Farewell, Nay Tesing.

At noontime today, we received the sad news that Nanay Tesing passed away. She was in my father's hometown in Salcedo, Eastern Samar and we, here in the south-easternmost town of mainland Palawan, the country's westernmost province.

Nay Tesing was said to be the black sheep of the family. Very rebellious but was said to be the prettiest. (Tatay, of course, has to be the most handsome. Well, Tatay, indeed, is, now -- he is the only male sibling alive.)

Nay Tesing's indulgence in alcohol has been treated both with pride and disgrace. She could gulp down bottles of gin without a chaser. I remember her doing the laundry for Jhuns (my eldest male sibling) for a bottle of gin shortly before Kuya sought the "greener" deserts of KSA. Her alcoholism would turn out to be one of the main causes of her illness.

For me, I seldom saw her in my intermittent, more or less 10 years stay in Manila since 1995 when I went to college . She lived in Tondo and I resided in Quiapo, San Andres, Sampaloc and later in a dorm inside my campus.What I cannot forget and will never forget bout her was when Tatay underwent an operation at the Philippine General Hospital in July 2003. While choppers hovered over the Manila skyline, as it was the height of the Glorietta siege of the Magdalo group, Nanay Tesing was busy tending the room we occupy at the 7th Floor of the PGH. She shooed away the janitors and told em she was "in-charge' of Tatay and our room.

How can I forget you, Nay? I know you had been through a lot--- family breakdown, almost-daily-financial dillemma, pasaway na mga pinsan ko, almost all the burdens and hardships and injustices in life. My aunts and cousins have told me about it all. And yet, I haven't done a single thing for you. Now I recall, once during a semestral break that I happened to spend in Nanay Toria's house in Tondo, you came and insisted you do my laundry. I hadn't been able to sufficiently give you something in return. I was a student then. Yet when I began working and earning a little more than what I need for my self, I no longer returned and looked for you.

Nay Tesing, am back to being a student this time. I may not have anything to send for your wake and your funeral but you will always be remembered. Your kind are who I aim to be of service to if I will be given the chance to, someday...I'm persisting, Nay.

May you rest in peace.