Lola

(I realize the prompt is for something, but this story wanted to be written for this prompt.)

The flight from Kansas City to Manila was a long one. Twenty-seven hours of travel from the Midwest with a layover in Seattle and then Narita. It was exhausting. And to travel with a one-year-old and a six-year-old? How the heck did we manage that?

Back when I was still living in the Philippines, and when my then-boyfriend-now-husband would come visit me, he would always say Manila had a certain smell. He wasn’t sure how to describe. Maybe it was the smog or the pollution? Who knows. But now that we’ve traveled twice to Manila, I do smell it. There were no words to describe it. But to me, the smell felt homey. Like I was coming back from a long day at work, and I smell my mom’s cooking wafting from the kitchen.

I looked to my side. We reserved one of those Uber-like services. My kids were fast asleep after a long travel. Outside, the rain was falling hard. I rested my head on the window and closed my eyes briefly.

Only I fell asleep.

When I opened my eyes, my husband was gently nudging me and telling me it was time to wake up. I looked out the car window and saw the familiar family house I grew up in. Concrete walls were covered in vines. Beyond it was a townhouse, with a separately built section on the left side. How long has it been since our last visit?

I shook my head and focused, and took my sleeping toddler into my arms while my husband took our eldest. Both were still fast asleep, snoring.

“Dali! Dali!” My mom called out, toting an umbrella and attempting to cover my husband’s head from the rain. He was too tall for her, so she settled for putting her umbrella over her grandchild’s head. My sister came running out too with an umbrella, and accompanied me until we reached the room at the side of the house where the family kitchen is.

We stepped in and were handed towels to dry ourselves. It was incredibly late in the night—around 3 o’clock in the morning. I was so exhausted that as soon as we got the kids down to one of the beds, I immediately fell asleep.

When morning came—and I knew it was morning because I could hear the roosters greeting the morning sun—I got out of bed. I left my still jet-lagged husband asleep, snoring. I heard my kids giggling and shouting, so I’m sure my sisters were playing with them and keeping them company. I headed straight to the bathroom to clean up—I needed to get all that travel sweat off of me. After an hour and a half or so, I walked to the kitchen, refreshed.

On one of the seats was my grandma, all ready to go. She had a nice floral button-down shirt and pleated white pants. Hanging on her right shoulder was her leather bag. She turned her head to me. “O ano? Ready ka na?”

I smiled and nodded that I was ready. The kids were busy, and will be watched by my family while I spend the day with lola.

We hailed a tricycle and rode for about 5 minutes until we reached Zapote plaza. From there, we will head to the mall. I crooked my arm so she could hold on to me. There was an overpass for pedestrians to use to cross the road safely. But the escalators are always turned off, so my grandma hated using them.

“Ah, my knees have been hurting more lately.”

She gripped her hand tighter around my arm, and together we climbed the dead escalators. She was telling me how my kids were so energetic in the morning, and how my eldest was so keen on finding her this morning to hold her hand and do his mano—a respectful gesture to older members of the family by younger family members; you bring the elder’s back of their hand to your forehead.

“Ka-gwapo naman,” she commented. Even during video chats, my grandma would say how handsome my eldest is. I laughed and told her she’s biased because she’s his great-grandmother.

We finally got to the other side of the road and trudged down the escalators. “Let’s go hail a taxi. It would be better than riding a bus,” she said. It was a busy Wednesday morning, and there were a lot of commuters trying to hail a jeepney or a bus to take them to work.

“I got us covered,” I told her about the app on my phone, and there’s a car that could drive us to the mall. In a few minutes, we’re seated in a clean car. Normally, a drive to the mall would be thirty minutes tops. But the traffic in my hometown had gotten so terrible that it would take at least fifty minutes to get to the mall.

During the ride, my grandma and I talked. And as she shared stories, I looked at her. Her face had gotten thinner with age, and there were more wrinkles. When she was younger—and by younger, I mean how I remembered her when I was a kid—she stood tall. Her thin lips were always pursed. She looked snobby and uptight to people, but that was just how she was. When she was with me and when we spent time together, she had this gentle smile on her face. I liked to think that she enjoys spending time with me.

