). When I was in high school, our rowdy group of all boys would haunt the place as a favorite getaway for the awesome view, for fun and adventure, as we loved to race around the rocky area, and for a dive. 

My late wife’s had also scaled the rock with me during our vacation in Narvacan in 1999. She liked it so much when, after a tortuous trek and a risky climb on the side of the rock, we reached the top and got to see the view.

And when I was on top of the rock this time, it was like feeling in love again. That kind of love that makes you feel lost, and yet you know you’re safe. If only I could stay here alone until sundown, I might find the solace I am looking for after a tragic event in my life. I would like to think of my immediate future and at least feel some sense of peace and consolation.

Even for a brief moment with my classmates on top of the rock, I had at least the feeling, that thrill of being on a familiar spot, and be finally home.  

Three days after that climb, I went back to Manila with my friends. It was really for a brief visit, as my life, work and family have been enmeshed in some other place. But again that particular day of November was a moment of being at home and feeling the real comfort of a seafarer after finding a sturdy shelter from a “storm.” And like just any traveler, it was the solace of a home that I tried to seek and succeeded even for the briefest time.

I feel I’ve been uprooted again from my home, away from my father and the whole family, our close-knit clan, our neighbors, and a newfound love. I thought of another homecoming soon, or I risk wasting my life in loneliness away from home.

GRIEF IS NOT A FAILURE

(Published in The Philippine Star, Sunday, November 27, 2011. Weekly Winner of the My Favorite Book contest sponsored by National Bookstore) 

THIS one is a brief review of the novel Ordinary People by Judith Guest. It was a fairly quick read, but I still feel its lasting impression.  And here’s why.

I didn’t know anything about the book, its author, or its theme until I picked it up and browsed it. Upon reading the backside that its movie adaptation, directed by the legendary Hollywood actor Robert Redford, was highly praised and won the Oscars for Best Picture in 1980, I didn’t hesitate to buy it.

Why not? Choosing between bestsellers and award-winning books (Pulitzer Prize, National Book Awards, Nobel Laureates’ magnum opuses, etc.), I prefer the latter category. And books made into highly acclaimed movies have always been a good alternative. After reading Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front and Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient, both winners of Best Picture in the Academy Awards in 1930 and 1996, respectively, I’ve been on a frantic hunt for novels whose movie adaptations won the Oscars’ most coveted award. 

Ordinary People is one of those novels (actually an old book from the ‘70s, when no cell phones, computers, or social networking got in the way of a good story) I didn’t realize was out there to be discovered or explored. Its theme is universal, which is the loss and the different ways people deal with it.

It is written from the perspective of a reserved teenager, Conrad Jarret, trying to tackle by himself the loss of his older brother. Out of guilt for not being able to do anything to help his brother in an accident while boating together, and feeling disconnected from his parents, he attempts to commit suicide, which lands him in the hospital for eight months. Later on, his father helps him find a psychiatrist.

The family the book depicts is appropriately “ordinary,” that is, they’re familiar to us. They could be your neighbors or relatives, or could be your own. The characters seem real: you hear them speak and you see their pain, and feel for them.
I can relate to the book’s compelling theme. I really felt for the surviving son and his father Cal, as he tries to reach out to him. I felt connected to both of them. I lost my wife last August, or barely a month before I read this book. With her untimely demise due to breast cancer, all my dreams of getting old, complete and satisfied, with her and our children sank into a black hole and I have yet to cope with the ordeal of being a shocked survivor. I had this uneasiness, however, in seeing my own incomprehensible emotions laid out before me page after page in this novel.

Reading through the struggles of the surviving family members, it brings to mind Hamlet’s affecting question: “To be or not to be?” You suddenly feel envious of the dead, because they are in peace while the survivors have to live long and deal with the traumatizing event, and suffer with more and more issues, like the idea of suicide, isolation, brokenness, deep longing for connection, and a cesspool of unwanted memories.

I’ve read some novels with the same subject—bereavement—and I can only remember Bag of Bones by Stephen King (a writer suffering a severe writer’s block after the death of his wife); The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (a father who is consumed with guilt at having failed to save a daughter and a mother who drifts away and leaves her husband after the tragic death); and The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (a rich hunchback shutting off from his mind a sickly son and a beautiful garden after an accident killed his wife), but none had put more than the usual amount of emphasis on depression from a clinical standpoint. 

