gammy (19??-2006)

my dearest gammy,

introductions to memories are slippery things, aren’t they? we usually remember without preamble. so i will write the way i remember. did you know that you’re a wikipedia entry, gammy? if you google for “remmie brillo suaco” you’ll get a list of entries, mainly having to do with “silapulapu and the zebut brothers,” for which you won a palanca.
i have a confession to make—i’ve had a copy in my possession for quite some time, but i’ve never gotten around to reading it (i read a few pages, i remember that your introduction reminded me of michener, perhaps it was the onomatopoeia). are you disappointed, gammy? i have a feeling you aren’t, because you never forced any book on me. i believe it was this gentle attitude, plus the fact that you never thought i was too young to read anything that’s made me the voracious reader that i am (voracious when i have the time. meaning when i’m in the bathroom. the weirdest thing i’ve read in the loo was a yellow cab pizza delivery flyer).
i will also treasure the little dedications you wrote in your distinctive handwriting in the books that you gave me. the books that you sent always had more than one story in them. for example, i know that it was rochelle who gave you the dragonlance preludes trilogy in staten island new york on july 6, 1992.
i adore how you called me “my dearest sam-sam” in those messages, and how you would call me “sam-sam dah-ling” when you would talk to me. it made me feel like i was in a black and white movie, “sam-sam dah-ling, how’s my FEH-vo-rit?” the way you would say “favorite,” with the drawn out first syllable and the trilled r, made me feel i was in another time. that’s another thing, gammy, you weren’t ashamed of superlatives or exuberance, you had favorites and you made it known to everybody that i was one of them (pa was another, yes? does that mean i’m my father’s daughter?).
whenever you’d visit us, you’d sleep in my room. a full bladder would rouse me from sleep and you’d always be up, reading by lamplight. i’ll always have that image of you, the book so close to your face that it was almost touching your nose. “you’re still awake, gammy?” (i have a talent for the obvious, i know), “yes, dah-ling, when you’re old, you don’t need as much sleep.” (i’m older now, and it’s true, you really don’t need as much sleep, or maybe, we can’t sleep as much as we’d like). so, i’d make weewee and go back to bed, comforted that you were awake and reading. it was you, gammy, who made me love books. i will always, always appreciate how you never talked down on me or treated me like a child, i was never too young in your eyes. or is it that we were two children talking to each other? i thought it was cool that you never gave up dragons, elves, and knights. we like our escape, don’t we, gammy?
we also like words. you always said that it was nonna who was the writer, and that it was too bad her creativity took a technical bent. i would have liked to have read stories by nonna. how is nonna, gammy?
i learned the word “limn” from you, gammy. you said i had the ability to limn things (your original sentence was much more eloquent than that, forgive me) in an e-mail, after i sent a long one recounting my don antonio river adventure. i have since used “limn” in, well, you know, my stuff… those words i string together. when nonna passed away, you started sending your memories in e-mails with the subject “the heart remembers.” i loved getting those. i have printouts of them, and i re-read them from time to time. whose heart will remember now, dearest gammy? please say hello to nonna. i know that she’s looking out for me, she visited me in a dream and cooked us carbonara. she didn’t talk to me, but the dream left me with so much peace and so much love. when i woke up, i ran to the kitchen expecting to find her there. when i first told tareens and xandra about it, the tears just came.
i guess my heart is remembering now, isn’t it gammy? it remembers how the “three brilliant brillo sisters” would play mah jong. how you would speak Spanish when you didn’t want any of us to understand what it was you were talking about. how you and mamita would smoke and drink beer. nonna was the good girl, why did she go first? just asking…
papa says that of the three of you, you led the most “colorful” life. what he means by that, i don’t know. in his stories, you were the artist, the dreamer, the one who eschewed practicality in favor of fun. is it true that you treated your friends to a cruise with the money your mother gave you? pa says you were the “carpe diem” type, did you like dead poets society as much i do?
also gammy, i think your sense of humor is closest to pa’s and mine. you like word play, and pa could always make you laugh. did you hear his latest ones? (sili idea and pro bono? man oh man, i DID enjoy them, though).
a vignette: we were out in the garden, in the swing, and you said something to the effect that puns were the lowest form of word play. why? i love puns, if there were a puns club, i’d be a member (you like that, gammy?). if you think puns are low, what about alliteration? i adore alliterating as well. i found this scrawled in piers anthony’s ogre ogre: “the punning intricately woven into the narrative is very enjoyable! smashing!!! hilariously funny” HAH! you do appreciate puns.
you also knew how to make fun of yourself. i remember that time you saw yourself in a video. it was of your party, i think. you gasped in horror, “oh my god, that’s me?! i thought i was pretty!” i thought that was a riot. your mind was sharp until the very end, gammy. i wish we had more conversations.

