Gregory Matt Hughes

Or “Greggy Boy”, or just “Greg” for short, died this afternoon at 5:00 PM. He was barely four years old. Or barely three, I cannot be sure. But I will most definitely miss the Jack Russel Terrier.

He was very weak this morning, because he wasn’t eating. We (my brother and I) fed him all the leftover tinola, a can of liver spread (he was pale), and sugar water. We hoped that he would be stronger later in the day. We left the house that morning, and headed for our own businesses. I came back home at 2:00 PM, and almost ran over Greg in the garage with the CR-V; he was lying there by the side, immobile, but breathing. If his eyes weren’t moving and looking at me very eagerly, I would have thought that he was dead… the most heartbreaking image etched in my mind right now is how his tail was the only muscle moving in his body, happily swinging from side to side, eager at my arrival despite his failing state. Dogs… can never be less loyal.

I nudged him, he didn’t move, except for his happy little tail. He wasn’t like that when we left him in the morning. A calm panic surged through me, scared but knowing exactly what to do. I got to the kitchen, and got a glass and filled it with water and mixed a teaspoon of sugar in it. I got an old bottle of maple syrup, and filled it with the sugar water, then used it as a feeder to Greg. He obliged, and drank, and drank, and drank. He was dehydrated. I removed Greg to one of the three barely utilized dog cages, the largest one with soft paddings. he just lay there, his body immobile and frail as a sun-dried plant. I returned to the kitchen and made another sugar water with a pinch of salt. I also fed him that. It was 2:30 PM.

I planned to monitor his state every hour. I checked him again by the next hour and a half, but found him a good fifteen feet away from his cage (I deliberately left it open), at the back of the house, slumped on the ground. I did my high-pitched whistle, and his tail wagged again — the only movable part of his body. He was very, very, very weak. I transfered him again to his cage, and even put a lucky charm there, one of my mom’s crystal decors. I let it sit beside the dog. I was very optimistic that he would survive the ordeal, because he already went through the same illness before, and jumped back to full health a few days after. Besides, he was already half-sitting when I left him, not pathetically sprawled. At 4:00, I checked, and he was okay, resting. The next hour, he was dead.

Greg was an immensely intelligent dog. He knew how to respond to “out” whenever he was inside the house (he would open the swinging door himself). He sensed the times when I was angry, and would rush to his cage, pretending to behave. There was a time when his misbehavior got us into trouble, when he, with his miniscule size, attacked and injured the neighbor’s German Shepherd. The medical fees were extorbitant! But that was the only time. He will deliberately pee on people, lick your face, pee on you again. Now, however,  It is with a very heavy heart that I had to dispose of his body, and let the garbage truck carry it away. He decided to die on a Monday.

House, Old House

I have been hesitating to write this entry, not only because of its enormity in terms of experience and history, but also because by doing so, I would actually be confirming something I really regret, not that I could really do something about it.

The adults have sold the old house, or at least, part of it (what used to be the vast “garden”), and the structure that makes up the living part is now being partitioned to be rented.

The property sat on a seven-lot land. When I was a kid, I never really thought of it as a big house; it was for me only ever a house. With rumored ghosts, kapres, diwatas, and dwendes (which all lived in the forest, a.k.a. plantation, a.k.a. garden). Your typical bahay ni lola. Playmates would taunt us at how we live in a mansion, and we would just laugh about it. What with spending eighteen years of your life in it, who wouldn’t feel sad with its sudden destruction?

Barkley, the fat dog sits in the hallway.

The “long table” where so many feasts, birthdays, and Noche Buenas and Media Noches had been celebrated, had gone last week, sold to a buyer from Alabang. The painting of Manila Hotel by Moran had also gone, hopefully to a better place where it could be restored. Moran’s other original which depicts Magellan’s landing at Mactan which is my favorite (I had a dream about it when I was young, wherein Lapu-Lapu’s hand was missing when they were doing a handshake), still hangs with drapes to protect it from the construction’s dust. The Tapesry of the Holy Family is still okay though.

 

Entrance to the dining hall, long table. Barkley, Migo prefer the floor.

Though lola does not say much, I could tell that letting go of these heirlooms saddens her, no matter how hard she conceals it with smiles.

