Remembering our dead

No matter how it has been since we lost our loved ones, once a year, we relive their memories, feel the warmth of their love and even shed tears for them as we remember why we loved them all in the first place.

All Saints’ Day is peculiar to the Philippines. And yes, All Saints’ Day makes sense. In fact, next to our longest Christmas season in the world, it is probably my favorite of all our customs and traditions. Why? Because it assures all of us who are living that, though death is inevitable, we will still be remembered at least once a year by those who we will leave behind.

Of course, this perspective is one that I developed when I reached adulthood. As a child, Araw ng Patay was a treat! Hey, it’s an outdoor picnic after all, with the added attraction of having to compete with my siblings to have the largest wax ball collected from the spent candles in cemeteries. The process of collecting the spent wax from the graves of strangers probably prepared me for my eventual entry into politics.

I have fond memories of my grandparents waking us up as early as 4 a.m. on many 1 November to beat the crowd in Manila North Cemetery where my maternal great grandparents are buried. I never met them. But once a year as a child, my maternal grandmother, Margarita Lopez, would ensure that we knew them, Silvestre Mendoza and Fabiana Cruz. Silvestre was a Katipunero and was said to have killed the highest-ranking American officer during the Philippine-American war. Fabiana was a Christian homemaker who raised even the illegitimate son of her husband as her own. She would later be one of the founders of the Cosmopolitan Church of Manila.

On 2 November, my maternal grandfather, Hipolito Lopez, would then bring us to Parañaque Municipal Cemetery to remember his parents, Pedro de Leon and Lopez. Pedro was a farmer who made sure that at least one of his children would break away from the bondage of the land. That was my grandmother Hipolito who opted to use the surname of his mother, Lopez. Great grandma Lopez was famous in the then Municipality of Parañaque because of her height. She apparently was seven feet tall, a generic trait which, unfortunately, I did not inherit from her.

Would I have known them had it not been for the many 1 November spent at their graves? Probably not.

Today, I am the lone member of my family who opted to stay and live in the country. Virtually all my immediate relatives, including all siblings and cousins, have become Americans. It has been incumbent upon me to continue the tradition. Unfortunately, I have not been to the graves of my great grandparents but now tend to a family plot in Loyola Parañaque which has been the resting place of my maternal grandparents, my eldest sister Gloria, my mother Adelaida, uncle Emmanuel and Aunt Zenaida, all surnamed Lopez. Coming from parents who separated during their lifetimes, I lived all my life in the abode of my maternal grandparents together with two aunts and an uncle. We lived actually in a palatial 12-bedroom house in Sucat, and later in Ayala Alabang, fruits of my grandfather’s ricefields, which he later sold to the Aguirres and the Sys. It was because of these inherited lands that my siblings and I had the opportunity to study abroad.

Lolo Hipolito, being a lawyer and among the pioneer councilors of Quezon City, of course, influenced me to follow his footsteps both in the legal profession and in politics. My only regret is he did not live to see me take my oath as a congressman or as a member of the Cabinet. I find consolation in the fact that in our many morning walks around the ricefields of then desolate Sucat Road, he would tell me that I would surpass his achievements in politics, even predicting that I would be a member of both Congress and the Cabinet. He did not venture to any higher office beyond that of a city councilor because my mother Adelaida and my Aunt Lilia, a retired judge, once cried for three days and nights complaining that they have had it with the throngs of people descending on their residence in San Francisco del Monte devouring their breakfast. It was then that my grandfather opted to retire from politics and worked as the first Filipino executive for the multinational company Procter and Gamble.

As I write this, I am with my living wife and children in Boracay but will return in the afternoon of 1 November. For while I have made arrangements to bring flowers to the family plot as early as last Sunday, I know that it is my obligation as a Filipino and as the lone remaining heir of my departed ones in the Philippines to keep the 1 November tradition alive. And yes, this day makes sense because no matter how it has been since we lost our loved ones, once a year, we relive their memories, feel the warmth of their love and even shed tears for them as we remember why we loved them all in the first place. I love you all: Mommy, Papa, Lolo Hipolito, Lola Margarita, Lolo Max, Lola Juaning, Ate Glo, Sonny, Zeny and Tatay Nestor. We remember you every 1 November no matter what, even as we look forward to be reunited with all of you.