VALUABLES
Catherine Anne L. Cuasay
The table of my childhood was set in the afternoons with
a manual typewriter
-----operated by a stiff-fingered, sweetly pomaded noble,
and a sewing machine
-----tended by a tidy, reverent and "very masipag wife".
A pair of teachers at that memorable time table
Prepared to instruct all the after school lessons of life.
But let me tell you more about HER: my Lola Charing
-----who never sat or ate until everyone else was served first.
She could have published a magazine on how to be creatively thrifty.
Before her eyesight clouded and her wig hid her hair wisped thin,
She would set that afternoon table with fine dishes laden with learning activities.
Because of her...
I wore original hand-sewn dresses
-----and the patches where my siblings wore out their clothes were mended
-----with a zoo of animal shapes
I ate cling peach halves in their syrup for breakfast
-----in lieu of eggs (my allergen enemies) which my brothers gobbled
I learned to darn and embroider
I practiced my piano solo and duets
I weeded gardens full of ampalaya and sili
-----and mastered how to feed roses
My Lola was not afraid to make friends with new neighbors in Illinois or New Jersey,
-----to sign up for arts and craft classes,
-----to ring doorbells peddling Avon products
When she worried about the smoothness of my face and legs
Was it because she thought that was all my inheritance from her?
Reviewing what a collection of remembrances I have kept
Like seldom used prize dishware
Gone the way of treasures
Stored in the chambers of the heart,
I decided to open my valuables cabinet again
To see all that my Lola Charing has given
Long loved through years of letters and tape-recorded programs.
So that she might still sometimes
Sit down with me
At our table of fond reverie.
