Old Photos, New Memories

I have this habit of looking through our old photographs at least once every week.
I LOVE looking at old pictures. They give me that feeling of happiness and nostalgia.

Last night, I rummaged through our boxes again and found pieces of old photos that I haven't seen before. Old pictures of my lolo and lola.

My lolo Gerardo passed away before my older brother was born. A lot of people are telling me that it was unfortunate that he did not live long enough to see me and vice versa, I feel unfortunate that I have not been able to experience his "spoiling". My Mom and Tita told me that my Lolo was one of the pioneers of our Citizen's Brigade Band and that he wrote many of its core pieces. He plays the saxophone for the Air Force Band and boy, I would've loved to learn how to play the saxophone. Unfortunately (again) for me, his cousin borrowed his saxophone and did not return it and now my second third cousin Dan is using it and refused to give it back to us. Oh, well... I wanted to fight but my Mom told me to drop it.

My lola left us just recently, actually it was when Milenyo hit Luzon. Our house was not at all damaged but I would rather have a missing roof than experience this terrible feeling of missing her. Nanay raised her children alone when lolo passed away. She was just an ordinary housewife then but was skilled enough to get all her four children through college. She made clothes and uniforms and pretty much saved her money up to the last cent just to assure the future of her children. Nanay is the eldest of the 11 siblings. Being the eldest and a female, her parents did not let her finish school because they want her youngest brother to get the education they can only afford to give to one child.
Nanay, eventhough she really wanted to study, sacrificed and only finished grade two. But Tita said that she was impeccable at Math.
However, her youngest and most favored brother wasted away and have, until Nanay died, relied on Nanay for everything. But Nanay never forgot to take care of her brothrs and sisters.
We are aware that a lot of them, if not all, owe her huge amounts of money but are not bothering to pay her back. Nanay never talked about it in front of us but I was silently cursing them for doing that to her. And during those times when she was lying in her coffin, I was thinking, "look at her, she died taking care of us, taking care of you.Even though I know that she knew that you talked about her when she's not around."

I saw a picture of Nanay when she was young. She already looked tough. Maybe at the time when this photo was taken, she already accepted her fate. I don't know. But I terribly, terribly miss her.