i will always hold close to my heart those words you sent me a long time ago, after i sent you a bunch of my stuff.

“to take up the subject of sharing creations with others or the public-- i cannot emphasize too much the fact that no criticism whether favorable or not should matter to the extent of providing an incentive when favorable and dousing the creative fire when it is unfavorable. what others think of your creation should be a matter of complete indifference to the creator. one creates because it is a need, a hunger; because the heart, the soul is filled to bursting with all it holds and must empty itself. for as long as you can do so you need no more. if the product of that creativeness pleases you (and very often it does) then indeed is the creative fire justified and when it pleases others (as happens quite often) then can one say 'the cup runneth over'...

i did tell you that your poems call to me… touch my heart and imagination even as i realize that there are some picture images that neither my mind nor heart could have conceptualized.

the siren song… embers… color grey—saludo ako, hija… teka, may insipirasyon ba talaga—in the flesh, or katha lang ng isip at puso…

the latest of which your favorite as of now: the slayer of the sun? well, while i admire the words forged in the anvil of your creativity—i find the images rather strong… almost, violent.

continue writing, my darling… i smile because no force or circumstance can stop you from writing so let me rephrase that with—continue to share your wealth with me.

with oodles of love,

gammy”

-from an e-mail dated July 23, 2001

so, gammy, here i am blogging about you. i wonder what you’d say about what i do now and the “stuff” that keeps on writing itself. i’ll post the pieces you mentioned, so that if you come upon this entry, you can re-read them. leave a comment, gammy? or visit me in a dream, just like nonna did.

siren song/Caylabne
[stanza 1: 4/5/2k1 stanzas 2&3: 4/20/2k1]

the siren song of the sea
lulls me to sleep,
the waves cradle me
and caress my whole body
as i float, weightless
on the water.

every sound is muted as
they make their way
through the depths.
i close my eyes and tune into
the haunting melody of
the waves making love to the shore.

the wind gently touches my face,
reminding me that the sky is overhead.
through closed eyelids i can see
rorschachs of orange as
the sunlight suffuses
my upturned face with warmth.
___
embers
[5/7/2k1]

under the blanket of night
i can think of you
and say that my love
has metamorphosed,
from the white heat
of a blaze
that starts spontaneously
in the womb of an arid month,
to the steadfast glow
of embers that refuse to die
even after the blaze
has been forgotten.
embers, enduring,
unseen, ever present.
sometimes, the wind blows
and fans the flames,
sparks form
and the white heat
rises again,
dies again.
underneath it all,
the embers remain,
among the ashes,
among buried memories.
embers, waiting for you
to stir them to life,
wanting the burn to last
longer than a moment.
and so it has been
for more than the turning
of one summer into another.
___
grey
[undated, ca. 2k?]

if i were a color i'd be grey.
grey like the skies pregnant with rain.
drops unsure whether to fall or not,
but there nonetheless.
tears held back,
hoping for the sun to burn them away.
____
slayer of the sun
[7/8/2k1]

you hang low in the sky,
fat and heavy with the blood of the sun
you have just slain.
the orange stain of your crime
stands out in the darkness.
your guilt weighs so heavily
upon you, my love
that you cannot escape
your earthly bonds.
you are like a feral predator
peering out of its lair,
waiting for its next kill.
unblinking and unwavering,
you stare at me,
i could never survive you
in that game.
as the night wears on,
as the clouds wipe away
the traces of your deed,
your bone-white beauty
shines through,
and you are absolved
of spilling blood.
cleansed and purified,
you rise up into the heavens,
ethereal and unreachable.
free again, you leave me,
your earthbound lover,
to wait until you must feed
once more.