I looked at her hands. One was still wrapped around my left arm, and the other was lying on her lap. It looked so thin and frail.

“Where do you want to eat today?”

Her voice snapped me back to attention, and I chuckled. “Anywhere you want to eat.”

During the car ride, we planned our day: grab some pandesal, do some shopping, grab lunch, do some shopping, then head back to the house.

The mall in our small city is huge. My husband had the same comment when we spent time together there. The blast of cold air from the air-conditioning was greatly appreciated. My grandma and I started walking, and after finding the store for the pandesal, we grabbed a few for us to eat. I smiled when she also bought two containers of the peanut butter and a couple of small jars of Spanish sardines, after I told her they were good.

We walked around some more and went to the kids’ areas so she could buy some clothes and toys for my kids to bring back home to Kansas City. I reminded her that we can only bring small toys home since we have little space in our luggage. She bought little robots and dolls, and bought clothes that were two sizes large. “So they can fit on them longer,” she says.

When noon came around, we decided to eat at this Filipino-Chinese fast food place. She ordered a siopao, and I ordered my usual—pork chao fan. We talked some more, and I told her how I enjoy my work and that I am starting my first semester as a graduate student soon. She gave me a proud smile as she listened, taking bites of her siopao as she did.

We headed straight to the movie area and looked at our choices. She pointed her hand at one of the posters. I laughed and asked, “You want to watch a movie about race cars?”

We ordered a large bucket of popcorn and headed straight in and watched the movie. She was flinching from each car crash but kept watching. She would often lean in to me and ask how they make everything so real. I smiled and we watched until the very end.

As we exited the movie theater, she continued to comment on how great movies were nowadays; everything looked so realistic. I held her hand and asked if there was anything she wanted before we headed home.

“We can bring some pansit malabon home. One bilao should be good. Maybe some lomi, too.”

I smiled. “Sure! We can buy two bilaos, so we’re sure there’s enough for everyone. But, lola, what I meant is if you want anything to buy for yourself at the mall before we leave. A new purse? New shoes?”

She patted my hand and smiled back at me. “Naku, don’t worry about me. I don’t need anything new. Seeing them—mga apo sa tuhod—is enough.” She squeezed my hand.

Time seemed to stop. And, out of yearning, I held on to her hand as well, worried as if she was leaving. “Our day’s not done yet,” I blurted. “We should spend more time together,” I begged. I was surprised at my tone and the feeling of longing. It felt like it was our last day together.

“Salamat, apo.”

With those two words, I woke up. I was back in our home in Kansas City, back on my bed, alone, in the dark. Tears filled my eyes and started rolling down my cheeks. I wailed and clutched my chest. It hurt. It hurt so much.

My husband must have panicked hearing me because I heard him running up the stairs and went straight to me.

“I miss her,” I sobbed at him, and he scooped me in his arms as I said it over and over. My grandma, my lola, has been gone almost three years now. She passed a couple of weeks after I gave birth to my daughter, whom I named after her.

I had promised myself I was going to visit them, but Covid happened, and then we didn’t have the funds to visit. The one time we were finally able to visit, she had already been dead for a year.

All the memories with my grandma came flooding back.

She attended my college graduation and told me how proud she was of me. I was in her small shack of a home, and I was there when I cried out, apologizing for lying, for not telling her that my mother had spent the money for college to pay off debt. Then there were our dates when we would just spend time together and grab food to eat.

So many memories.

I continued to sob in my husband’s arms, snot and all. I wished the dream was real; that I had spent time with my grandma before she passed away. If I could get one more hug or one more chance to hold her hand, it would be enough. If I had one more day to say how she’s beautiful and that she doesn’t look her age, it would be enough. If I can make her smile with my silly joke one more time, it would be enough. If I could just hear her voice one more time before she had her stroke, it would be enough.

But all I had now were dreams, and of me wondering how we would have spent a day together.

But it was late. It was too late.

In memory of Lola Pacing.