A Special Grandmother

Hello Guys!

I'm writing this special section for my late grandmother

She's a super special part of our lives and she will never be forgotten

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PAULINA PASCUAL CARIÑO

"MOMMY"

Paulina Pascual Cariño (86 years old)

B. January 22, 1926 - D. December 26, 2012

She is more known in our house as "Mommy"

She was the loving grandmother of this household.

This blog is a tribute to her death which was very unexpected and sudden

However, it was a very peaceful death

She died of old age

So, thank God for that!

To describe her, you can see her picture up there. As far as I can remember, she have always wore short hair which she have curled for special occasions. She was always a strong woman, independent on her work and would rather do it herself than let others do it. She is very generous and would give an excess amount of money and hospitality to those who are in need (and also to those who really aren't in need). She isn't very thrifty except to herself. Really nice right? Generous to others, thrifty to herself. I think it is very rare to find someone like her. And I am very happy to have someone like her who I have been with my life until I was 18 years old. Some people already lost their grandparents before reaching that age. However, for my grandmother, discipline in what you eat is very important. She does not eat "unhealthy food" as much as we or almost all of us do. How diligent is a person eating oatmeal for about 3x a day with only sugar to keep it tasty. That is very diligent! The one thing she can't ignore though is this special drink called "Coke" (haha everybody loves it). Well I think it's good though. She deserves something tasty. And because of her diligence, she have been able to keep her strength. In fact, when we were about 10 or 13 years old, she can still carry us around. She even dug the flowers, cooked the food, made desserts for us, go shopping for us, and made our house beautiful. But of course, as time goes by she became weak and well it couldn't be helped. But I am still thankful to God that there's someone like her in our lives.

With her family, Mommy is very loving. It is pretty obvious that she is very concern with all of us here. Questions like "have you eaten already?", "has your mother slept yet?", "is your father home already?", are often heard. Most of the time, she would sit on one of the chairs of our living room and watch noontime shows with our grandfather. Now I told you that she isn't thrifty. In fact, Mommy is very self-less. Often our father would talk to her about her not even using the electric fan when the weather was too hot. She might get sick because of the hot weather. However, Mommy was more concerned about the electricity bills. Another thing that is very observable is that she often does things for herself even if help is really really really available. Our house is pretty messy. She often goes down with all her stuffs including glasses and plates from upstairs not asking anybody for help. That is until you find her and help her. If not, she would have probably went down the stairs alone carrying loads of stuffs and you don't even know it. Most of the time, someone would ask you to do something that is very very easy to do. Mommy will answer "No I'll do it", standing up and doing it for you. And then we're like, "No Mommy we'll do it. It's not big deal" with a sweat drop on our head. Like I told you before, she is very selfless and would rather do it herself (although she can't) than you doing it even if what you're gonna do is super simple. Another one of her special traits to add up to the ones I mentioned before is that she can play the piano really really well. Sure my father also learned to play when he was younger. But right now? I don't think there's another person who can play it well in the house.

Mommy is also very popular with our relatives. Our family clan is pretty big and I don't even know who is who anymore. But everybody seems to be related to her and calls her auntie. I suppose that is because she's the last member of her primary family (her siblings) which is a pretty big group of people. She smiles at everyone and is generous to everyone. You would really see her sense of hospitality to others. Mommy would be beautiful in family reunions. She would be wearing a dress or a blouse (I dunno what the grandmother polo is called) and black pants. She would wear sparkling earrings, a sparkling necklace, and a sparkling ring. She would talk to almost everyone. Mommy is a good host.

Outside the family, she would have lots of friends. Mommy is a member of the senior citizen club in our barangay (in fact, I think she's the treasurer) and of course she would have friends there. She would talk to her best friends in the club for a very very long time, talking about each others lives and problems. Other than those people at the senior citizen club, she would often meet acquaintances from our friends: from parents friends and from me and my sister's friends. Mommy would greet them and welcome them into the house and talk to them about their lives. When it comes to our friends, she is very friendly with our childhood friends that it's okay if they go upstairs and spend time with us. To our new friends, Mommy would often ask not to go upstairs because it is messy but, yeah, as teen agers who thinks that a messy floor is no big deal, we find our way around. Mommy would also worry whenever a visitor comes. She worries if our food (lunch or dinner or whatever) would be okay for the visitor because it might be "nakakahiya" or not visitor-worthy (if there is such a word).

