Honey

Honey is 84 years old, this fiesty old lady who asked my daughter, 'Amin na lang si Christianne ha?', when they first met. My daughter laughed in reply, politely said, 'Huwag po.' Honey is called that by all, her true name is actually 'Leoning', and she is called by everyone that nickname as a sign of not only respect for the woman she is but of endearment. Not that she is all sugar-and-spice-and-everything-nice. She is headstrong, was with the teaching profession for the longest time, went abroad to work, save up, be with her sublings, came home to Vigan, built her house and took care of everyone in need. In the middle of all that, she got married at about 50 years old (older, I think) to a man who was widowed and sought her after so many years of having only her in his heart. He passed away while married to her, and I looked at his photos with her when they were together based on which I can definitely say, his last and happiest days. 

Today, she is sewing these pillowcases by her door. It's the pillows today. Other days, the curtains, the softdrink bottles (she has a sari-sari store, not that she needs the money but she has to do something productive), some days it's the linens and bedsheets she wants all changed. All in the rooms of her home, even when there are no visitors expected. She sweeps the floor every early morning, a habit she taught everyone in her household. Everyone sweeps the floor in her home, well, except me, because I have not held a broom my entire life. Sometimes I think, if only she could wash the whole house like she can with the dishes, she would do that. 

Honey has lived full circle. From working too hard, not for herself alone but for those who depend on her, to settling down with a man who truly loved her, to losing her husband to cancer, to surviving a major operation herself, to just selling candies to neighborhood kids bringing with them their chatter, to being at the backs of the househelp for something to do, to sitting on her rocking chair each day praying the rosary, and looking forward to us arriving from the office as much as she sends us off, Leonelle, Demi her 'apo', and I, as the latest addition to her 'adopted'. She does not have children of her own and I don't think that she missed out on motherhood at all. She has a whole clan. The closest to her look after her, though at times, she feels neglected, too. Yet I feel it is just, 'lambing' once in a while when she frets about this and that ache she feels. 

I look at her now, and I wish I, too, would some day sit on a rocking chair, rosary in hand, and just do that, sit. Rock, sleep, rock again, sell candies, sweep the floor. I am almost half her age and I cannot even begin to put the pieces together of this life I devoted to others, to my kids, then like a pendulum shifted to self-indulgence, got the wind knocked out of me, but I got up again, and again, and yet again. I struggle to breathe each day, on this semi-rocking chair they call 'butaka' in Vigan, or with Winky at the bottom of the stairs in La Union.  I start counting my blessings. Truth to tell, it does not come close to what Honey has, yet I am thankful. I am hopeful. Breathe, I tell myself. Breathe.