Ordinary People is a very psychologically astute book that tells us matter-of-factly that depression is, in the words of the novel’s psychiatrist, Dr. Berger, “not sobbing and crying and giving vent, it is plain and simple reduction of feeling.” It’s your own choice why you feel numb or void of feelings, because it is your mind’s way of protecting itself. But it is the kind of isolation and being lonely and miserable that is unforgiving and cannot be forgiven when there are people who are more than willing to listen and patiently try to lift you up. I really like that shrink.

So for anyone who has ever struggled with similar loss or depression, this is an eye-opening book. It shows how grief may drive people away from the shelter of the family unit, and yet the same grief may also draw some closer together, like the son and his father in the story. Even “ordinary people” can overcome difficult and unthinkable circumstances all the time, and some handle these poignant and razor-sharp emotions differently, most of them with success. And some made good with the help of a counselor or a psychiatrist.

There is goodness about all things. The book tells us then that there is no insurmountable pain in bereavement. Life may be a lot of problems, yet it is full of hope. The good Dr. Berger has also remarked that after bereavement, “there is just Phase Two. Recovery. A moving forward.” That could be a guiding principle, a perfect mantra, in any depressing time or some shattered relationship.

Except for the deterioration of the marriage between Cal and his wife, the novel ends on a positive note. Conrad Jarret slowly starts to respond to Dr. Berger, and comes to terms with his feelings. The teenager becomes his own man and gets over wallowing in his intoxicating survivor’s guilt and identity crisis, thus resolving the internal conflict of the story.

People just need to learn to work with and around each other in order to live their lives and be happy. I would not have learned these things if I didn’t pick up this outstanding book. I am now well reminded of the reasons that life is still worth living in spite of some horrible things.

After all, grief is not a failure. 

UNSENT BIRTHDAY LETTER

TODAY is my late wife’s birthday and I don’t know how I will observe her very special day. Two days before, my daughter suggested that we would celebrate by preparing the usual fare for a family occasion, a hearty snack of pancit bihon or canton, puto and lechon manok. “It doesn’t mean that Mom’s gone, we no longer celebrate for her?” she said in a sad voice. My sons wanted us to go to church on Sunday (I admit, since the death of my wife a few months back, I haven't attended a mass in church). Or visit her grave in Makati. 

But I thought of staying home and rather be left alone only for this day. I just wanted to meditate, and to reach her. Or, perhaps, to forget everything if I could. If only for today.

I can’t help but look back to those years we spent together, especially on special occasions like her birthday. Did I make her happy? Did we have special times together? I admit that I committed my share of some laxity to our relationship. It may be plain absent-mindedness on my part, or may be the lack of means and time. But I always love my wife. I always will. Now I understand what they have always been saying: “You only love the person more when he or she is gone.” 

But I have to work in the office today, and the kids have to go to school. And this morning I talked with them and had to explain that their Mom may not be around anymore and we might not be celebrating her birthday as we did before, but we know deep in our heart that we always remember her.

While browsing my file weeks after the burial in August I stumbled upon this letter I wrote for her during her birthday exactly seven years ago. It was purposely unsent because it was part of my journal then. I felt a sharp pang of regret for not giving her the chance to read it. Well, reading it now, it provides me a glimpse or a touching episode of our past together.

                                                          November 28, 2004 

Dear Rosalie,

It’s your 32nd birthday today, and it’s my 9th year to greet you personally in your most special day. Why, of course, in that span of time, we never had a special or I should say, extraordinary celebration, other than those warm kisses we would have early in the morning, watching movie and dining out together, and giving you simple gifts. I couldn’t think of a different or more special way beyond my means—no extravagant trip to Hong Kong or Boracay, no shopping spree in Glorietta or in Bangkok, no diamonds and golden bracelets, no song and dance numbers, no circus. But two days before, I thought of buying you this time a potted plant, perhaps a white rose or an orchid, or any ornamental plant that you can nurture every day. I thought also of giving you this potted plant along with a fashionable T-shirt or blouse, which I have never done in your previous birthdays. Remember last year, I gave you a Shoemart gift check worth P1,000 (now you may call that lack of creativity!)? And I let you—in fact, I accompanied you—buy the things you wanted with it. But the problem is, I don’t have extra money now to buy you some special gift. It’s two days short of the pay day, and I only got P20 and a loose change from the P2,000 I borrowed from my sister May, which I had used to pay for my application fee for the LAE [an entrance exam for freshmen at UP College of Law].

