My daughter has a knack for imitating people. She mimics the expression on my face (the pout and downturned lips and all), the way her grandfather walks, the way her grandmother walks, the way her aunts, uncles and other grandparents talk. She even imitates the way her great-grandmother kisses children (with a sniff first and then a peck). And when she gets really wacky, she even acts out inanimate objects, such as a teabag swimming in a cup of hot water.
I once told her a story, to which her only reply was, "Puera biro? (No kidding)" in exactly the same intonation my mother used. "Puera biro" happens to be my mother's favorite expression and, growing up, I heard it only from her and from no one else. Hearing it again sounded like both my mother and my daughter had morphed into one person! What a nightmare! It felt as if the two were ganging up on me!
Once we were having a conversation that had to do with something about my parents' house in Cavite City, and my daughter prefaced her sentence with, "Sabi ni Aling Josie.....(Aling Jose siad....)" using the sing-song Caviteño puntó (intonation) she heard neighbors use when they talked about "Aling Josie," her grandmother. The nightmare again!
I sometimes think my daughter is obsessed with being my mother. About a year ago, my daughter found an old house dress that belonged to my mother, laid claim to it, and started using it herself. I keep forgetting that during the summers she spent in Cavite City, my daughter was my mother's shadow, tagging along wherever she went. When my mother was a member of the Mother Butler Guild, my daughter was christened Baby Butler.
I didn't realize it at first, but their maternal grandparents, uncle and aunts figured a lot in my children's stories about childhood days spent in Cavite City. Now that they're all adults themselves, they tell their stories matter-of-factly, stuff that I didn't know happened to them, conversations I never knew they had had with their elders.
My eldest son narrates how, as a child, he reported to my mother conversations my husband and I had (the snitch!) or the escapades he witnessed his uncle having (double snitch!) or the nuggets of wisdom he heard his grandfather speak which became his own boyhood words-to-live by. My children often compare their grandfather with his siblings and they've decided he's the fairest of them all. In fact, they think of him as their very own Robert de Niro (sipsip! sycophants!).
I don't hold these stories against them. On the contrary, I think they are fortunate, compared to their cousins, to have such stories to tell. Having been born years ahead of other members of their generation in our family, they had the advantage of having seen our family together while my parents and siblings were still staying in Cavite City, and having known them somehow before these family members scattered to the four corners of the world.
In a way they were witness to family traditions and lore, which somehow rubbed off on them. In a way, too, my own history is repeating itself in them. I was witness to a time when my grandfather was alive, when elders spoke Chabacano, and when Cavite City culture, however indirectly, came alive in my own little childhood experiences.
And so they exhibit some inclination and interest in learning Chabacano, and are alert when they hear people speak Chabacano or find out about people who trace their roots to Cavite City.
This is why I've convinced my daughter to write in this blog. She did try it, using the name Kroketas. My mother, Josie, is also contributing comments and has been persuaded to write blog entries. Through memory, the past is with us, and continuity is achieved.
