Checkertooth Grins and Milk Chicken

I write this entry now after having closed the doors of the house and letting my mom out to a wake of an old family friend. Mama invited me to come and pay my respects, but I turned the invite down. Thus, I am up here, Mama's bedroom, second floor of the house, writing about the dearly departed Tita Elly instead.

No, I am not ungrateful or insensitive or uncaring. If I were, I would not be writing this entry.

Tita Elly was an old friend of my mother's side of the family for as far as I can remember. I recall seeing her when I was around five when Mama first brought me to see Lola Mommy and Lola Ima, my great-grandmother, as well as my other titos and titas from the other branches of my mother's family tree. I first caught sight of her in the white-tiled concrete kitchen, surrounded by bandehados of steaming caldereta and menudo, arms deep in the kitcken-sink, hurrying to rinse and dry off another batch of plates to be hauled back into the dining area. I was greeted with a checkerboard-toothed grin and a pair of crossed eyes that, as my mother told me, "di na nabalik ng hinipanan ng hangin." She cackled to me in her creaky voice, "Kamusta na, Jening? Haw old ar yu?" and I held up four fingers, too shy to say so. From then on, in my little-girl mind, it was Tita Elly the cross-eyed, toothless wonder. a wonder she was, because for all my grandmother's lectures on decorum (like how little girls should not make faces, cross their eyes, and always brush their teeth), here was a happy person missing a few teeth and cross-eyed as anything who gave no mind. I pondered on this and let the thought drift me to sleep on the way home to New Manila.

Seven years later, my mother and I moved to Cainta after my parents' two-year-old break-up. We were welcomed into the Cainta community, and Tita Ely was there with the best support she could offer us: food. she was a good cook, the lutong-bahay kind, and she ran a small carinderia business a bit of a walk away from where we lived. whenever Mama didn't feel like cooking, she sent me to buy ulam at Tita Elly's place, and Tita Elly would always greet me with "Hello, Jennit, ano'ng gusto mo? Me minudo ako, tsaka caldirita, tsaka kangkong gusto mo? Pili ka na lang..."

when I turned 20, I wanted to bring my possé over for a dinner-party, and again, Mama told me to go ask Tita Elly what she could prepare for me and my guests. With a frugal budget of P1000 (maybe even less, if my memory still serves me right), she gave me catering-type bandehados of pansit, spaghetti, menudo, and instant-disappearing fried chicken. (The secret? She marinated the chicken bits in milk first, so she told me.)

I fondly remember the milk-marinated chicken.

Then, there was that time when my Tito Pong and my Mother were at odds with each other and had a misunderstanding over some family gripe. (if you call threatening my mother with a broken ginebra bottle a misunderstanding.) My mother noticed Tita Elly frequented my Tito Pong's house and could feel some domestic-political undercurrents going on. don't ask me; I tried to understand what exactly was going on, but ended up dismissing it as too complicated and "grown-up" petty to dwell on. But nah, eventually the feud died down, factions and issues all. tita Elly returned to being the toothy-grinned carinderia-keeper a bit of a walk away from where we lived.

and now, Tita Elly's gone.

For some reason, I cannot bring myself to share a momment of grief with her loved ones in person. In an effort to stay honest with myself and to mean what I do, I don't go. No, it's not that I don't because I don't care and I don't care to be bothered by such, but it's more because I wasn't on a family-level of understanding with her. I know this makes me sound apathetic or inconsiderate. am I? I don't know. I hope not.

But I mean what I do.
I write about her, and what I remember of her.
I may not have known her as well as most people do, or have spent as much time with her as my elders have, but I know and I remember she was a good person. and that's how she's going to stay in my book.

Best wishes, tita Elly.
Hope you enjoy,
wherever you are.