Monday, December 24, 2007
Echaves: Christmas through the years
By Lelani P. Echaves
Thinking Aloud
THEY come and go, then come and go.
Year after year, no Christmas time has ever been exactly the same for the family. Particularly in number. It used to be that all roads led to the parental home on “Private Road,” the name its “lumads” (pioneer residents) still call P. del Rosario Extension by.
It did not matter where anyone came from or was temporarily residing for work assignments. Whether my older brother was in Iligan City with his young family, or my parents were in Butuan City, Tagbilaran City or Malabon during Dad’s assignments as RTC judge, or our work found me briefly in Makati, my older daughter in Manila, my nephew in Bukidnon, and my nieces in Indonesia, Hong Kong, Australia, or the US, “I’ll be home for Christmas” was the family’s theme song. And so, Christmas Day always burst with children’s peals of laughter, my brothers’ endless chess tournaments with Dad, and even puppies’ high-pitched barkings.
The year 1994 was our saddest Christmas; Mommy had passed away in July that year. Tomorrow, we’ll be much fewer, and Christmas Day will mean the family theme song being sung in various time zones. None of my nieces nor sister-in-law abroad will be home in time for Christmas Day.
Still, we look forward to the family gathering. My two brothers and I are in Cebu to be with Dad, my only nephew and family will represent his sisters and their families, and my own husband and daughters. But tomorrow’s dwindled number will nevertheless bring together four generations of Echaveses. Khavin, the only one below 10, will stand for the fourth gen.
Christmas through the years has paraded life’s other travelers as well. Ambulant peddler Adyang was my family’s “suki” for our Saturdays’ fare of seafoods; she’s part of my childhood memories. A mother of then 11 children, she was the family’s sole breadwinner. She’d leave the house at 4 a.m. daily, commute from Lapu-Lapu City to Pasil to get her supply of “aninikad,” “guso,” “imbaw,” crabs, “lakot,” etc. and then shout out her items up and down Private Road. Last time I asked, nobody knew where she’s now.
Over a decade later, I asked her why her children did not at least carry the large “bukag” of seafood on her head. “Ay, mga tapulan, Mam, oy!” she said, matter-of-factly. Her children now numbered 13, five teenagers and three married. But she remains the sole breadwinner, and frustratedly, I asked her why she allowed her husband and adult children to feed off her.
Within that same decade, my other “suki,” Ali, had graduated from selling fish to “lechon,” had married and settled in Danao, and with his equally hard-working wife had built their own house, branched out their “lechon” kiosks to other parts of Cebu, and bought a second-hand Tamaraw for their business. With their earnings, they produced a nurse and a nautical engineer, now both OFWs.
They can’t be home for Christmas either. “Bida, Mam, sa sinugdanan, duha ra mi. Alegre primero, pero inigdagko diay sa mga bata, mobalik ra gihapon ‘ta sa duha.”
(lelani.echaves@gmail.com)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (December 24, 2007 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board.Click here.
|
