STAYING HOME

THE Christmas season, particularly the holiday break, is by far the most joyous time of the year. Having extended time off work to just take things easy at home with my family makes it even more blissful. From the 23rd to the 29th of December, I thoroughly enjoyed hanging out at our own little house in Marilao, Bulacan, rather than traveling elsewhere. I wouldn't even get dressed up; it was my time to relax, read, and do some housekeeping without any time pressure.

First on my list was organizing my school and personal files in my study area, as well as backing up my desktop files onto CDs. Next was tackling the clutter and dirt all over the house. It is amazing how much clutter can accumulate when you aren't paying attention. I sorted through unused clothes, old books, magazines, decorations, and kitchenware. 

While inspecting the shelves, closets, and kitchen racks, I discovered a swarm of termites burrowing into a closet where my kids' old schoolbooks and some of my teaching files were stacked. The termites must have found the books delicious, because they had crunched through almost all of them and nibbled on my files. The rest of my documents and other parts of the house would have been completely gobbled down had I failed to detect this silent insect invasion for another month or two.

Realizing the severity of the threat, I knew I had to act fast before they spread to the rest of the house. I immediately cleared out the damaged books and infested files, bagging them tightly to prevent any stragglers from escaping. To be absolutely sure, I also checked the baseboards and walls of the adjacent rooms, applying a preventative barrier just in case.

My wife helped me declutter and get our home guest-ready. We hosted visitors on the 24th, mostly my in-laws from Malate, Manila. With additional holiday chores like wrapping gifts, planning, and preparing the Noche Buena, keeping a clean home for the holidays was a real challenge for her. She redid the decorations on the Christmas tree and walls, and changed the curtains and sofa covers. But this year, because I was completely present and available, she looked incredibly relaxed. She even mentioned how wonderful it felt to prepare the holidays together at our own pace without the usual stress of packing bags and rushing to a vacation in the province.

Staying home also meant helping with the laundry and sharing the cooking chores. But this time, as if we were enjoying an extended family weekend, I did most of the cooking. I truly enjoyed it, especially when I saw my kids eagerly anticipating the mostly Ilocano recipes I served.

During my free time between chores, I made sure the kids were entertained every second of the day—otherwise, you would constantly hear, "I'm bored!" or "When are we going out?" I let them watch DVD movies with my wife and me, and they were perfectly happy watching old films and cartoons.

I also gave the kids extended playtime, which I wouldn't normally do during the school year. I allowed them to play with their friends out on the street, especially in the afternoons. My two boys played basketball at the nearby plaza every morning, while my six-year-old daughter was content playing with her new Barbie doll and cash register toy. I even let them swim with their cousins in the clubhouse pool on Christmas Day, and we flew kites together the following day.

The kids thought the holidays were just fine, despite the fact that I had canceled all plans for a holiday getaway. Fortunately, even while staying home, they got exactly what they requested from Santa and received gifts and cash from their godparents and relatives. I told them that going to Star City during this time of year was out of the question. With the monstrous crowds of peak season, they wouldn't get their money's worth because they would have to endure grueling queues for their favorite theme park rides.

Going to the mall was also entirely out of the plan. I would not willingly drag my kids through the holiday madness, navigating heavy mall traffic and multitudes of shoppers darting between regular stalls and mini tiangges. I absolutely detest the long queues for security checks at the narrow entrances and the Christmas carols playing non-stop. I don't think I could have endured the endless lines at the cash counters or even the restrooms. Best of all, by shunning the shopping malls during this season, I intentionally blocked the temptation to overspend.

Surprisingly, we all discovered that we could have immense fun without ever leaving our home during the holiday break. Call me shallow, but being with my wife and happy kids for seven straight days at home was a rare and exhilarating experience. On our last evening of the break, my wife looked at our happy, exhausted children and told me this was the most peaceful and fulfilling Christmas she had ever had. I wouldn't exchange that for any material gift this season.

REMEMBERING OUR DEAD

DEATH is a natural cycle. It is as certain as birth, baptisms, weddings, and celebrations; as regular as the night reigning supreme over the sun’s realm, even if only for half the day. This comes as no surprise, since no one lives forever. Everyone who enters this world must eventually leave it. Yet, death can still be so heart-wrenchingly shattering, especially when it strikes close to home. It is not something anyone wishes to dwell on, yet it remains an inescapable part of our existence.

This is the bitter awakening to what we are fated for, and what we should be living for. It is a realization that when death knocks at our door, we must give in despite the fullness of life—much like a tired man who, despite his resistance, must finally succumb to sleep at the end of a exhausting day. To honor our departed relatives and loved ones, we light candles, offer flowers, and whisper prayers at their graves. We learn to love them in their absence just as we did in their presence. We mourn our loss, but we find solace in the thought that heaven rejoices to receive them.

