kwentuhan 2008

 

I used to see Mama wash the dishes while sitting down on a
brick that she herself took from the abandoned building just a few blocks away.
She would always hum herself an old song, sometimes even the new ones by Sharon
Cuneta. No, she’s not a good singer, but she sang them all the same. Sometimes
I see her bob her head to the rhythm of her song, sometimes she just sang them
outright. Sometimes I sang with her. Sometimes I just listened.

 

Let’s go back to the province

Where sampaguitas smell sweet

Where the sun isn’t hot

And our house is all neat

 

Let’s go visit Lola Mebang

And tickle her little nose

So that when she sneeze and rub it hard

She’ll give us a rose

 

And when it’s time for bed

We will all just sleep

While the moon keeps us happy

With dreams that never weep

 

She sang that song once, once when the dishes and the plates
and spoons and forks were all dirty. I watched her wash the dishes at first,
but when mosquitoes started to annoy me, I just left her there with her brick
and her funny song.

 

My Mama’s never funny actually. She’s not good with funny
stuff. What she’s good at is washing the dishes, doing the laundry, sweeping
the front yard, talking to our neighbor Florida.  And of course listen to my stories.

 
I tell her a lot of stories. I tell her about things she
never saw when she was young, like airplanes and plastic balloons and the new
rubber shoes with wheels my friend Rene wore last week and even the whitest
duck I saw in some magazine in our library yesterday. She even listens when I
brush my teeth.

She’s a very good listener, and when she listens, she sees. And when she sees, she sings.

Sometimes.