Ties that bind
Feb. 10th, 2012 06:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
take_the_goodMy mom and some of her siblings are going back to the Philippines in a few days. My grandmother (technically my great-aunt/stepgrandmother but the only one I've ever known) is not doing well. And by "not doing well" I mean. Well. Yeah. That. They're going to start arrangements and settle some legal things regarding willing the farmland to cousins and distant aunts. They are going to say goodbye.
I was very sad at first. Sadder than I've been about anything in a while (several years spent typing up obituaries sort of numbs you to some things) but I'm feeling more adjusted to it now. Mostly guilt in that I can't go with them. It was a very last-minute trip and I don't have a passport and there's no way I'd get one in time (that's problem #1, before all the logistics of travel and money, but really it's the only problem I can console myself with as being completely impassable). I haven't seen my grandmother since she moved back to the Philippines in 2007 and it hurts so much to think that there will be no next time or other chance.
Perhaps the only upside of this is that my mom talks more about her childhood these past weeks. About her neighbor who had a pet monkey that she adored as a child. About how her mother would harvest mud from around the roots of the mango trees on the farm and make earthen cooking pots--the most beautiful pots of the entire village--that she fired in the backyard. She wonders if she will be able to climb onto a water buffalo again for the first time in almost half a century. I want to hold on to all of this. Every word. Every tone in her voice when she says it.
Sorry for the strange, rambling, emotional word-vomit. I'll have a more update-ish post later.
I was very sad at first. Sadder than I've been about anything in a while (several years spent typing up obituaries sort of numbs you to some things) but I'm feeling more adjusted to it now. Mostly guilt in that I can't go with them. It was a very last-minute trip and I don't have a passport and there's no way I'd get one in time (that's problem #1, before all the logistics of travel and money, but really it's the only problem I can console myself with as being completely impassable). I haven't seen my grandmother since she moved back to the Philippines in 2007 and it hurts so much to think that there will be no next time or other chance.
Perhaps the only upside of this is that my mom talks more about her childhood these past weeks. About her neighbor who had a pet monkey that she adored as a child. About how her mother would harvest mud from around the roots of the mango trees on the farm and make earthen cooking pots--the most beautiful pots of the entire village--that she fired in the backyard. She wonders if she will be able to climb onto a water buffalo again for the first time in almost half a century. I want to hold on to all of this. Every word. Every tone in her voice when she says it.
Sorry for the strange, rambling, emotional word-vomit. I'll have a more update-ish post later.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-11 02:27 am (UTC)My thoughts are with you and your family.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-12 02:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-13 07:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-13 07:35 am (UTC)