My first brush with death occurred when I was about six years old, marking my earliest memory of losing a close relative. Minutes before his tragic end, Uncle Erning had walked into our house just to tell my parents he was heading home to the barrio after closing his market stall. My mother invited him to stay for dinner, but he declined, explaining that my cousins Edwin and Danny were already waiting in the tricycle, eager to get home. Only minutes after leaving us, he met the accident that cost him his life. A van collided with his tricycle at a junction just a kilometer away from our house.

My two cousins were spared, but the trauma rippled through the family. I still remember my Aunt Colling the next morning—screaming, kicking, shaking, and wailing to high heavens, "Why?" It filled me with a profound sadness. My uncle had been so vibrant and alive when I saw him just the night before. It felt incredibly unfair.

Prior to Uncle Erning’s death, our family had already quietly suffered two losses. A brother and a sister of mine had both passed away at birth (our youngest sibling, my mother’s tenth child, would also be stillborn years later). When I was a boy, theirs were the graves we visited in the cemetery. I remembered them only by the fact of their deaths, but never by their faces, having never had the chance to look at them or hold them.

I was in elementary school when the next death arrived, and this time, I was a direct witness to the transition. When my lolo sa tuhod (my maternal grandmother’s father), Apong Casio, breathed his last on his deathbed, I stood alongside my cousins, aunts, and an uncle who had been urgently summoned to his side. I watched my uncle’s hand clasped tightly with that of my great-grandfather as the old man began to jerk, gasped, and then quietly slipped away. A symphony of wailing instantly erupted through the house. The wake was held under our roof, turning into a massive family reunion. A multitude of relatives—many of whom my parents had not seen in years, including some who flew in all the way from Hawaii—gathered to pay their respects.

But the heaviest sorrow came in 1990, when my maternal grandfather passed away from a lingering illness. I received the news while staying at a boarding house near the university where I was a college freshman. My brother Romel and I were completely stunned. Apong Angel was deeply close to all his grandchildren; he was the very glue that brought us together for Christmas and family milestones. He was our venerable patriarch—an enforcer of discipline and a referee during childhood squabbles, but above all, a storyteller par excellence.

My brother and I rushed to the barrio that afternoon, arriving in time to see our grandfather still resting on his deathbed, as his coffin had not yet arrived. I will never forget the two weeks that followed. A heavy gloom hung like a cloud over everything. Even now, whenever I revisit that memory—just as I am doing while writing this blog—the same sorrow creeps back, bringing a lump to my throat. My mother and her siblings were inconsolable, yet everyone clung to one another in their shared grief for our beloved apong lakay.

Years later, when I was already married and working in Manila, Apong Ansang, my paternal grandmother, passed away. She had been bedridden for a long time. During one of my rare summer vacations in my hometown in Ilocos, I visited her at my uncle's house just a block away from ours. Old age and sickness had taken their toll, and she struggled to recognize me at first. When she finally got my name right, she quietly asked if I could get her some pasayan (prawns) for dinner—craving them, she whispered, before death could overtake her.

When I mentioned this to my father, he brushed it off, believing she was merely acting out to gain pity and told me not to worry about it. I knew my father had an estranged, aloof relationship with her. After my grandfather died, she started a second family, leaving my father and his young siblings to be raised by a stern grandfather and a spinster aunt. That childhood abandonment sparked a lifelong emotional distance that persisted even as her death beckoned. A month after I returned to Manila, Apong Ansang passed away. I attended her wake with a heavy heart—not just for the loss, but for the prawns I never bought her.

The passing of my maternal grandmother, Apong Lumen, in 2003 brought back the familiar gloom of losing her husband 12 years prior. However, by then, the Escobar clan had matured. We understood that death was inevitable given her advanced age. Her departure gracefully paved the way for my mother and her siblings to reconcile past misunderstandings and peacefully settle the family estate.

Yet, there is one poignant scene from her funeral that remains burned into my memory. Milton, my eldest brother and the unang apo (first grandson), had remained stoically silent through the entire wake and funeral mass. After the service, following our local tradition, the family gathered around the open coffin for a final viewing and photographs. While the rest of us were sobbing, moaning, and gasping for breath, Milton maintained his unshakeable, silent stance. But just as the attendants prepared to seal the casket, my brother abruptly asked the procession to stop. He stepped forward, threw his arms around the coffin, and let out the most mournful, agonizing cry I have ever heard from him.

