March 19, 2006 – Dinner and a Trip to Costco

March 19, 2006 - Dinner and a Trip to Costco

It's the late afternoon of Monday January 30th, 2006. We've just come out of Martin Funeral Home on Montana Street in El Paso, Texas, where we had been discussing with the Funeral Home Staff the services for our Mom, recently deceased. We in this case are my three sisters EV, LC, and DD-in order of age oldest first; my young niece, CB, EV's daughter, and our Dad. It was an exhausting session having to consider all the preparations for the rosary being held this coming Thursday afternoon from 3:00 PM to 8:00 PM or when the last mourner took their leave and the funeral mass being held Friday morning at 10:00 AM followed by a gravesite service sometime after 11:00 when the funeral procession arrived.

We return home to consider the tasks we've been given: drafting an obituary to run in the “El Paso Times” Thursday morning, finding about 20 photos that would span and provide some meaningful moments in her long life. When we arrived back at our parents place on Pierce Avenue, my sisters and niece set to the task of finding photos they could all agree upon. There were many, a Christmas in the late 1950s with Mom sitting beside the Christmas three, her left arm extended to the floor, her legs curled underneath her right side, her colorful dark skirt fanned out in a circle around her and a perfect smile on her face. I'm sad because I can't for the life of me remember Christmas that year or where we were.

I set about gathering the pieces of a story to write about my mother's life. I start with her childhood, which she only recently described to me during a visit in the late spring of last year. I had heard bits of the story before but I sat and asked her for details in this most recent discussion. Tell me about your early childhood I say to her, back then. “I was born fin Agoo La Union in the Philippines,” she replies. According to Wikipedia, Agoo is a “municipality in the province of La Union, Philippines. According to the 2000 census, it had a population of 51,923 people in 9,945 households. La Union is a province of the Philippines located in the Ilocos Region in Luzon, on the west side of the island of Luzon, due north and slightly west of Manila. Its capital is San Fernando City. It borders Ilocos Sur to the north, Benguet to the east, and Pangasinan to the south. To the west of La Union is the South China Sea. Ninety three percent of the population is Ilocano and speak this dialect. Tagalog is the predominant language of the Islands." Mom spoke both dialects as well as English fluently.

Curiously, she did not grow up in Agoo, but rather in the cosmopolitan capital of Manila. Mom's father, Luciano Quindara, was a policeman in Agoo, a powerful position back then. He was one of four siblings, two older sisters and one younger brother. He was married and already had a son, Mom's older brother Marion. Mom came next and when she was about five years old, her younger sister Margarita was born. A short month thereafter Mom's mother-the only child in her family-died unexpectedly. Mom's uncle, Domingo Quindara-Luciano's younger brother, had also been a policeman in Agoo, but had become an embalmer at the Quigue Funeral Home. He was living with his wife, Louisa, and their only child Juliana in a large apartment above the funeral Home at the corner of Avenida Rizal and Avenida Santa Cruz in Manila. On one of his visits to Agoo, Mom asked her uncle if she could come live with him. Determining that Mom's request was serious, Domingo asked his brother Luciano if he could take Mom to be a companion for his young daughter, Juliana who was seven-Mom was eight by then. Possibly sensing Mom's Iron-willed determination in his eight-year old daughter, Luciano agreed to Domingo's request and Mom left her father's home in Agoo to live with her uncle in Manila.

In Manila, Mom lived the life of relative affluence in turn of the century Manila. " I had a good living Juliana and I each had our own bedrooms,” Mom said. Her uncle provided the same education that he afforded his daughter. The two girls attended a school on Avenida Rizal a few blocks from the funeral home. "We wore a uniform, a blue skirt and a white blouse, black shoes and white socks,” Mom recalled. “I carried my books in a bag around my shoulder. Before the beginning of the school year, Uncle Domingo would have Sylvia, a seamstress make twelve uniforms for my cousin and twelve for me. We would have the uniforms for six months. After six months, Uncle Domingo would have new uniforms made for us. Aunt Louisa's sister helped with the housework and Uncle Domingo hired a young man to do the laundry. He was a great guy, my uncle, very handsome and charming.”

That was the extent of what I learned of my mother's early childhood. When I had this conversation with my mother in April of last year, I went looking on the web for pictures of Manila in the early 1900s and I found a few. One is a picture of Escotto Street if the handwritten legend at the bottom right of the photo is accurate. In the photo, it's a crowded street with 1920s vintage automobiles parked on either side of the narrow two way street, a single line of traffic trying to make its way along the street with pedestrians jaywalking among the slow moving traffic. The sidewalks are teeming with people, women in ankle length print dresses and men in white pants and jackets. Clearly visible in the photograph is the name of the “American Electric Company” and “Antonio Pena Dentist” above the first floor of a two-story building, where Escotto Street doubles in width-the two-story building curving where the street widens. Electric power lines are strung along the street opposite the electric company offices. The image in the black and white photo is aged with time adding to the historical look of the street scene. When my mother was young this street would have seemed new and fresh, the cars the symbol of the latest offerings from car manufacturers, the fashions, what everyone was wearing that year.

