Justin

I have cousins whom I met for the first time in 2015, when one of them, the only girl among four siblings, got married and I flew to the US to attend the wedding.

Jessica and I had written each other when we were young, but all I knew of her brothers were their names, how they looked as children based on some pictures from the 70s and 80s, and the occasional news my mother shared with us. But I thought of them a lot when I was growing up, because for many years my brothers and I ate all our meals at home on personalized plates Auntie Anna had sent from the States. Many times, after I'd see my name underneath the rice, I'd think of theirs: Justin, Steven, Jonathan, Jessica.

The first time I met Justin, the eldest, was at the wedding rehearsal, I think. He was seated on a pew at the back of the church, and someone mentioned food to me. I can't remember what exactly, but it must have elicited delight from me, and when he saw my reaction, he smiled, brown eyes sparkling, and said something like, "We're related, alright!"

We met a few more times after that, and it struck me how kind and warm he was, and how witty too. I found myself wishing we'd grown up close to each other, the way my other cousins and I had.

The longest chat I must have had with him was when he drove me, Sherwil, and Ruth back to my Aunt's home in Bergenfield, after a fun day spent on Jersey shore with his wife Michelle and her sister Cindy. Traffic was bad, but he kept us entertained and told us it was okay to sleep.

I'm grateful that we had that moment, and with my dearest friends too. It was like a catch-up barkada trip, and a big brother was bringing us home.

Once, on Facebook, I posted a picture of my ballpoint pens and said that I hoard them and some other office supplies. He left a comment, something like, "You're family, alright!" Then he posted pics of drawers and drawers of his own stash.

I'd been looking forward to more similar discoveries, to more visits. We lost Justin today. He was lovingly surrounded by our family in the US, and held in the hearts of our family in the Philippines. 

We will miss him always. We will love him forever.

I imagine he is being welcomed in heaven by our grandparents, especially Lolo Lino, and his father, Uncle Justino. And his beloved dog, sweet, sweet Buzz.

How we learned Tagalog

When we moved to Manila, my brothers and I still spoke Cebuano. Ivan was six, I was five, Dot was three. We would speak this language in the household for at least four more years as school and the neighborhood gradually whittled us down into Manileños.

In my mind, I credit Batibot for teaching us Filipino, but that's not the entire truth. This, I remembered at dinner last night.

While eating at Provenciano with Ivan and his fiancee Ana, I noticed the blue and white enamel plate a dish was served in and remembered I had coveted the same plate as a child because of the 1980s TV series "Yagit."

"Ang mga batang yagit" would eat fluffy, loose rice and dried fish on their blue and white enamel plates. They ate with their hands and with so much gusto--especially the fat boy named Tom-tom who was credited as Tom-tom, so I wondered if he was a real batang yagit--that I associated their enamelware with a good and happy meal despite the direst of circumstances.

Ivan told me I could find old enamelware being sold online. I replied that I probably wanted those plates only because of my yagit fantasies and those aren't exactly nice fantasies to have.

Ivan explained to Ana that when we were growing up, our helpers would watch Yagit and other afternoon TV dramas. Our mother didn't like it--we weren't allowed to watch local TV--but they still did when my parents weren't home and, by default, we did too.

That's how we learned Tagalog.

One day, Ivan was angry at one of the helpers and he called her one of the first insults we had picked up: patay-gutom. She cried, responding in the same way a TV character would, and I was stunned by this real-life drama happening before me. She may have packed her bags and left.

We got a scolding, I think, for watching local TV, but so did our helpers. That didn't stop them. And, by default, us.

In grade 5, I got laughed at for pronouncing "palda" with the accent on the second A. I had long given up calling my brother Manoy Ivan because some of the neighborhood kids teased me. By then, I was struggling with English too. But I had a growing Tagalog vocabulary! Yagit, dukha, sampid. Mangangalakal. Patay-gutom. Hampaslupa. And my favorite: tulisan.

