All the world's a stage and we, are but mere players. Some plays the role of being the powerful, while the rest remains the desolate and the powerless. When life stories intertwine, we become affected when one of the characters struck misfortune as they play their role on a stage called life.
One of the characters in my part of the stage is Nanay Bining. She is not your average elder who lives in the neighborhood. At a prime age of 74* she is still very active in community affairs. You see her with the rest of the matriarchs lurching along the road in their bright yellow umbrellas and floral print dresses. At times, you see her playing Mahjong until the wee hours of the morning in one of the apartments across the street. What sets her apart from other old people is her zest for life. Even at her old age, she drinks Red Horse when there is a party in the compound. She is the epitome of endurance and unconventionality no other elder person in the entire baranggay could ever match.
However, Nanay Bining's life is not all bright and sunshiny. Left with an aging daughter who has no family of her own, they stay in the smallest apartment in the compound where I live. Supported by a relative who works in another country, their monthly provisions go to the dialysis treatment of her daughter. The unit that they occupy is a world forgotten by time. Decrypt and almost in a state of disrepair, a whiff of staleness and longing for the older days assaulted my senses the last time I went inside. The sala serves as Nanay Bining's bedroom, her kitchen is perpetually dark and dusty and God knows what lurks in the rooms upstairs.
Despite Nanay Bining's state, she remains jolly as ever. My personal relationship with her is very close. With no grandmother to call my own, I treat her as one. Whenever I see her walking outside the house, I would cease whatever activity I'm doing to run towards her and stoop down to make Mano. She would enthusiastically respond by reaching for my head to give my cheeks a kiss or sometimes my forehead. Nanay Bining would sometimes tell me that had his son never died, he would look exactly like me.
I would often respond to her resentments with an uneasy smile.
And then life goes on without us ever noticing the minor changes in our existence: The sun rising, the next-door kids going to school, the maids and neighbors holding another picnic session in the driveway at lunchtime, the car breaking down again, a neighbor complaining about cat's poop on his flower pots and I arriving home from work just when everyone is about to sleep. Everything seems so mundane and routine that when some unexpected surprises come up, we are left shaken to our bones when the realities of life suddenly makes it's presence felt.
I arrived home at past 4'o clock this morning. Exhausted from all the wanderings the night before, I proceeded to my mother's bedroom to inform her that I'm home. With her eyes still drooping, then and there she broke the news to me.
"Tinakbo si Nanay Bining kanina ah." Her words were cold and calculated.
"Bigla na lang daw nangisay at tumirik ang mata..." The rest of the details she said were now blurry. Digesting her opening statements alone had numbed me for I have been battered to a pulp by a series of unfortunate events the day before.
"Sinong nagdala sa kanya sa ospital?"
"Yung mga kapitbahay. Wala nga pang-taxi eh kaya nagbigay ako ng P200." I was tempted to ask why she did not let them use the car instead, when she added a few more details to her statement.
"Papagamit ko sana yung FX kaso ayaw ko naman maiwan si [insert the name of driver here] mag-isa sa ospital." Of all the things that scare our butch lesbian driver, driving someone to a hospital's emergency room runs on top of her list. Second is to see someone she knows lying peacefully inside the casket.
"So sinong bantay sa kanya ngayon?"
"Wala"
"Wala ba yung anak niya?" I asked, puzzled.
"Paano makakapagbantay yun eh isa ring may sakit. Nako baka mabaldado si Nanay Bining niyan..." Why does speculations always be negative?
I never dared to ask more questions after my mom told me how the ensuing panic traumatized my sister to the point that she wanted to start her own family in an instant. For all our resistance to settle down and have a family of our own, the fears of growing old alone suddenly struck us bare.
"Mag-isa siya ngayon sa ospital."
"Mahirap tumanda ng walang pamilya."
"Kaya ikaw mag-isip isip ka na..."
It was almost sunrise. Tired and exhausted from a very, very upsetting day. I was lying on my bed, catatonic, with my sullen eyes fixed on the TV showing reruns of Invader Zim on Nickelodeon
Thinking...
Do I have a future being gay.
