Lucia - In memoriam

She made my childhood more memorable and a lot happier with her visits. I know she spoils me with treats whenever she and my grandfather would visit and stay with us for a few days. Likewise, she loves telling me stories of the war and how her life was as a child, a wife and a mother of eight. She loves tucking me to bed and stroking my hair while I ask her to tell me her stories despite the fact that I've heard them so many times.  There wasn't a time when she told me I'm her favorite as well as my brother among her MANY grandchildren, but we just know. During Christmas morning, when we'd go to their house to kiss her hand and ask for our "aguinaldo", she will secretly give me and my brother a hundred pesos each while the rest of our cousins will get ten or twenty pesos. =)

I was already working the last time she stayed with us. I was then staying with my mom in Makati and mom picked lola up to spend a week with us. Now that was really memorable. As my relatives and close friends know that I cannot go to bed without taking a shower. That time, I was way too sleepy to dry my hair and so I went to sleep right away.  Lola woke me up and gave me a sermon, telling me I shouldn't sleep till my hair is dry. So I obliged and tried drying my hair using the fan. When I saw that my grandmother is already asleep, I then went back to bed - which I was sharing with her then, and went right back to sleep. A few minutes after, when I'm already half asleep, I felt lola feeling my hair to find out if I did dry my hair. Of course she went berserk when she found out my hair just half dry. So she woke me up again and this time I got a longer sermon to which my mom and I were laughing about the morning after.

Yesterday, we were told that she's passed away already. My mom went to visit her sometime after I gave birth. She told me that lola might not finish this year. I was then planning to visit her on her birthday - Sept 16. It will be Nathan's second month and we're thinking of cooking up a little feast to celebrate lola' s birthday and Nathan's second month. Sadly, she wasn't able to wait for it. She never saw my little boy. I'm trying not to cry as I continue this entry. I've already accepted the fact that she will be leaving us sometime this year. But I really wanted her to see my baby before she goes. We do not want to bring the baby anywhere (except of course for his check ups and shots) till he's at least 2 months old. That's why I'm thinking it would have been perfect to celebrate his second month with lola's 84th birthday. Unfortunately, she wasn't able to hold on long enough. My mom was crying over the same thing yesterday. It means so much to her to bring Nathan to lola, since Nathan is her (my mom) first grand child. And it broke my heart even more when I saw my mom weeping.

My grandmother lived a full life. She was blessed with eight children and a lot of grandchildren (don't ask me cause I don't know how many hehe) and great grand children. She is a beautiful woman inside and out, a woman of great faith in the Lord.  She has touched a lot of lives by sharing a piece of herself to them, be it a kind word, a laugh or a helping hand, one time she even raised a child (one of her daughters-in-law's niece) who used to be ill and unable to walk, but the child lived and was able to walk and is now in London. And I know that the lives of those people she came across with were never the same. 

My last picture with lola, taken on February 3, 2007. With us in the picture is my cousin Crystal.  

  Me, my mom, lola, Crystal and tita Teresita

To my Lola,

Thank you for enriching my childhood with lots of loving memories. You will always be my favorite lola. I'm deeply sorry I was not able to visit you soon enough after I gave birth. I wished that I had the chance to kiss and embrace you one last time. Thank you for everything. I promise that I will be a good daughter to my parents, a faithful wife to my husband and a loving mother to my son. And in the future when the Lord blesses me with grandchildren, I will be the kind of grand mother that you were to me, the kind that brings light in this dark and cruel world. 

Goodbye Lola. I love you.

Lucia, a 2-syllable girl's name of Latin origin, means: Bringer of light. 

Lucia C. Punay
September 16, 1923 - August 27, 2007