I didn’t have the time to go to a department store in EDSA or even in nearby Carriedo Street from my work because days before that, I had been cramming in my review for the entrance exam. And worse, the date of the examination coincides with your birthday today. So please understand why I have to be away from the special lunch you prepared for our visitors from Malate, Ate Tess and Nanay, and my brother Milton who came over from Sampaloc [Manila] to cook my favorite dish dinakdakan. So while you were eating then, I was wracking my rather rusty brain to solve a barrage of difficult questions from the exams, especially problem solving, and abstract and logical reasoning. But I have been thinking that an exam like this coinciding with your special day would, like the proper alignment of the stars, augur a better fortune for both of us.

I’m very sorry if I couldn’t give you a special present for this occasion. I’ll just make up soon, perhaps, this Christmas or on our wedding anniversary on December 30. Happy birthday, sweetheart!

                                                                      NEYO 

My wife didn’t reach her 39th birthday today. Knowing her condition then, I had been saving for a trip out of town, or to a place of her choice, for just the two of us. But it’s too late now. I already had spent the money I saved for our children’s needs. I had also stopped writing for my journal since middle of 2005, and now those loose pages had become part of a memento that could easily bring those fond memories of my life and that of my kids with her.

I passed the LAE, and enrolled at UP in June 2005 but had to transfer to another school after the first semester. I should have stopped after my short and dismal stint in the premier university, but it was my wife who urged me to continue my studies. Now I am into my last semester before I earned my law degree, but it’s very sad that my wife is no longer here to see me receive my diploma next year. But I know she would gladly wait that day, wherever she is right now. And having thought of this, when I say “Happy Birthday, Sweetheart!” I know she would gladly accept that in spite of my shortcomings. 

PASS YOUR POEM!

MAYBE nothing is normal to me these days. Maybe it’s about the pesky November rain, the last days of the wet season bordering on the much-awaited cool breeze of December, or the forthcoming Christmas celebration itself, with all its blaring music and commercial festivities, while I’m here missing my wife again. 
 

Lately I have been feeling really tired, trying to drive this icky depression that has been bothering me since August. Maybe in my previous life I was an African lovebird grieving for a lost mate. I would just stare blankly beyond my short beak, or would be looking for something that no longer exists. After a time I would say, “OK, that’s quite enough for me,” then you would hear a thud, and see me lifeless in my miserable cage. But this grieving lovebird in me has brood to think about, it wants to be a lawyer, and it is still dying to write its masterpiece.

Maybe nothing is normal when I started writing snippet of verses in my depressed mode, rather than when I am inspired. When nothing seems normal to me, as I’ve written in a previous blog, I would just write naturally. 

During a boring class, for instance, or when the professor doesn’t mind at all what his or her students are thinking on their seats, or doesn’t even mind I was present in class, writing down anything that would come to my mind in order to beat that unwanted tediousness is as normal as yawning for me. I could also doodle lines and figures on my notes, or draw a figure playfully, sometimes using the person in front of me as a model, or I draw my hands, my toes, my knees or my shoes, while thinking when will I buy another pair, or I just sketch a semi-abstract portrait of my teacher with all the distinguishable facial expressions. 

But what is palpably not normal to me these days is allowing my self to write a verse while taking an exam. 

Who could imagine that I had a chance to do it with gusto? Of course, you may say, it depends on the kind of exam. Was it a breeze, or a very short one and the time given to answer was disproportionately long, that I had the luxury of time to wait for the first person to submit his or her paper before I submit mine? Was it a hurdle, or the questions required answers outside those things that I had read about, so I stumbled and fell, and never wanted to rise up again but remained to be awake for the rest of the hour, and then ensconced myself on my seat in blissful ignorance? Or was I really feeling low and suicidal, that a Muse crept in daintily with a magical balm, soothing my mood and shutting me off my world?

I could use the last two situations to justify my act.

It was not an ordinary exam though, and unannounced. It was a graded quiz for a major (bar) subject in law school. I wasn't able to read my textbook nor had the chance to peruse my notes and reviewers. A justification, however, is in order: I worked that day until 5 p.m. in the office, though usually when I have an evening class such as this one, I logged out from work as early as 3 p.m. to have extra time to refresh for the subject. A night before that and during a break in the office, I worked on my article for a regional literary magazine, where I am a regular contributor, in order to meet the deadline late in the afternoon. Besides, I expect my professor would lecture that day. Our class could no longer afford for recitation or oral test, as we were already pressed for time to complete the coverage for the subject. We only had two meetings left before the final exams, so perhaps, I thought, the professor would just give us pointers or explain some key points for the remaining topics we were about to discuss.