---
One of the characters in my part of the stage is Nanay Bining. She is not your average elder who lives in the neighborhood. At a prime age of 74* she is still very active in community affairs. You see her with the rest of the matriarchs lurching along the road in their bright yellow umbrellas and floral print dresses. At times, you see her playing Mahjong until the wee hours of the morning in one of the apartments across the street. What sets her apart from other old people is her zest for life. Even at her old age, she drinks Red Horse when there is a party in the compound. She is the epitome of endurance and unconventionality no other elder person in the entire baranggay could ever match.
However, Nanay Bining's life is not all bright and sunshiny. Left with an aging daughter who has no family of her own, they stay in the smallest apartment in the compound where I live. Supported by a relative who works in another country, their monthly provisions go to the dialysis treatment of her daughter. The unit that they occupy is a world forgotten by time. Decrypt and almost in a state of disrepair, a whiff of staleness and longing for the older days assaulted my senses the last time I went inside. The sala serves as Nanay Bining's bedroom, her kitchen is perpetually dark and dusty and God knows what lurks in the rooms upstairs.
Despite Nanay Bining's state, she remains jolly as ever. My personal relationship with her is very close. With no grandmother to call my own, I treat her as one. Whenever I see her walking outside the house, I would cease whatever activity I'm doing to run towards her and stoop down to make Mano. She would enthusiastically respond by reaching for my head to give my cheeks a kiss or sometimes my forehead. Nanay Bining would sometimes tell me that had his son never died, he would look exactly like me.
I would often respond to her resentments with an uneasy smile.
And then life goes on without us ever noticing the minor changes in our existence: The sun rising, the next-door kids going to school, the maids and neighbors holding another picnic session in the driveway at lunchtime, the car breaking down again, a neighbor complaining about cat's poop on his flower pots and I arriving home from work just when everyone is about to sleep. Everything seems so mundane and routine that when some unexpected surprises come up, we are left shaken to our bones when the realities of life suddenly makes it's presence felt.
I arrived home at past 4'o clock this morning. Exhausted from all the wanderings the night before, I proceeded to my mother's bedroom to inform her that I'm home. With her eyes still drooping, then and there she broke the news to me.
"Tinakbo si Nanay Bining kanina ah." Her words were cold and calculated.
"Bigla na lang daw nangisay at tumirik ang mata..." The rest of the details she said were now blurry. Digesting her opening statements alone had numbed me for I have been battered to a pulp by a series of unfortunate events the day before.
"Sinong nagdala sa kanya sa ospital?"
"Yung mga kapitbahay. Wala nga pang-taxi eh kaya nagbigay ako ng P200." I was tempted to ask why she did not let them use the car instead, when she added a few more details to her statement.
"Papagamit ko sana yung FX kaso ayaw ko naman maiwan si [insert the name of driver here] mag-isa sa ospital." Of all the things that scare our butch lesbian driver, driving someone to a hospital's emergency room runs on top of her list. Second is to see someone she knows lying peacefully inside the casket.
"So sinong bantay sa kanya ngayon?"
"Wala"
"Wala ba yung anak niya?" I asked, puzzled.
"Paano makakapagbantay yun eh isa ring may sakit. Nako baka mabaldado si Nanay Bining niyan..." Why does speculations always be negative?
I never dared to ask more questions after my mom told me how the ensuing panic traumatized my sister to the point that she wanted to start her own family in an instant. For all our resistance to settle down and have a family of our own, the fears of growing old alone suddenly struck us bare.
"Mag-isa siya ngayon sa ospital."
"Mahirap tumanda ng walang pamilya."
"Kaya ikaw mag-isip isip ka na..."
It was almost sunrise. Tired and exhausted from a very, very upsetting day. I was lying on my bed, catatonic, with my sullen eyes fixed on the TV showing reruns of Invader Zim on Nickelodeon
Thinking...
Do I have a future being gay.
---
Epilogue: Everything turned well for Nanay Bining who was discharged from the hospital this morning. According to the maid, her first words the moment she woke up were. "Bakit ako nandito? Huli kong natatandaan eh lumilipad ako." It turns out her blood sugar dropped to dangerous levels that if the taxi driver brought her to a more distant government hospital last night, the damages of low blood sugar on her body would render her comatose
or even dead.
I left the house with the maid heating some hot water for Nanay Bining. Her lunch for the day: Instant Cup Noodles.
*approximate age
or even dead.
I left the house with the maid heating some hot water for Nanay Bining. Her lunch for the day: Instant Cup Noodles.
*approximate age
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