Me and My Lola c. 1980
While I’m here in Southern California, I’m staying at my parent’s house. A place where my grandmother still does and always has lived. In the Philippines, you call your grandmother Lola, your grandfather, Lolo. It always confused the white people in the neighborhood. They would always say shocked “You can your grandmother by her first name!?!”
My grandmother, Marina, has lived quite an interesting life before she retired from nursing to gardening orchids in the backgard and watching the cooking channel daily. (Now the details have been purposely been kept hazy in the family because these things are taboo to talk about so you fact checkers out there might run into some bumps but here’s what I know so far) During the Japanese-Philippines war, Marina, a young teenage girl at the time, and her seven siblings were unfortunately orphaned when their parents were killed by Japanese soldiers. Marina being the oldest girl was able to take care of them by going to nursing school because at that time they paid nursing students to study.
Marina was very beautiful since she had a blend of features from her Chinese father and Filipino mother. She had many suitors since she not only very pretty, she was smart – she was in school. But the war and taking care of her seven siblings had toughened her and made her older in ways that time could never repair. She eventually did meet a man that stole her heart and he made her chase it for the rest of her life, my Lolo Christino.
I never knew much about my Lolo except for the fact he died when I was five. I didn’t even know the details about their life together until just a few years ago. I didn’t even know Lola was an orphan until just a few years ago either. Nor did I know that Lolo, Christino had several mistresses, several families at the same time, and just picked my Lola to marry. At first, my mother had told me, Lolo had married my Lola then had children, but that wasn’t true! He married her after she my mom and her sisters and brother.
And of course, my Lola has never spoken a word of this to me or to my brothers. This has been whispers between sisters between cousins, whispers between neighbors, etc. My mom has finally spoken up to me about it, but now that she’s nearing retirement and doesn’t really give a damn anymore, she can’t really remember. I’m like “what!?! finally…when I actually what to know the gossip…you can’t remember!”
So the whole point to this is that my Lola is that she’s a lady of grit. She not soft and cuddly. I don’t hang out with her and have a cup of tea and talk about feelings. She’s a loner and very independent so she ignores everyone around her most of the time and does her own thing. We’re all very polite but sometimes you feel unnoticed, but today she handed me an article from the local newspaper of local surfing events for Halloween.
I couldn’t even believe it. I was so touched. We worry she has slight dementia so I didn’t even know if she knew what I was even doing here. I’ve been traipsing in and out of the house with all my surf gear thinking she wouldn’t even notice, but she did. She not a lady of big gestures. But even a tiny vibration can cause a big wave.
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Surfer Girl 