The reality of Lola Mommy’s passing has yet to fully sink in for me. Being so far away from home, and learning of the events in Manila only by cellphone and Skype, it is difficult for me to fully internalize the reality that Lola has indeed gone away. The last time I saw her, of course, was before leaving for the United States, on 21 August 2011, when I visited her to say good bye. It was evening then, and she was resting in her room. She said that she was proud that I was leaving for Harvard, and that I should continually pray for her even if I would be so far away – it is a request that I shamefully have not been able to diligently keep, but one which I do now, as we remember a life much filled with passion and strength.

Of all her nine grandchildren, I am perhaps the longest who had stayed in her care. With Lolo Ped, Lola Mommy was my daily companion until I was a good six years old, when my family finally left 12th Street in 1986. Together with Ate Lala, therefore, I am often called Lola Mommy’s alaga, and I remember sitting by her bedside on long idle afternoons watching her complete cross-stitch after cross-stitch, while the music of Nat King Cole floated in the background. On other days, I remember accompanying Lola Mommy to loud, boisterous gatherings with her siblings at Lolo Papa’s house, where she would hold court and talk about the latest tsismis and family kwento.

She was, to me, therefore, larger than life. In a sense, she reminded me of Imelda Marcos, with her flair and flamboyance— aside, of course, from their actual physical resemblance, especially at parties, when Lola would wear her big hair. Like Imelda, we all know of her affection for Ferragamo shoes. On one family trip to Hong Kong, Lola Mommy entered a boutique rather shabbily dressed, so that none of the salesladies paid her any attention. Impatient at the shoddy service, she called them all together and, with much fanfare said, “How much? I want, I buy, I get.” Syempre, nagkagulo ang mga saleslady. She ended up going home with three pairs. Indeed, it is not difficult to think of Lola Mommy this way, because, as I am sure you will agree, Lola Mommy, like Imelda, is quite a character on her own. And as perhaps similar to Imelda as well, what Lola Mommy said was law, everybody else be damned.

As I grew older, and from her own stories and recollections of the past, I had learned a little bit more of the life that Lola Mommy lived, especially with Lolo Ped. I think it would be fair to say that her life can rival even the most popular of Korean telenovella, with its share of tragedy, joy, hardship and challenge. Marrying a poor man from Bulacan, she had no choice but to support her family through odd jobs, including raising pigs. By dint of hardwork (and the support of relatives like Lola Luming), she, with Lolo Ped, sent five children through college, business school, and medical school.

Hers, therefore, was not an easy or charmed life.

It is no wonder, then, that Lola Mommy had raised her children sternly. Because life was hard, she, too, had to be hard. Because life was difficult, she had to fight for what seemed, at the time, so difficult for her and for her family to achieve: respect, stability, comfort, and acceptance. Her love, therefore, was a tough love, because she lived a tough life. She is mulier fortis— “with the fruit of her hands she has planted a vineyard.” [Proverbs 31:16].

Indeed, even in her twilight years, when she had achieved some measure of comfort, she was still true to what she had struggled with all her life. She still scrimped and saved, and continued to actively manage her affairs. All this, according to my Dad, really flowed from an innate desire to “save” more for her family. Indeed, if she had appeared too conscious of material security, it was only because she had very little of it to begin with, so that whatever she had, she knew she had fought for, and she did only what she knew she had to do. This is why, I think, later in life, she struggled very hard to let go of this “fighter’s disposition,” this battle to gain respect, stability, comfort, and acceptance. And so, sometimes she was difficult and stubborn— and it drove everybody crazy! But her stubbornness did not dimish the fact that she was always, always proud— of what she had made of herself, yes, but prouder still, of what she had made of her children. My dad would often say that were it not for the hardship that they had gone through growing up, and Lola Mommy’s disiplinarian ways, he and his siblings would probably not have striven so mightily to make for themselves a better life. And for this, and many other things, we have to be thankful.

Now that the telenovella has sadly ended, I am left with fond memories of that passionate and strong-willed woman that was my Lola Mommy. And as we know, she loved to recite this particular spanish poem, which she learned, line by line, from her father, Lolo Papa. At a drop of a hat, she would, with all flare and bravura, take center stage, and, with gestures and intonation (much like Madamme Imelda herself), recite from memory, the lines which tell of the youthfulness of a woman long grown old. It is fittingly entitled, “La Abuela,” “The Grandmother,” and for us, this evening, it our mind’s eye, let us listen to her once more, as she fittingly tells us of how, in spite of her age, her soul continues to soar to the heavens, sin prisa y sin miedo a las flores, al sol y al viento: without haste, without fear, to the flowers, to the sun, and to the winds.

La Abuela

Me dijeron un día vieja y me miré al espejo.
Vi arrugas en mi cara y blanco mi cabello.
Miré mis pies caminando cansados, lentos,
pero con risa burlona también le dije al espejo:
- ¿Qué me importa que mis pies no caminen ya ligeros,
que haya arrugas en mi frente y nieve en mis cabellos,
si mi corazón está como pájaro en su vuelo
y quiere subir muy alto llegando hasta los luceros?
¿Qué me importa que la vida
y sus huellas con zarpazos
me dejaron marcado todo mi cuerpo,
si en mi alma todavía hay voces
de canciones e ilusiones de niña
que aún palpitan en mi pecho?
Quiero como la alondra cantar
y contar sin prisa y sin miedo a las flores,
al sol y al viento y,
¡como no!, a la escuela como regalo del cielo.
No digáis que ya soy vieja
aunque los años hicieron huella en mi cuerpo
porque en mi corazón de niña la primavera
no ha muerto.

The last lines are particularly beautiful and appropriate:

No digáis que ya soy vieja
aunque los años hicieron huella en mi cuerpo
porque en mi corazón de niña la primavera
no ha muerto.

“Do not tell me that I am old,
Although the years have made their marks upon my body,
Because in my heart still filled with youth,
Spring has never died.”

I am saddened that I am not there with the rest of you, dear family and friends, to mourn the passing of this feisty fighter of a woman. In the cold of this Cambridge winter, though, I am comforted to know that I am not alone in these rememberings, as many of you have come to share with us the life Lola Mommy that can only be described, to my mind, and fittingly enough, as trully and gloriously epic.

Langdell Hall, Harvard Law School
Cambridge, Massachusetts
14 February 2012