Goodbye, yellow brick road

I didn't grow up listening to Elton John. He was already a big star when I was born, but the first grown-up songs I listened to were from vinyl records my parents, both born in the early 1950s, had in our record player. It was mostly music from The Carpenters, The Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, and Peter, Paul & Mary.

What I did grow up with, as far as Sir Elton John is concerned, is this line, forever carved into the road in front of our house, under the streetlight: "GOODBYE YELLOW BRICK ROAD."

For as long as I can remember, it has always been there, a curious phrase I'd stumble upon every now and then--first, in my younger years, when I had friends to play with in the streets; these days, when I occasionally venture out into the world and pause to look at my feet.

At first I didn't know it was a line from an Elton John song. I initially thought it was merely a The Wonderful Wizard of Oz reference, and I wondered about the boy--I just assumed it was a boy around my age--who dared write the words in wet cement and managed to not leave a single footprint. We had read the same book; if I we met, would we become friends?

When I was a little older, I started imagining it was a message from someone who knew the truth about our neighborhood: that underneath the rough concrete, made even rougher by tiny potholes and bits of dried cement left over from various house extension projects, was an actual golden road that led to the magical Land of Oz. They, whoever they were, had covered it up so nobody could find it, and yet one of them wrote the line so somebody magical--hopefully, me--would.

But then I grew up and the Internet happened, and one day, I typed the words in my computer and learned it was an Elton John song. Or maybe I grew up and videoke happened, and one day, I heard someone singing the words, recognized them, and discovered they were from an Elton John song.

I'm not really sure anymore how I made the connection. But even after I did, it took me a while to really listen to the song, and an even longer while--only tonight, in fact, when I was taking notes for a short story I am trying to write--to paint in my mind another picture of the person who may have written it.

He must have been one of the workers who built the road in the late 70s or early 80s, the period our subdivision was carved out from grassland and sold in lots to people who came in from a scattering of elsewheres.

He may have wanted to leave a mark on the product of his heavy labor. Instead of writing his name or the name of someone he loved on the drying cement, he must have settled on a line from his favorite song.

Listening to the song now, I wonder: Was he being quite literal, saying goodbye to the road, to the construction project, to the temporary job?

Or was he really feeling the song, wishing he had stayed on the farm, listened to his old man? Was he planning to go back to his plough? Had he finally decided that his future lay beyond whatever was his personal yellow brick road?

How much do you love me?

This morning, I asked my niece Kiara how much she loved me. "Eleven times," she said. "Only eleven?" I asked, and she said, with finality, yes.

I normally tease her until she gives me a bigger number, but she is four now, developing a mind of her own, and I decided to accept what she was willing to give.

This afternoon, as I was walking away from their house after dropping her off, she ran to the window and called out, "Auntie Dat!" "Yes?" I shouted back.

"I love you one hundred two times!" she shouted from the top of her tiny lungs, so loud the entire block could hear, "I miss you! I love you!"

The summer I learned sign language

When I was 16, I learned American Sign Language from a deaf guy named Larry, who was then a student at De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde. We were in Ozamiz, holding summer workshops at ICC-La Salle.

It's still one of my best summers, for many reasons, one of which involves a ghost encounter!

Larry wasn't supposed to teach ASL, but he volunteered to teach us. We finished all 12 modules, and I was amazed at how, as Larry taught us his language, he became more and more colorful in my eyes. He was a wonderful teacher, strict and funny and a little naughty when we were more fluent.

I found learning the signs easy, but I struggled with interpreting them in conversation, so after that summer, I forgot pretty much everything, except the name he gave me: the letter D, for my nickname Dat, dotting both my chubby cheeks.

Actually, he gave me two names: the letter D moving down in waves for my curly hair or the letter D on my cheeks. He smiled when we settled on cheeks, and I was just relieved he wasn't referring to my pimples!

I saw Larry in CSB last year, but he didn't see me. I wanted to say hi or hello (I still know how to sign that!), but I hesitated and the hesitation won.

Might as well, I told myself as I walked away. How on earth could I ask him if he remembered me, and if he didn't, how on earth could I tell him how he once spent several days in Ozamiz, silently changing how I saw the world?