Now that she's gone. I have a lot of things that I'll really miss about her. You know how grandmothers often ask you repeatedly about usual stuffs? It's irritating right? But you have to keep in mind that you shouldn't get irritated. Just accept that their a little old who forgets stuffs more often than you do. Everyone will probably arrive to that stage anyway. Just think of it as her concern for you and for others. She would often ask if my mother is already home or if she have already slept (because my mother works at a night shift), ask if we have already eaten, ask about the time, ask about the day, ask if Ate Anne (our dear friend who is already working abroad) have been calling and how she is, and other concerns. If this happens to your grandparents, don't get irritated even if the question had been asked for every 10 minutes (especially the time and date). I watched an inspirational YouTube video before concerning how grandmother feels in a grandmother point of view that says something like:

"If I don't know that I repeated the question, don't get mad at me. Please kindly repeat your answer"

I would also miss little things such as the way she sleeps on her bed. The way Mommy does not say that she wanted us there with her. You would only notice that she does want us to stay by her side whenever we are already there (for some reason). She smiles at us and touches our fat arms and legs and tells jokes about how "far" we are (though I don't believe we're fat). She also tells jokes about our physical appearance. Oh! and I just remembered that she would nonstop try to remind me to take care of my face. She will say "Wag mong gagalawin yan ha" (don't touch your face often), gesturing at my face concerned about how ugly I am lol. Just joking, of course she was concerned about my unsmooth face. I would also miss her playing the piano (although she haven't played for a long time now). I mean, Mommy is the only person in the house who really knows how to play the piano. Now that she's gone, I guess the piano is just a memory that nobody can play now (lol). I would also miss her footsteps at the hallways on our second floor going down or going up the stairs. It was a pretty slow walk with one foot at a time walking. It was pretty distinguishable. In fact, it was so distinguishable that after her death my aunt and a friend of mine said that they heard footsteps at the hallway to the stairs that sounds like it was Mommy's (why am I scaring myself by writing this down). I don't believe in ghosts but that was really spooky. No one was at the hallway by that time they said and that kind of walking really belonged to Mommy. They said that some bad spirit was imitating the way Mommy walked a few days after she died. (Anyways...... this is too much spookiness.). I would also miss how she would design the house from the curtain to the arrangement to the vases to everything! She was a real home keeper and she has a very fine taste of aesthetics <3. Of course I would miss a lot of stuffs that I can't enumerate them all. However, the special things that I will miss the most about her is her warm smile and her embrace. Whenever I look on her coffin during the wake, I could only wish that she could embrace me again, for just one more time. But of course, that's it.

I have so many regrets, so many things that I should have done. It's the first time I experienced what they say, that you should make your beloved ones feel your love before it's too late. Being a young kid, I took that for granted. I never knew the true meaning of that until the first time that someone dear to me died. I admit that I've never spent a lot of time with her. In fact, me and my sister was always in the room playing games, having the time of our lives while she was alone in her room. We never accompanied her much and I think we didn't really showed our best love for her. I didn't do my best. I admit it. I really didn't. Even at the time of her death, like 5-10 minutes before she died, I admit that I didn't do my best. I didn't even approach her when she was having a hard time already and we're in a big crisis now. I did all I can to let the others know and help her because I knew that I couldn't. But why didn't I approach her by then? 1) It's painful for me to see her like that. I can't stand seeing people in pain especially if it's her and if her final hour would really come, 2) I'm not a girl scout. I know I can't do anything to help but to inform others and get out of the way so that I won't be a hindrance. I guess that's all I can do.

If I could say one last thing to her, there is only a few things I would love to tell her. First of all, Thank you. Thank you for being a great grandmother. Thank you for all the love and care you gave us all. Thank you for everything you contributed in shaping our lives. Thank you for every memory you shared with us. Thank you for supporting us all the way. Thank you for everything. I would also love to tell her something really weird to think about. While I was at her wake and looking at the guests who visited her for their last look at her, I have a feeling that anytime soon, after all of this was over, I would have to tell her about her wake, about who visited her, about what happened, about how her wake made me and my sister close to our cousins, about everything regarding her wake. It's weird right? I dunno why I had that feeling, the feeling that I would get to talk to her again and tell her how much people loved her and visited her. It's a really really weird feeling but also a happy feeling whenever you look at the guests. And then you suddenly realize, oops, I won't get the chance to tell her this, won't I? That's the sad part though. In addition, I would also love to tell her about my upcoming graduation. Mommy left us when I was already graduating college. I remember her jokes about us buying her something once we had our first job (which is anytime soon now). And that we joked about buying her candy and she laughed. Those were the good time and laughs with her. I would love to invite her to my graduation. That finally she could see me graduate. That would be so great won't it? But I guess it can't be help if she rested at less than 6 months before I graduate. -sigh-. I guess that's another sad part. Well, that's what I would tell her if I had the chance: How much I really love her, how much others love her and what happened during her wake and burial, and thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I am very sorry for having such a positive tone on a sad blog but I can't help it. I feel like I don't need a sad tone for this. We must keep things lively when talking about our departed beloveds. Because we don't have to remember them as dead, they would always be alive in our memories and in our hearts.

I guess that's all. I feel good about sharing my grandmother's memories with you.

~ A Tribute to Mommy Poly~

--from her grand daughter

Me and her (2007)

Daddy and Mommy