I still remember vaguely those blissfully ignorant nights when I was on my maternal grandmother’s lap. That the only thing on my mind was whether my grandmother and I will steal another piece of candy or gum from our shoddy storefront counter. We’ll get yelled at by my aunt but it was worth it. It made me happy and she happily did whatever it took to get me smiling. My mother was in America and I was stuck back in the Philippines. She made sure I was fed by sacrificing more of her chicken because there was just so much that could go around. She would tell me fables, especially that one about a young girl who was too lazy to search for stuff that when her mother gasped in exasperation for her to grow many eyes, her mother found a pineapple in the middle of the garden and her daughter nowhere to be found.

I remember not feeling completely helpless when living with my paternal family because my paternal grandmother was there. To feed me, to give me one of her painful back massages, and to play bingo with. Sometimes, when we went to a buffet, she would wrap a piece of chicken (or two) in a napkin and surprise me with it. Not at home, but in the car on the way back home with the biggest smile on her face. She wasn’t rich, lived in a pretty packed house full of people (her kids and her kid’s kids) that rely on her as the backbone (and main cook) of the family. Despite the flaws of all of those shitty 7+ kids, the pathetic aunts and uncles of mine, she loved every single one of them. It was my grandmother who forced my father to put my name back on the petition to get me to America after he had removed it.

It’s funny how I didn’t realize how much I was loved until they both passed away. Those times when I yelled at my paternal grandmother as an angst filled middle school child. When my maternal grandmother was crying on the phone, asking my mother and I when will we bring her to the states because she misses us and I couldn’t stomach it, I couldn’t say anything and just cried with her.

Lolas, I miss you, too. I still do.

I feel like I inherited their love. Amidst the bullshit paternal side, I felt love. To love other human beings, whether it be romantic or simply wanting them to be safe and happy. I learned from them. It’s not the circumstances of our birth that defines us. I was hated because I wasn’t “part of the family” as my dad divorced my mom. But what did that have to do with me? Why wasn’t I allowed to smile? I never had a heart to heart with either. Blame age, blame distance. But what would they say if they know me now? Would they be happy?

What’s best for someone. Doing what you can.

Sacrifice.

 

 

I sometimes hate that word.

 

When’s it fine to take?