So I came to the class prepared to listen and take down notes, but not to take any exam. And when the assigned proctor entered our room and told our class to immediately prepare for a long quiz, I was absolutely staggered. All of us nine in the class could not do anything but to listen to the instructions, got the questions, and started to answer them in utter discomfort. Better than walking it off though.

I was able to answer three of the five questions, though I wasn’t so sure if my answers would satisfy our absent professor. The last two questions were an ordeal. I could only guess the answers. Just use your common sense or at least be sensible with your guesses, I remember this advice from a classmate. Yet I have very little explanations for my guesses. So what would you expect for me to do while waiting for that appalling signal “Time’s up! Finished or not finished, pass your paper”? But no one was submitting his or her paper yet, and we still have one full 30 minutes to finish the exam.

So I tried to listen to the ticking of the wall clock, then I stared at the clock face with fibrous web bothering its rim. Suddenly I thought about spider webs, and I remembered Spider-man hanging upside down while his lady love kept on smacking at his exposed lips, but then I remembered my wife snuggled beside me while watching the scene together in a movie house. Then I thought of another movie, but another memorable scene would lead to a haunting episode with my late wife in a movie house again. I thought of doing a 10-count jumping jack, or to smash the head of the lizard on the ceiling. I suddenly crave for r.e.m. or U2 songs. I thought of so many things. Yet I was tied to my seat with the half-empty answer sheet staring at me. 

Then I thought of capturing bits of this somewhat muddled emotion, put it in a bottle and smashed it against the wall for the proctor to see. But he wouldn’t care at all, as he was now smugly seated in the front row, his back toward us, talking in murmurs with his girlfriend whom he brought along for his task. OK, I thought. I started to push my pen across the lines on the sheet in front of me. It started with a single line of an uninhibited thought, and then followed by another line and another line to integrate another short disarray of images, and more ensuing lines. You may call the lines shallow, but their instantaneous release was very helpful. Ah, verse writing seems so easy to write when I’m bored and distressed.  And such ease paves the unhampered way to flex my lethargic verbal muscles.

So here’s the evidence of a random, wayward thoughts from an unlikely place:

As transcribed below:

air exhaled gone before

it dispersed in a mist

but tears don’t dry up easily

in the absence of heat

now searching for the element  

in a space beyond the cloud

hovering this misty morn

blocking up the grayness

of the sun.

if only I could

reverse the direction

of the wind

and bring you back,

to the meadows of our dreams

where the sun is yellow

and the air we inhaled

is tangible, in flesh.

The result of the exam was a disaster. Except for one or two of my classmates, everyone got a failure grade. Later at the end of the semester, only three out of nine in the class passed the subject. Obviously I flunked it, and I enrolled it again this semester, which at present is the only and last remaining subject that I have enrolled before I graduate from law school this coming March. 

So, while the three passers were rejoicing and those who failed were contemplating on their fate for having another semester of long lectures, tough recitations and quizzes, some may be unannounced, I have this souvenir of a poem to talk about, and to justify pro hac vice my abnormal act.

FIRST VISIT

I VISITED Manila South Cemetery for the first time since the funeral a little less than three months ago. I went there on Sunday, October 30, two days earlier than the actual date of the nationwide commemoration for the dead (November 1 or 2), with my three children, my mother-in-law, and a sister-in-law in tow. I just wanted to avoid the mad rush in the area and the unnecessary festivities and maddening commercialization of the memorial day.  
 

It was a beautiful afternoon, bright and windy, unlike on the day of the funeral where it was gloomy and dark with rain. But the first time I went to her grave I felt like the day we put her to rest. No doubt, the overall grief and all it's triggers and nostalgia were there. But unlike some months before, I didn’t allow myself to be overwhelmed by a paroxysm of grief. My eyes, though, were dried. Well, it just felt so weird, like it was not happening again, but I must accept, just like the way I accept all the realities that came into my life now. No more self-pity or misery, that is, if I can.

I did not come to my wife’s grave to grieve for her loss, but to communicate with her. Visiting and speaking with her reinforced this feeling that she is still here in my heart. It helped a lot to say all the things that I wish that I had said to her during her suffering, especially my regret about my helplessness to save her. Rosalie’s death was so sudden and unexpected that I find the need to talk with her, to have such harsh reality finally sink in and try to bury this sadness in the graveyard. 

