Marvelous Life

I am the youngest in the family of eight which includes my parents.  I spent my early childhood in two different places, Getafe and Tagbilaran City.  In Getafe we lived in a big wooden 2-storey house and we "own" one room with a stairway that would lead to the basement which serves as our kitchen.  It was a dirty kitchen and there was no flooring. And there was a big dog named War who would sit on the uppermost staircase looking down at us while we ate and beside War was a big orange cat named Oblada. I have several cousins in that big house two boys about my age and they would come and we would play on weekends. And there were also younger siblings of my father whom I have known to be his half-brothers and half-sisters. I also have fond memories of Lola Dora my father's step mother. She was a stern woman, hard-working and whenever I have fever I remember her giving a massage with a peculiar touch of relief. I learned to weave mat in that house she was so skilled on that.

     I was in the state of rewiring the circuits of my brain and guarding my thoughts was my game as my mother was having litany for the second time on her ill feelings towards some cousins, some members of my family including me and some years back.        I returned home for good and with the reason to be near to my mother whom I thought was lonely with our eldest brother who is sometimes hard to please. I used up some of my hard earned savings to build myself a tiny house adjacent to the main house and to make the backyard look more decent.    I was inside when I heard sounds of scrap and irons and woods threw from somewhere to somewhere and then my mother was murmuring about a mess in the back yard (our backyard has full of junks actually).  This the second time. When things like this happens I have learned to keep cool otherwise chaos would loom.  I was listening to her murmurs. She got upset over the bundles of firewood my brother has just ordered. And when I peeped out I co