Over the years, there have been other deaths in the family. Often, because they were distant or circumstances kept me away, I rarely attended the wakes, and I found I could no longer weep the way I did in my youth. Death simply came and went. This year alone, a cousin of my mother passed away from a stroke in Hawaii, and a paternal granduncle died of old age.

But the sudden loss early this year of Kuya Rudy, my sister-in-law’s husband, hit with a sharp, unexpected sadness. He died of heatstroke. Only a month prior, Kuya Rudy had been at our house celebrating his granddaughter's daycare milestones, as she and her mother lived with us in Bulacan. We had spent a wonderful day together at SM Marilao for my children’s recognition day. He was always the first to offer a helping hand whenever we needed an emergency electrician or extra help during a busy handaan.

At his funeral, my tears were not for him, because I knew he had transitioned to a deeply peaceful place. Instead, my stifled cries were for the ones he left behind: his wife, suddenly alone to manage the household, and his daughter and daughter-in-law, who were both pregnant at the time. Their unborn children would never have the chance to know their grandfather.

It was Kuya Rudy’s grave, alongside my father-in-law’s, at the Manila South Cemetery in Makati that my wife, our three children, and I visited yesterday—stepping through the gates a day ahead of the crowded rush of All Souls' Day. Exactly a year ago in that very same cemetery, Kuya Rudy had stood right beside us, vibrant and full of life, as we lit candles for our ancestors. Now, he rests on the other side of the soil, and the reality of it brings a profound melancholy.

Yet, I know this sadness will not last forever. Our natural course is to live fully, and then patiently wait for our own time to depart. For if we the living live deeply enough, we leave absolutely no room to fear death.

BEST GIFTS

FOR MY birthday last week, my kids surprised me with handmade cards. They handed them to me early in the morning on the 21st, accompanied by a flurry of hugs, kisses, and giggles. As I mentioned in a previous post, there are always wonderful reasons to celebrate your birthday, just as there are countless reasons to maintain a positive outlook on life. Let me say it plainly: receiving greeting cards from your children is the absolute best gift a father could ever ask for.

My three kids are my ultimate source of inspiration. Seeing their faces in the morning completely replenishes my arsenal, giving me the strength to stay on, move on, and hang on through every challenge life throws my way. Of course, I still flare up sometimes, scold them, and find myself wishing I had more time to spend with them. But I won't dwell on that today. A child will always be a child—by turns naughty, demanding, and incredibly sweet—just as a father must always be a father, forever carrying a profound soft spot for his offspring.

As parents, we can get so consumed by our relentless daily routines that we become completely oblivious to the small things. To my kids, there is no better way to express their love than by translating it into heartfelt words and colorful, chaotic artwork.

Here are my children's recent masterpieces

This one is from N-yel, my eldest.

Yes, those two photos on the front are of Manny Pacquiao which he (likely with his Mom acting as a co-conspirator) clipped from an old newspaper. My wife and kids love to tease me that the world-renowned boxing champion and I look like two peas in a pod. This is especially true whenever I sport longer hair with a middle split and bangs framing my face, or when I let myself go unshaved for two or three weeks. But if you read closely, did my son actually scribble the word handsome in there? Regardless, I choose to interpret his entire message as: "Hey, my dad is the champ!"

This one is from Dudoy, my second child.

This boy has not outgrown his absolute obsession with dinosaurs. Not even a little bit. He still loves to collect dinosaur figurines, watch dinosaur movies, read dinosaur trivia, stomp around acting like a dinosaur, and think like one. So, what else would you expect him to use as my visual representation on a birthday card? A massive T-Rex with a gaping mouth ready to devour its prey was the obvious choice (though this time, he cropped my photo into the scene and drew a birthday cake as the T-Rex's target). Looking closely at his drawing, I realize my little dinosaur lover actually loves burgers more than anything else. But for "dinosauring" me on my special day, I told him I won't let him have even a single bite of my next burger. Just joking, of course.

And this one is from Eya, my youngest.

My little girl with the missing-tooth grin absolutely loves writing love notes and doodling on paper scraps or the margins of her notebooks. (Just the other day, I overheard her Mom telling her to stop sending sweet-nothings to her classmates, one of whom happens to be a boy!) For my card, she went all out, using vibrant colored paper and a scented pen for a change—and why not? It was her dad's special day, after all. The heavy erasures on the page were likely the result of her older brother trying to "edit" her work. The highly unusual, jagged cuts along the corners were definitely her doing, as she still tends to transform her artwork into a chaotic mess whenever she gets her hands on a pair of scissors.