I’ve read a story about a man who would take a beach chair to the cemetery every morning with his coffee. There he would sit, drink the coffee, and have a lengthy conversation with his wife. This might sound crazy but, yes, the man had a good purpose: to express himself out, albeit in the quietude of his grief. But I couldn’t be like this man. I just wanted this day, this very first visit, to tell my wife all I wanted to say. I repeated over and over in my mind how sorry was I, and how much I love her and really miss her.  

I could feel her while I was at her graveyard (which she shared with her father and other departed relatives), blankly staring at the depressing headstone with her name on it. I wanted to believe she actually heard me say those unspoken words for her. That she is watching over me and my children not only during this visit, but wherever we are and whenever we think of her. The visit to the cemetery was just a manifestation, or you might say a public way, of remembering her—isn’t it good to express or to draw out your grief?—,of how her family misses her, not only this day but everyday of our lives.

A line from Robert Frost came into my mind when I was in the cemetery. They were the first four lines from one of his popular poems “In a Disused Graveyard.”

The living come with grassy tread
To read the gravestones on the hill;
The graveyard draws the living still,
But never anymore the dead.

Yes, the living will always come to honor their faithful departed even though they are long gone. No one is being buried in the memories of the living. The graveyard, which is a metaphor for a full stop or the ultimacy of everything, is also an everlasting shrine to the living that people are not immortal, and in the fullness of their time, they would be joining their dead in the same gravesite.

I just wonder how long it would take to remember your dead after you have died. So who would remember my wife when I was gone, and then finally all of our children and relatives had to leave this life, too? Will her gravesite no longer be "disused"? Or was it only then that Death would finally bring the dead or those who are forgotten to oblivion? 

We stayed in the cemetery for more than two hours, or just as soon as the last stick of candle started to dim its light. We left the melted wax and the flowers behind, but we brought with us the same love for my wife, and the same memories about the love she had for us.

LUCKLESS CHARMS

HONESTLY, I don’t believe in lucky charms, amulets or superstitions hinged on luck. But right now I got a pair of “lucky charms” tucked in my wallet.

They were two miniature figures of animals made of paper. They were origamis of a fish and a bird in green art paper made personally by my son Nathaniel as simple present for my birthday last September. He gave them to me with a note bearing this message: According to Japanese tradition, an origami heron/bird means long life while the other (fish) means money/wealth. Put the fish in your wallet always.

Just like what he wanted me to do, I thrust them in my wallet, and stayed there ever since, not so much for good luck, but rather for their sentimental value, like any special gift from some special person.

But I don’t capitalize on his heart-tugging wish for my long life and wealth, but for what he felt or thought about me after his mother’s death. There’s no question that he has insight into my big lost, or perhaps sees me now as running out of luck. To him, I’m Superman just downed by a kryptonite, or Samson who lost his seven locks, or a Jedi who lost the Force within him now suffering series of setbacks. I need help so badly, I must hang on, no matter what, and to overcome everything from mighty odds to terrible misfortune and even mind-boggling tragedy, and become my son’s hero again.

That would take a lot of heroic guts, of course. And my son is more than willing to help with his good luck gift.

Before the tragedy, some people were emphatic about the luck our family had then, that is, for being happy and complete. I remember them saying that we are so blessed. They say I am lucky (or blessed, as some people use to mean the same as lucky) for having a regular job, a pretty wife and three bright kids. They say we are lucky with the house we are living in right now, a fact attested by a friend of my in-laws in Malate, who is believed to have a third eye or gifted with an unusual skill on magic spell, when she visited our house. The plump and mysterious woman told me that there were no bad spirits or elementals residing with us in the house, but what we only got was a harmless gang of white duwendes (elves) occupying some corner in the front yard.

A former yaya of my daughter would attribute these elves for the luck that brought about the quick recovery in our finances from the loss we suffered after we were swindled by our real estate agents, and why, after our pricey mistakes, we got our own house from a clean title. It might not be true, but who am I to disagree to another person's belief?

In fact, my late wife grew up in a family believing all those luck and, like most Filipino families including ours in Ilocos, theirs was practically prone to idiosyncratic superstitions. I don’t have any problem with superstitions, as long as they would do my family no harm. So when my family transferred to our new abode in Bulacan almost ten years ago, I allowed myself to be involved in those little rituals associated with such occasion. I brought in a jar of salt, a bottle of water first, and a cup of rice, before we entered some of our things. And going back farther to the past, during my wedding, my wife and I did almost everything or followed superstitions for good luck which our elders said that were connected to the conduct of the wedding, other than those required of the traditional rite in the Catholic church. Otherwise, they warned me, some bad things would befall the marriage.

