Q is for Queen of Hearts

An apo and a lola, photo by Aimee Suzara.

Lola, I remember your hands. Those soft and strong hands nurtured 3 generations, smoothed over glass rosary beads in prayer, and fed a family's memory of itself. Hands like yours build up and hold up the foundation. They are the hands of a queen.

I was 8 years old when we first met. It was 1992, a year after Mount Pinatubo erupted, and 24 years after my parents migrated to the US. You and lolo waited for hours to greet us at the airport, finding us when we emerged from a sea of balikbayans - those who have returned to the land. In a half-dream, I raised your brown palm to my forehead in the first mano po, a gesture of respect my sister and I were taught before leaving.

I know your favorite color was green, but I don't know what your favorite room was. I don't even know if you liked cooking, but you fed us, your visitors, like royalty. Early morning was the shuff-shuff of your tsinelas on the concrete kitchen floor. The way you dished up crisp fried eggs and hotcakes wide as saucers with such precision, who would know you were nearly blind? Years later, as your body slowly aged, it seemed you could see farther than most with those hands, just as your mind and laughter recalled the faces and names of those long past.

While an ocean divided us, I was blessed by every visit with you. Thank you for the gift of your hands; your legacy lives on in every loved one you helped to nourish. In memory of Pacience Erfe Muyargas (1921-2011).