JUST LIKE all the other random letters and impromptu notes I have received over the years, I will keep these cards safely tucked away in my personal drawer. I know all too well that the day is coming when they will no longer do this for me or their mother. One day, they will grow up and barely recognize the versions of themselves that wrote these pages.

The he-he-he's, the hand-drawn emoticons, the dinosaurs, and the scented notes covered in heavy erasures will soon become a thing of the past. They may not always remain as outwardly sweet as they are right now. Like so many of my fondest memories, these moments will eventually be anchored to a fleeting era that no longer exists. But I secretly hope they never entirely stop sending me handwritten cards.

My kids truly love to pour out their sweet-nothings and flaunt their creativity whenever they make cards—whether it's for their Mom on Mother's Day, for each other's birthdays, or during Christmas. Sometimes, they do it when there is no occasion at all.

Whenever the mood strikes my youngest, she draws simple stick figures surrounded by "I love you's" and "I miss you's", naturally embellished with misshapen hearts and smiley faces. Then, pointing eagerly at the figures so I can see, she will chatter away in her sweet little voice: "This one is you, Daddy; this one is Mommy; this is Love; this is our house..."

I will hold onto these stick figures for as long as I can.

A BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION

A GOOD music in the morning to pep me up, a hearty breakfast with steaming black coffee, hugs and kisses from my wife and kids, the smiles of neighbors you meet in the street. I try hard to establish that attitude of joy in my life, because I want a day that is filled with happiness, not sorrow. Especially when it is my birthday.

And that will be tomorrow September 21.

I was born exactly a month before the Plaza Miranda bombing in Quiapo, Manila, and exactly a year before President Marcos declared Martial Law in the country. But the later event is more significant. The presidential declaration is considered as the most crucial episode in our history that ushered in the long reign of Marcos dictatorship. Since then, September 21 has become a very memorable date in the country, and just like those birthdates that fall on holidays or any historical date, it has an easy recall.

But do I really need to celebrate for all the world to know? Is it supposed to be a purely personal celebration?

For the first time in many years, right before I write this blog, I remember my former boss (God bless her soul) and her antipathy on birthday celebrations.

She wasn’t keen on celebrating birthdays. If she had her way, she didn’t want us in our department to greet her with lavish gifts or throw a party for her, much more to celebrate on her birthday. A birthday to her is purely personal thing, a time for her to introspect and evaluate her life, so why throw a party just to have fun and tell the whole world that it is her birthday. Once, when we invited her to attend one sumptuous party for an officemate who was celebrating her birthday, she naturally declined the invitation.

My former boss was one of my mentors when I first worked in Rex Publishing, but her stance on birthday celebrations didn’t suit me well. I had theories why she hated it: she might have an unhappy memory about birthdays, she had no family of her own as she was unmarried, or she didn’t want obsequious people to use her natal day to strut their skills on her. Or she just tried to rationalize things in her or the company’s favor, that when we do a party we are practically cutting our working time in the office.

That started then my own introspection and reflection during my birthday. I began to reflect on purely personal terms the significance of my natal day.

To me a birthday is a cause of celebration. There's always a certain expectation and significance for it. Just like anything good that happens to you, a good report card from your kids, a great day at work. I believe that life is about rejoicing. Every good thing is significant and always a cause of celebration and you want to share that with your family and friends. We are all for a party, anytime.

So when one celebrates his or her birthday, it’s one way of saying, Hey, I live for another year in this planet and let’s hope for more years to come. Who cares if a birthday would just add another year to your age? You grow old year by year, even if you don’t celebrate your birthday anyway.

I rather think of another year passing, what I have accomplished so far and what I haven't. I tend to focus on the first. And this gives me some reason to make merry. There must be good reasons to celebrate.

I don’t usually have particular plans for my birthday; except that, I must be sure that I will have a nourishing dinner or lunch with my wife and kids. Last year I treated them with an early dinner at KFC in Caloocan, just that one, and then we went home.

Because it is non-working holiday tomorrow (this year it falls on a Ramadan, now a national holidays upon the official declaration by Malacañang), I might have a real party this time. It means I have more time with my kids; and I expect some important guests, particularly my brother and two sisters, and some of my in-laws from Malate to come over.

I’m not twenty-one anymore but I can still pretend I am. I can always think of my birthday as a milestone, another marking up of my chronological age, but not my outlook in life. Grow old, and grow wiser than ever before, seems to me a good dictum.

A RENEWED PASSION

SOMEONE once said that human nature is at its weakest inside a bookstore. I found the absolute truth in those words one Wednesday morning while browsing a shop that exclusively sells secondhand books: Booksale at WalterMart near the Muñoz Market in Quezon City.