But somehow, deep inside, I also joined other people who desperately need to believe in luck. I have this clandestine hope that something good may happen to our marriage and the whole family with every luck that I could get.

My wife even had these “charms” she kept during the last few years of her life: a medallion, a rose petal from a blessed shrine, a tissue with a blood of a saint, stampita, a prayer booklet with a piece of a cloth from an image of the Nazarene, and a cultic symbol of an eye inside a triangle. She might have kept them for their charms, or the miracles they promised evoke or for sentimental reasons. But she died just the same.

Part of the many questions of my grieving mind that I desperately looked for answers upon her death, is why these lucky charms, or such incantations of miracles, didn’t help her at all. Now that my wife’s gone after almost 15 years of marriage, and our family no longer complete, does it mean that our luck had expired or we are not lucky after all, in spite of the rituals, charms and those thingamajigs involved in evoking luck? Is it our bad luck that we have to suffer this way?

My mother, just days before my wife’s death told me that a man in our place in Ilocos with an otherwordly power against witchcraft whom she solicited for an unusual opinion, told her that there were two women—both from the Visayas—who were very envious of my wife, who went to a mangkukulam (witch) to harm my wife fatally. I knew a couple—both Bisaya—who were envious of my wife for some reason only the couple or my wife knew. But I am not the kind of person who can easily believe this kind of implausible report, even if it comes from my mother.

Putting witchery or magic into the picture is beside the point. I am referring to the malas—the “negativity” that had befallen us. But I still can’t get my head wrapped around the idea that our fate was really preordained, and we could just wait when and how it would happen, just like how the Greek tragedians portray a man, as a helpless creature borne along by destiny, so he had no right to whine or pity himself, or complain about indeterminable events caused by a combination of unpredictable forces.

My wife’s devotion to Mother Mary and lately to Divine Mercy is unquestionable. She was a very prayerful person, especially during the last stages of her illness. I could feel her resolve to live a little longer for us, that she must hold on to her faith for the last time, but somehow, God must have known what is best for her.

I am not as religious as my wife, but I always believe in a Supreme Being, and luck had nothing to do with what He did for us.

Now whenever I look at the origamis in my wallet, they remind of the thoughtfulness of my son, and my commitment to be with my three children during their own inexplicable grief, rather than the luck these paper charms may bring. I believe that it’s only through prayers that I will be able to get a remarkable confluence of elements all working together for our family. What is important is not the tragedy itself, but how I must respond to it. Hence, with or without any lucky charm, I must look for a way to make things better in my family.

Just wish me luck, if you may!

CINQUAINS

august night at p.g.h.

m.d.’s,

carers, interns,

zookeepers and vultures

in a labyrinth of melding

colors.

zombies,

whirling about;

my world, peripheral,

like zebra stripes off a huge wall:

lifeless.

framed sky

abysmal black

blank stares, Janus-faced fate,

in calloused hands with flawless gowns

amen.

thin line:

vanishing twitch…

green strip on black, soundless!

a pink-less rose, withered and stiff

aground.

*  * *

I first encountered cinquains during my college days, and this time around is a sort of rediscovery or a revisit of this relatively quaint format in poetry. For those who are not familiar with this form, a cinquain is a class of poetic forms that employ a five-line pattern, similar to the Japanese tanka. The style I used here is from the modern version invented by American poet Adelaide Crapsey, using 22 syllables distributed among the five lines in a 2-4-6-8-2 pattern.  

I used to write snippets of verses. The activity, albeit brief and spontaneous, can be an excellent source of freedom and a tamed arena for releasing tensions. When I am inspired I scribbled maybe just a line or two that might relate personally to my experience or emotions at that moment. My lines don’t necessarily employ the conventional use of meter, and no rhythm scheme or pattern but bespeak rather of things that I am extremely interested in or passionate about. But this is my first attempt of writing cinquains. 

The above samples are products of random thoughts on verses originally “written” in my cellphones and saved as SMS during the two-week confinement of my wife before her death and the succeeding days when I was in the hospital to accomplish some important documents. The fragments included here are stray thoughts in separate occasions; I just let my thoughts flow and did a couple of drafts after that. And I discovered that some of them are very near to the cinquain format. I only have to revise of them a little, and picked a set of four to complete a single thought.  

