Kinilaw nga Marigoso

A revised version was published via GAHUM Weekly Vol. 1 No. 8 Jan.5-19, 2011.

On my way home from school, I saw a woman and a girl, whom I felt were mother and daughter, tending Corner Stop’s laray. This made me miss my mother so much; and, memories of New Year’s Eve past went through me as fast as the jeepney I was riding. The need to write came to me with such ferocity that I felt my eyes blurred and guts tightened. I lightly brushed off the tears though and made a resolve that I must write tonight not for money or glory but for love and my tears… or else my soul will perish.

Just like kinilaw na marigoso, my memories of thirty-four years of New Year’s Eve are amalgamations of sour, sweet, bitter, and yet so life-affirming events. In all those thirty-four New Year’s Eves my mother was there but on the forthcoming thirty-fifth she will not be. They say time heals every injury even the most fatal…grief. I say, time does not and can never console me for the loss of someone whom I loved dearly than my own life. What the kindness of time has given me though is peace. In the deepest of my soul, I know I lost her to something inevitable but I have kept the beautiful pain of never seeing her again vigilantly burning. This beautiful pain brought light into my eyes that my time will come too and I must be ready anytime to leave those I love without fear of them buckling under the same grief I felt when she passed away on December 31, 2009.

Kinilaw na marigoso was one of Nanay’s favorites even on New Year’s Eve. She prepared it together with the food for the small feast to meet the newly born year such as humba, pancit bihon, bistek, relleno na masag, and of course, fruit salad. I could still recall her bent over the burning fire coming from the made-shift kitchen oven at the backyard of the Cambula residence. She had always preferred to cook with wood fire and she once told me that fire from gas stoves was not as passionate as the former. After all the other dishes were prepared, she would sit on one of the rattan chairs at the back porch and gently slice marigoso; softly mince garlic and onions; and, mix the combination in a bowl with salt, sugar, and vinegar while whistling a tune only her knew. I often wondered what she was thinking while I watched her beautiful hands that were hardened by decades of hard labor and life.

For more than three decades, her December 31st always started earlier than the crowing of the roosters. When I was still a toddler, she woke up early to tend to the laray of bread; ingredients for pancit; sugar and salt; and, spices that were sold in the market. When I was in elementary, she woke up early to open the store where hundreds of customers flocked in the whole day. When I was in high school, she woke up earlier than she used to because she had to help my father tend to the meat stall and by five thirty in the morning tend the store. When I was in college, she woke up earlier than when I was in high school because she had to help my father out in the meat stall then by five in the morning she would supervise the opening of the karehan and cook the dishes and then a little later tend the store or go back to the meat stall. Regardless of my age, my mother’s work in their various sources of living never ended earlier than eight o’ clock on the evening of December 31st. Regardless of my age except the December 31st of 2008 and 2009, she never failed to prepare the feast to meet the New Year. Oh, how I admired her physical stamina!

On the December 31st of 2008, she was already losing her sight. It was one of my most beautiful memories though of her. I remember guiding her from one room to another, making her feel her way and encouraging her not to give up on herself. Xandra and I stayed with her the whole night conversing about just anything until she went to sleep after the last firecracker fizzled while everyone else was carousing with friends and relatives. It was such a peaceful night for the three of us, three generations of females bonded by blood and I hoped then and still do now by kindness and love. That was my last New Year’s Eve with her because on the night of December 31, 2010 she walked through the doors of that unending absence; and, I was not there beside her. On that night though, she made me so happy and I never thought that she was finally leaving a year after.

Tomorrow night will be Nanay’s first death anniversary. Tomorrow night will be the first birthday of my grief. Tomorrow night just like all my New Year’s Eves I will pray that the newly born year be more meaningful than the old ones. Tomorrow night though I would have more special prayers for the generation next to mine- for them to be kinder and more loving with each other than we were and above all, for them not to forget her. Tomorrow night I live to tell the children that if she were alive and well, she would have said, “Kaon, marasa it kinilaw na marigoso.” Tomorrow night I live more to tell them that I would have replied, “Tama, marasa it kinilaw na marigoso, bagan kinabuhi.”