It was 11:30 AM by my watch, leaving me exactly thirty minutes to spare before I had to head to work. Yet, that half-hour stretched on until past noon. I knew I was going to be late, but I simply couldn't decide which book—or books—I should buy. To make matters worse, I had only ₱400 left in my wallet to get me through the rest of the week. With such limited time and an even tighter budget, I had to whittle down a massive pile of potential candidates to just one or two final choices. Dammit, the shelves were overflowing with incredible finds that morning; on regular days, I would be lucky to spot two or three worth taking home.

I stood there balancing my heavy haul: Main Street by Sinclair Lewis (₱65), John Lennon by Alan Clayton (₱180), East of Eden by John Steinbeck (₱180), Mitla Pass by Leon Uris (₱45), Mexico by James A. Michener (₱65), and Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow (₱85). If I held onto the pricier titles, I could only afford one or two; if I opted for the cheaper ones, I could take home at least three. The clock was ticking mercilessly.

To think, just a day prior, I had also thoroughly raided a secondhand book stall in the lobby of TriNoma, another mall along EDSA. After nearly an hour of rummaging, I had proudly walked away with five excellent titles: Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard, The Cider House Rules by John Irving, Roger’s Version by John Updike, alongside Dingoes at Dinnertime (from the Magic Tree House series) and the Happy Feet junior novelization. The last two were treasures for my two boys, who have happily inherited my fondness for reading pocketbooks.

Over the past few months, I have fallen into a steady rhythm of purchasing an average of one secondhand book a week. Given my financial constraints—after all, I am a father of three, balancing a part-time job while trying to finish a law degree—expensive new releases on display at National Book Store are a luxury I cannot justify. Even when I do have a little extra cash to spare, I have severe second thoughts about shelling out ₱300 or ₱400 for a single brand-new book. I would much rather stretch that exact same amount to buy four or five secondhand gems from Booksale. Why shouldn't I? I don't explicitly need modern bestsellers when there are myriads of brilliant older books out there—so many, in fact, that I won't be able to read even a fraction of them in my lifetime.

Admittedly, I haven't even touched the twenty or so other books I've bought since June. But I don't mind looking at my unread pile. There is a distinct comfort in knowing that the moment I finish my current read, I can immediately scan my own shelves and pick my next adventure from a ready selection.

This reading fever has been steadily climbing since the middle of last year, sparked when a friend invited me to open a Shelfari account. It felt wonderful downloading titles from my memory box—everything from childhood storybooks and whirlwind romances to bestsellers and timeless classic novels. I compiled them all into a virtual library, complete with familiar cover art and publication details.

But looking at that digital shelf also made me think about all the books I hadn't read. It was then that I realized how much ground I had lost since I stopped actively reading and collecting years ago. I had a tragic falling out with the hobby, courtesy of a colony of termites that completely devoured the first collection of pocketbooks I had painstakingly built in our old rented space near Muñoz Market.

Now, in a desperate bid to catch up, I read everywhere. I read while squeezed into vehicles during my grueling, one-and-a-half-hour commute from our home in Marilao, Bulacan to the office in Quezon City. During office hours, I stealthily steal a few extra minutes beyond my official coffee breaks to squeeze in a few more pages. And I have firmly established a habit of reading late into the night before going to sleep. By those metrics, I am firmly on track!

The only unfortunate side effect is that my allocated study time for law school has plummeted to an absolute minimum. I have been spending far more time getting lost in fiction than analyzing my codals and heavy textbooks on Taxation and Civil Procedure. Consequently, I find myself frantically cramming for those subjects most of the time.

I don't think this is a belated passion for reading. I haven't truly stopped reading pocketbooks since high school, but I have never consumed them at the breakneck speed I am maintaining now. I am finally rebuilding my home library—a proud second attempt to establish a literary sanctuary after that heartbreaking incident with the termites.

Back at Booksale,  I finally made my peace and settled on the two more expensive titles: John Lennon and East of Eden. They are rare finds for a secondhand shop like this, and the copies were in pristine condition, looking as though their original owners had never even cracked the spines. The damage came out to ₱360—plus an hour's worth of deducted salary due to my inevitable tardiness at the office that afternoon.

You could certainly call that a textbook sign of weak human nature. But as I walked out, it was incredibly nice to think that the moment I got home, I would have fresh text waiting for me. It is the perfect inspiration to hurry up and finish my current read, The Sandman: Book of Dreams, and I have officially vowed to conquer one more book by the end of the week.

My latest Shelfari account on books read