I didn't even remember my response about Easter. The metaphor....so my symbolism....
May 11, 2010
Subject: Carmelo
It has been an odd feeling since last October when I was contacted by the hospital to make a life or death decision for a man I did not know beyond the age of three. There is a sense of loss, but nothing tangible. I have but three concrete memories of him. Anything else I know is based pictures that tell me nothing of who he was, what he believed in....what he was good & bad at.
Over the years I have asked few questions of my mother because I can see mixed emotions in her eyes as I ask questions. There is hurt & sadness, but also defensiveness. Other extended family have tid bits of things to talk about, but nothing that paints a picture of that man who would have had me call him, "Papa."
What can you tell me about the man, the brother, the ghost?
Dear Jeremy,
When I got the message that Manong (honorific title we Ilocanos give to an elder brother/man) Carmelo was in an ICU in a hospital in Dallas on a life support, I searched for your photos to bring with me. In the deep recesses of my consciousness, I knew that his life will end and I wanted to go with gratitude in my heart for the life he'd shared with anyone whom he had touched....and for the ones he'd challenged. I wanted to thank him for the other lives he'd created, I believe in love. So when I saw him lying there, bloated and laboring to breath even with the support system, I placed your photos beside his pillow. You, Jeremy when you were two and another, you and Byron (on a tricycle) with your cousins Zoe and Hans. I also placed an old photo of him in a uniform of a security guard. I understand that at one point in the beginning of Manong Carmelo and Wendy's marriage they went to live in Seattle and he got a job as a security officer in a Community College. I brought that photo of his because it imaged the essence of the Manong I grew up with, one that has a deep sense of adventure of life. He loved being called Mannix (a TV show of a detective). Adventure, that is key to his existence because deep in his soul he was an artist, and yet, there were not much opportunities for that part of him to be expressed and affirmed. I deeply share this sense of adventure with Manong Carmelo, maybe that's why I chose to become a missionary.
Manong Carmelo was an alcoholic, perhaps you knew this? I can speculate why he chose to be so but no one can't know for sure why. Perhaps not even himself. This condition had a devastating effect on us all. It is almost like the effect of the pandemic HIV-AIDS. The disease infects one and affects one's other relationships and psyche and spirit. I was tormented by his choice to go on binges as well as by my own feelings of anger and disgust when he did. When he was sober, he was the brother I looked up to with much fondness as he regaled us with stories of his adventures. The last stories I heard were when he worked with migrant workers, in vineyards and fishing boats in Alaska.
He was a consummate reader and loved watching the Newshour.....something he shared with my father, but heaven forbids if they get into any political discussions! Manong Carmelo loved to sing plaintive, poignant songs of life. He played the guitar too. I used to tease him that he must widen his repertoire! He was a natural artist, with no formal training, he drew amazing portraits of people. When I was in high school, I dreamt of becoming a haute couture designer and I would show him my sketches for which he would give a critical eye. I later on heard how he would mention my "talent" to his friends! So we had some kinship in primitive art!
With my siblings, we used to talk about the Macugay and Garcia (my mother's family) genes. How the Macugays have the discursive, logical, mathematical genes and the Garcias have the artistic bent to life and the and the emotions that went with it. Manong Carmelo had more of the Garcia genes, which in some significant ways were a disadvantage for him being the first boy as he received expectations (mostly from my father) of what it was to be the first boy that will carry his name. It was a heavy burden for both Manong Carmelo and for my father, who perhaps was carrying it from his own father. Papa was the only boy with three sisters. What onus we bear from each other's expectations of how things should be! It seems ironic that Manong Carmelo's deep sense and spirit of adventure could not overcome unrealistic expectations. And perhaps that was the tragedy of his life.
The last time I was with him was in December 1987. It was the first Christmas my siblings in California, Papa and I were getting together without mama. Mama died unexpectedly in May 1987. The family was going to gather in Valinda, CA to celebrate our parent's 50th wedding anniversary that June. I was here in New York then, home from Kenya to work our Vocations Office. Manong Carmelo came a few weeks before Christmas from Alaska. I was delighted to see him (he did not come for Mama's funeral) and we had a lot of things to catch up on and for me to learn his newest recipe. At one point he worked as an assistant to a sous chef in a hotel in LA. His forte was ice sculpting! He taught me how to debone a chicken and stuff it with spinach...yummmy! We worked on Mama's rose garden....pruning and mulching it.
I learned to accept his long absences in my life. He was never a ghost to me, nor for my siblings. We kept vigil of his homecoming. My relatives here in the US didn't change phone numbers so that he can get connected when he wants to or when he is ready. We gave him space and I would not know if he also wanted to have us reach out to him. We tried so when he was in Houston, but he immediately put up his barriers....."I'm just temporarily staying with a friend....I'll be out most of the time."
Everyone has a gentle smile when Manong Carmelo is remembered. At the apartment complex where he stayed in Dallas, his neighbors called him Tito. He was an uncle to all. Manong Carmelo was a gentle soul. And fragile.
I said my goodbye to him with the hope in my heart that I will someday get connected to his other "lives", to you and Byron. And Wendy. I was in Bangkok when Wendy's Facebook appeared in my computer and I sang to Manong Carmelo. And now, you. I brought your photos to his deathbed and now we are connecting. I hope we'll continue to do so. Will you tell me the three concrete memories of him?
Blessings of peace, Jeremy!
Yours,
Rebecca
Thank you for sharing.There are many mysterious senses that can now be confirmed with at least your words.
The three things I remember:
1) One night as a child I cut my own hair with scissors and when he saw this he yelled at me.(Since the age of 13, I have cut my own hair with few exceptions)
2) There was one Easter where we were coloring hard boiled eggs; dipping them in cups of liquid dyes.
3) After their separation/divorce, Byron and I were brought to wherever he had moved to for a day of visitation.
Only one of those memories is a happy one. It fills me with tears to know it is the memory centered around a holiday celebrated for both a resurrection and an artistic expression of painting eggs to be hidden only to spend time finding them again.
Thank you for helping me in this journey to help find myself again.
