Old picture

This is an old picture of my mother’s grandmother’s house in the Visayas. It was taken during c. 1950’s and this is the only memorabilia my mother has of her childhood.

My mother left the Visayas when she was only sixteen or fifteen (I can’t remember exactly) and she hasn’t come back since then. She always has this plan of coming back to visit her family. But if ever that would happen, she may be surprised to find out that home is not a place in this planet (see my earlier post “Home Sweet Home”).


When I was a child I remember my mother just bursting into uncontrollable weeping. And every time I asked her why, she would always say “self pity, son, self pity.”

I am a home body. Maybe I got this from my mother.

Everyone kept telling me that I looked like my father. And they’re right, I looked like my father but I think like my mother--a deadly combination, I dare say.