The garden had also been sold and the side of the house adjacent to it had been walled up. I used to catch spiders and hantik there, and attempted to climb a mango tree but fell (my lola had a heart attack after). It was there where I set booby traps in the ground: I dug holes and put mud in them, then covered them with banana leaves and dirt for the unsuspecting baker to stumble upon.

The basement, where the bakery was, is now closed and being reconstructed. In all those years I’ve watched them make dough and pastries and other craved goods by the village, I never learned how to masa. A naughty habit of mine would be to prick the leavened dough because it looked like a fat, wrinkled belly.

Detaching from something you know so well for so long is really hard to do. Somehow, part of me is stitched to the concrete walls of that house, to the marble floors whose maps and “faces” I know so well. I know every echo that footsteps make around the house that I could walk blindfolded in its hall, I know the hundreds of switches scattered around the house that turn something on or off by heart, I even know the nooks and crannies where ants live. Now, going back there just injects a bitter nostalgic sensation, and I can’t help but frown at the demolition being done in certain parts of the house.

Now I know how people at Extreme Makeover feel… only, this isn’t a makeover.

Check List

#2 in my silly ten-point college agenda: CHECK!

 

Fishbone

Last Sunday, I was eating my early breakfast at 1:00PM. The dish: rice, fried bangus, and of course, Knorr Liquid Seasoning (Original). The fish was crispy and very tasty (or was it just the Knorr?), but because I was the last to eat at that hour, there was barely any meat left. Any less meat and I would have been scavenging. Anyway. There I was, enjoying my happy meal in front of the PC when suddenly, a fishbone decided to attach itself to my throat, an ordeal that would last for two days.

Street Lights

Everyone is a street light, in a particular space, in a particular street, in a particular place in the world… obliged to brighten the space each was made to shine upon.

What former Manila Mayor Atienza started in 2002 with the facelift of Roxas Boulevard, has now become the norm in urban infrastructure development: fancy street lights. Or “lollipop lights” as they are fondly called. The infectious craze has spread all over Metro Manila. Pasay was the first city to follow suit, followed by Paranaque, redesigning the sidewalks of the stretch of Roxas Boulevard.

I was very happy seeing the new colorful lights set up in the Paranaque area of Roxas Boulevard, for as far as city pride is concerned, we are not being left behind. However, just months after its completion, I noticed that some lollipop lights were already malfunctioning or else busted. A couple of months wore on, and I noticed that nearly all of the lollipops had missing lights. Pffft! Substandard material, quality replaced by kickbacks in corruption, I thought.

Last night (or this morning at 2am) as I was driving home from Tomas Morato, I decided to take the Roxas Boulevard route instead of taking EDSA. I passed through Manila, Pasay, and Paranaque, and again I caught myself staring at the lollipop lights. Those original Atienza lollipop lights at the Baywalk need maintenance, I thought, and Mayor Lim’s version of street lights are just pathetic. Pasay’s are simple but bright, and Paranaque’s… are a waste. Not only are they dark, but they are also missing many lights.

 I stared sadly at the wasted taxes of the people, spent on these expensive “lollipops”, zooming past me in uniform disfunction. And then, out of the so many busted lollipop lights and bulbs, suddenly, a stand out caught my attention: a bright, completely functional and lighted lollipop light. And strangely as if almost God-sent, a caption erupted in my head. It read: “HOLY”. (I just had a talk about the call to holiness with my mentor earlier that day).

Just as it had come, a sudden rush of comprehension dawned upon me as I raced the dawn home. While people — street lights — may do whatever their freedom allows them to do, good or bad, the good is and should always be the norm, no matter how many people, or street lights for that matter, do not function as well as they should do. Who can tell me that the disfunctional lollipop lights is the normal thing? Surely, those street lights weren’t made to exist that way, disfunctional (no matter how many are disfunctional, even if they are the majority, it is still not normal).

In the same way, everyone is called to holiness, and this is not exclusive to priests, nuns, or any member of the religious. Let us not even use the word “ideal”, which is almost synonymous to “impossible”. The perfect word right now is “normal”, and needless to say, that single, fully functional lollipop light along Roxas Boulevard in Paranaque is far, in the least,  from being abnormal.  Being in the world where virginity is a liability, and even prayer is considered a woman’s job, I think with this new realization, there is much less fear to say it’s not so foolish being so and doing so.

Everyone is a street light, in a particular space, in a particular street, in a particular place in the world… obliged to brighten the space each was made to shine upon.