When nothing else is left, only memories remain. But these memories are powerful enough to let the person revive and relive the sweet-sorrow again and again and again.
That's what I felt when I scanned back the albums that Nanang carefully and neatly kept in our sala. I saw our pictures when I was yet a child. I saw the familiar places and faces as we grew up. Faces. Smiling faces. Younger faces. Jolly faces.
I saw how time took its toll on the faces and skins of both Tatang and Nanang. Both of them were full of vigor and life during their heydays. I saw Nanang standing on her two feet, a sight I missed before she left us.
I was able to recall our good ol' days way back in the forests of Nagbaranganan. The sights no longer hold true today. The last time I was there was in 1984, almost 25 years past. It was a place where Nanang and Tatang brought us up into who we are now. We stayed in one of the teachers' cottages inside the 105-hectare lot of the school. Our house was the first to be reached when walking from the school as one would follow the trek around the small hill overlooking the school grounds. In front of our house was a citrus orchard almost 3 hectares big. Tatang was the one taking care of the citrus plantation. I remembered how we used to snake into the depths of the plantation and pick the most luscious of the fruits that we could find. Can you imagine one crateful would cost only P15-20? And that would mean about 25-30 kilograms of fresh mandarin!
I also remembered way back when I was in first year high school, we cleared a wide area on the slope of the big mountain for us to plant pineapple. If my memory does not fail me, we must have planted not less than 6,000 pineapple plants. And in a year's time, each pineapple plant would bear a fruit - a whopping 6,000 fruits to harvest at the end of the cropping season. They were sold at P0.25 each! As I reminisce this experience, I can't believe how the Philippine peso then had a great purchasing power compared to these days.
I even experienced rendering student paid labor of P6.00 a day. At the end of the day after manually weeding out rows and rows of mungo plantation, I smile knowing that I already had another six pesos. And I did that daily during the summer months. How I loved the days when I received my hard-earned pay! It was heaven. A school year's tuition fee then was just P13.50.
There were a lot of occasions when my brother and I would go home early from school and go straight to the clear running brook from the slopes of the big mountain. We simply would creep the crevices of the stones under the water and we would be able to practically manually catch big shrimps hiding in those crevices. We would happily come back home with a basinful of our catch and served as our viand. Nanang was very happy each time that we come back home with full catch.
At night, Tatang, Dante, Arnel, and I, including some of our cousins, would go to the river to catch fish, shrimps, crabs, etc. using our locally-deviced electric catcher. I was almost always the one carrying the device. We were able to catch a variety of fish and shrimps. By almost 12 midnight, we would come back home all happy and contented. Our catch would serve as our viand for the next days.
Memories. Indeed they come as flashbacks like movie review. They come rushing and I still feel them as fresh as ever. And I thank God that I am still able to. Thank God, I still don't have Alzheimer's.
Written and contributed by: Ernesto U. Guillermo, Jr.
Valedictorian, SMRVS Batch 1984