I wrote a paragraph of the obit describing my mother's childhood and further noted that her father Luciano remarried and had seven more children: Senon, Sabas, Cesar, Anthony, George, SQ, and Mary. Of these siblings she is survived by only one her half-brother SQ, whom she never met while they lived in the Philippines. SQ and Mom corresponded in their adult lives. Eventually, it was my mother who helped SQ enter the U.S. and acquire his citizenship. I had pretty much written as much as I was going to get into the computer today and was easily distracted when my sisters announced the arrival of DD's friend PT. After sitting around the dining table talking for a bit, everyone realized we hadn't eaten since breakfast and suggested a drive out to the Great American Land & Cattle Restaurant at 9800 Gateway Boulevard. It's about six miles north on Highway 54-the north-south freeway that is Gateway Boulevard. EV took Dyer Street, the local road that runs adjacent but at a slight angle to the Freeway and had to turn left at Diana Drive and return to the freeway to get to the restaurant. It was before 5:00 PM when we-EV, DD, PT, my dad, CB and I arrived-LC had decided to call it a day and said she see us on Tuesday morning.

The restaurant is your typical meat and potatoes western theme restaurant: Polished wood booths along the wall with bench seats, wooden tables and chairs in the center of the room, and a wooden floor that amplifies the myriad spoken conversations mixed with the clatter of dishes and silverware. Except for EV, CB and my dad, it was margaritas for DD and PT and red wine for me. Having PT allowed us all to talk about what was going on in her life. She has her own business taking care of elderly patients that want to live at home and can afford to do so. She's their concierge getting them everything from medical appliances and services to ordering them new beds and getting them gardening and handyman help. She has a wealth of stories about interesting characters among her clients and shared a few over drinks. Up until his death in 2001, she had helped author and artist Tom Lea, his renown restored when George W. Bush had Lea's painting “Rio Grande” hung in the White House Oval Office. I knew Tom Lea from reading his novel “The Brave Bulls” in my teens.

Dinner came and after we had our fill, we drove over to SQ's house to see if he was still living in El Paso. DD and PT decide to stay in the Uplander and Dad, CM, EV and I walk up to the front door. It's dusk and the night is engulfing the little remaining sunlight. A knock on the door from my dad followed by a second is eventually answered by the puzzled face of SQ who is surprised to see four visitors on his doorstep on an early Monday evening. He is alone in the house; his wife ML is visiting their children and grandchildren in Houston. He invites us in and EV and Dad begin explaining that we had tried calling his number but it was disconnected with no forwarding number provided. He explained that after being harassed by telemarketers he finally changed the number and had the new one unlisted. We finally get around to the reason for our visit and finding no easy segue, my father comes right out and says, SQ your sister died over the weekend and we wanted to let you know, after which he begins to sob. SQ is shocked and says nothing for a long moment. Eventually he does say that he is saddened by the news and wants to do what he can for the funeral services. We tell him the dates for the rosary and funeral services and ask if he would want to be a pallbearer. He says he would like that very much.

The conversation shifts to a retelling of Mom's last few days, the brief hospital stay, the apparent turn for the best, and the abrupt reversal of fortune. The conversation concludes and we take our leave, with SQ walking us to the car and speaking briefly with DD and PT. We load up, take our leave and begin to head for home. EV asks if we need to go anywhere else. DD and I both say we need to stop by Costco-there is no more wine at the house. EV gets back on Gateway Blvd heading south until it exits onto Interstate 10 which becomes Gateway Blvd East and West. She takes the Eastbound exit onto I-10 to the Trowbridge Drive exit the second after getting on the freeway. Costco is in the Bassett Shopping center on the north side of Interstate 10 which means we have to go under the freeway into the shopping center parking lot from the freeway access road heading west. It's 6:45 in the evening and DD and I go into the liquor store which is in a separate building beside the Costco warehouse. We find a few bottles of California reds and a couple of bottles of sparkling wine and head for the checkout, where I present my Costco card only to be told it's not needed since Texas law prohibits exclusive alcohol sales to club members. I pay for the purchase and we return to the van and head home.

PT has a business to run and she takes her leave after we return home. The rest of us return to the dinner table and settle in for an evening of more conversations about our list of to do's for the funeral services. We go over the pictures selected for the DVD and discuss what needs to go into obit. We also realize that Dad and I both need dark suits for the services. The first item on the agenda for Tuesday becomes a trip to Burlington Coat Factory. The evening ends with Dad deciding to turn in at around 9:00 and EV and CM bailing at around 9:30 leaving DD and me to sit and chat over glasses of the red wine we had purchased at Costco. She describes her rush to the Logan Airport before the sun had risen on roadways slick with ice. She's in the fast lane following another car at a distance and sees him brake and she comes off the gas and taps her brakes having given herself ample stopping distance from the car ahead. However, she had not reckoned on the ice patches she traverse as she approaches the slowing car ahead of her also moving forward over the slicked roadway. They collide at slow speed and her car is damaged sufficiently that she has to move it over to the side of the road. The highway patrol drives by, sees no one is injured and tells the two of them to leave their cars and contact the city towing lot to claim them later. The other driver's car can be driven and he offers to drive her to the airport. She barely makes her flight and after recounting her adventure realizes how tired she is-it's past midnight on her clock, having left Boston early this morning.

Another day has passed since Mom has passed away and life continues her passing notwithstanding. I too realize I'm tired and call it a night.