So there, and you just to look closely how some unrelated words relate to each other for an imagery. They are so brief for so much commentary!

WIDOWER

WEEKS after my wife died at the age of 38 from breast cancer last August 5, I remember going in a daze to the Social Security System office in downtown Manila to file for funeral benefits. I came late and there was already a queue of anxious people waiting for their turn at the counter. A small group made me a part in their curious conversation, two of them widows in their fifties. The men are either retirees filing for pension or younger ones filing for sickness benefits. I didn’t meet in that small group a husband like me who had lost his wife.

That’s where I heard a chorus line of their opinion of me or my present situation: “Batang-bata ka pa para maging biyudo (You’re too young to become a widower).” I try to figure out the meaning of the words batang-bata (very young) and biyudo (widower). Well, it's true about the first word, relative to the widows and the retirees. But I was stung by the second word.

I left the cramped building finding myself shaking off stupor and trying to contemplate on the word biyudo, so clear and factual, as a new category of my civil status.

I belong now to thousands of Filipinos every year who are thrust into the role of a widow—young actress Camille Prats being one of the latest additions—and widower, being forced to learn how to cope on their own after many years of sharing a life with their partners. But a widower and a single father at my age is a very rare circumstance. An American survey reveals that widows outnumber widowers by nearly five to one.

During the wake, a cousin told me that among our relatives, there are widows but never there has been a widower. For her record, I must be the first widower in our enormous clan. An aunt and a grandaunt, both widows residing abroad, called me up in separate occasions to offer comforting words, but they could only tell me as far as what they had gone through as a woman or a mother who had lost their respective partners. They only have hypothesis on how a male homo sapiens would get by when he lost his life's mate. 

While my widowed relatives speak of feeling abandoned or deserted, I felt I have lost a big chunk of me. I saw myself as an incomplete human being and presently incapable of so many things, such as managing the household and caring for my three children. Last month, my primary source of inspiration and comfort had vanished without warning. What's left with me is this horrible fact that I have another 30 or more years left in this world without a partner.

I am on my last semester in law school, and by next month, I will be taking the last final exams for the course. At the time of my wife's death and the ensuing wake, I was scheduled to take the mid-term exams. Missing the exams and having incurred a number of absences more that what is required in most of my subjects made me decide to file a leave of absence, or perhaps to stop law school altogether. Without the encouragement from my classmates, I might not have gone back.

My wife had always been my inspiration. When I failed on my first try at law school, she lifted me up, and supported me even more when I transferred to another school. Without her now, I suddenly lost my direction, as if I was floating in an unchartered sea without my sail. I mourn not only for my spouse who died, but also for the future I had expected to have with her. 

My classmates and some of my friends may see me "acting normal again" but when I am alone the grief frequently returns. No matter how much I tried to regain my life, carry on with normal routines for my children's benefit, and catch up with the lessons, in preparation for the final exams, I am still bothered with numbness and denial. My grief doesn't magically dissipate. I still couldn't concentrate; my focus narrow.

Sometimes I was racked with guilt, and I regretted the lack of or poor decisions I had made. I even blamed my wife’s death on myself. I should not have allowed her to find cure outside of medical intervention. I should have had my way in forcing her to proceed with the surgery at the earlier stage of her illness. I should have done something to dispel her fear with chemotherapy. I should have stopped law school to have more time with her, although she wouldn’t allow that. But I was enfeebled by my lack of financial resources to help her, and blinded by some ambition we had shared. I lacked the ability to rescue her and to be her great protector. 

Fortunately some of my friends and relatives came to me with their empathetic eyes, kind offers of support, and encouraging Facebook postings and text messages, which helped a lot in my desperate condition. Some wanted me to engage myself with active coping and problem-solving strategies like work, a sports activity, or giving my full time with my kids. Some are candid enough to suggest that I have to let go and find a new partner at once. 

But that last advice is something I'm not yet ready to consider. I don't want that the main reason I pursue a new relationship is because I was lonely and missed the affection of my late wife. I don't want to become involved in a relationship before I am emotionally ready to take that step. Or I'm not even sure if I would ever remarry.

For the meantime, I prefer to be alone with my thoughts, reflecting on ways to cope with my new situation. I have to rebuild my life “one small block at a time” as some psychologists would readily advise people who are at a grieving mode.

