Mercedes, Dominador and Norberta

My very unattached immediate family trooped down the cemetery in San Mateo to visit some of the Ibe-Gomez clan buried six feet under. And those are Mercedes, Dominador and Norberta.

I don't know who Mercedes Gomez is but my Lola said that she was the cousin of my Lolo Dominador or Domeng for short. Now, Dominador is kind of like a mythical figure in our family. He's my lolo by the way from my Moodrahbel's side. When i was in kinder nobody ever mentioned a Lolo in reunions, in birthday parties and in New Years so i presumed there was no Lolo or that he was dead. But come a year before the start of my menstruation He was there--- in reunions, in birthday parties and New Years. He just popped into our family occassions like a bubble. An old man with bumble bee shades smoking tabako like a kapre and sharpening a gulok. And my mum told me to pay respects and do mano.

Nobody ever explained where the hell he was all that time. And i told my Lola that i thought he was dead. I found out that he was a philandering husband and all that story of coming back to the original family and healing old wounds and acceptance and making it seem as if nothing grand had happened.

When i was young, I was used to spending  summer vacations at my Lola's house. My alive Lolo would force feed me a tubo (sugar cane) and kalabasa; the yellow vegetable and i should say it did me good because i have a very good memory of people and events. We would also watch together Mara Clara in his old black and white TV. I did bring up my issue with him 'Tay, akala ko patay na kayo dati' He would laugh hard and blow thick smoke out of his tabako. True enough, he did die hours after eating a chock full of balat ng lechon.

During my Dominador's last rites, I never saw my Mom cry.  She hid her eyes in those snobbish pitch black shades. She was so busy taking care of everything even checking what brand of cement should be used to top the soil with, what kind of grass to  plant etc.

I never really cry at funerals but i cried when i saw my Lola wail. It was hard and reverberating like it wasn't enough for all the TV melodramas to quantify how it is to be abandoned by your husband with 9 children and then come back again not knowing how to rekindle your old flames for each other. It was a deeply rooted wail. Kumbaga may pinaghuhugutan. All the apos get to mano Dominador the last time before he was buried. And a tear of mine fell in his hands while doing my turn of the mano. Creepy.

Norberta! Yes, Norberta. What a name. Norberta is the mother of my Lola. My greatgrandmother. I still saw her alive and bathing in the poso at a crumpy age of 98. She died when she was 102 years old. She would still talk to me only in Ilocano and i don't understand Ilocano. She even ordered me to buy her a soap back then and gave me 5 cents. Haha! I remember my Lola telling me that Lola Norberta is half Japanese half Filipina. So i guess we have part Japanese blood.

My GreatLola Norberta went to Manila from Ilocos to look for her daughter (my Lola) because her daughter was kidnapped in Ilocos. And guess who kidnapped her? 

A Manilenyo. It's Dominador.