For a start, I have to focus on my children's interest. I have to see how I could help them cope, and let them feel that in spite of our loss, we can revert to our normal lives and move on. I don't know how well they are recovering from the crisis. Dudoy won the gold medal in a spelling contest competed by private schools in our district in Bulacan. Eya maintained her first place position in the top ten for the first grading. N-yel, though moved down in the ranking in his class, became active in a Christian youth organization outside school. These might me good signs, but I must be on my guard especially this coming Christmas season.

And thank goodness for books. I always find reading therapeutic. It really helps me keep my sanity, before and during my wife's illness, and most especially now that I am at my lowest ebb two months after her death. I have bought lots of books, mostly secondhand items from Booksale, and whenever I have a chance, I squeeze on my time reading. I kept myself busy with the printed words, as if I get scared that when I'll run out of books to read, so with my sanity.

And one thing I did is to go back to blogging. I stopped posting on this blog more than a year ago, or around that time when my wife's condition started to go downhill. I revive this blog as a way of detailing my life in my road to recovery. It's a way for me to express my thoughts, no matter how random or trivial they are. I like to write, as much as I like to read. Let me just say that blogging, or writing generally, has also calming effect.

In fact, I already had an exhilarating and giddy relief when I was writing this article for my blog.



Bonding with my kids at EDSA Shangri-la Hotel

A PHOTOGRAPHER’S ART

DURING my wife’s wake, I decided not to take pictures of anything that happened. I don’t want to see images that remind me of the pain of losing my wife, with every moment stuck in my memory box. My sudden indifference to capture every part of this reality is I think understandable. Pictures from the wake would just stall my recovery from the tragic episode of my life.

I remember, however, that during the wake of my sister-in-law’s husband who died in May 2009, I volunteered to take the snapshots from the wake until the funeral. I even made from these pictures and video shots a 20-minute music video (a combination of photos and video clips). I didn’t have any idea on how my sister-in-law (my late wife’s elder sister) felt then when she looked at the pictures or watched the video after I presented them a few days after the funeral. The memories of their grief were hardwired in those episodes that I captured with my Kodak Easyshare digital camera. Would these downloadable memories help the family recover from that most sorrowful event of their lives? I don't think so.

On the third day of my wife’s wake, I brushed aside my resolve not to take any picture. That was when my kumpare and good friend, Ricky Canta, came to the wake and volunteered to take pictures during the funeral. How could I say no?

Ricky is a good friend. He was the photographer for Citylife magazine where I also worked then as assistant editor. My wife was the circulation clerk of said publication. The three of us became close friends. Ricky is tall and mild-mannered but with a good sense of humor. He was in his thirties then, married with three kids. The magazine job was just a part-time for him, as he was principally an event photographer. But in between work, he would stay in the press room until the completion of the magazine. So after a long press work, we would go out to unwind in some bar in Kalookan or Quezon City, as a treat, of course, from our tireless editor Joe Bautista.

As expected, when Rosalie and I got married in 1996 or just a few months after our meeting in the publication, Ricky was our unanimous choice for the official wedding photographer. He didn't charge for his service. He became my kumpare a year after, when he stood as a godparent for my firstborn. And of course, he also covered the baptismal ceremony. Rosalie resigned from the publication six months after the wedding. And when the magazine folded up a year later, Ricky went on his own way, establishing his photography business in Cavite. I’d lost contact with him after that. But thanks to Facebook, we were able to renew our contacts after more than a decade. He learned of Rosalie’s death only from my FB post two days after her death.

Ricky came to the wake barely an hour before midnight. He still couldn’t believe what happened to her. Before he left, he told me that he will take charge of the photography during the funeral. Free of charge. I just said “Yes, and thanks,” but with the condition that he would not take any close-up of my wife in the coffin.

Ricky had a total of 682 shots during the funeral, taken from the early morning before the necrological mass up to the parting of the guests in the cemetery. It’s a helluva lots of pictures—sad, poignant images—now stored in a DVD-R.

According to American author Eudora Welty, a good snapshot stops a moment from running away. They stay, and in these particular snapshots from Ricky, the emotion lingers. But at a second look, these shots are work of an artist. The shots are full expression of what he felt about his subject. They are drawn on an inspiration, rattled only by a grief of his own, as I caught him with tears while focusing on his angles.

Here are just a few of his shots. I might put the title “Grief” on top of the sample, because that's what is all about. I rather forget this little pang of unease that evoke those painful memories. The reality is beside the point now; the images were all that mattered.