Christmas at sea

I hate Christmas songs. But I used to love them, loved them so much that whenever I get to hear them now, I’m filled with unbearable nostalgia. Christmas used to be magical and fun, with all those Jose Mari Chan songs playing on repeat when I was young.

I’ve had 20 Christmases spent with my family at home, and three away from them. That doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m in a foreign country renting an apartment and Skyping with my family during vacant hours. It can also mean that I’m in the middle of the North Pacific Ocean, battling Force 9 winds on the Beaufort Scale with a sea swell six meters tall. Hardly merry, isn’t it?

Christmas is the time of year marked by glittering lights, sumptuous feasts, gift exchanges, and a well-deserved break from the toxicity of school and work. But for seafarers like me, December is business as usual—just another busy month of compiling annual reports and stressing out on action plans.

I hate it when I miss home so much. And I miss it so much in December.

I miss my mother. I miss how I get to be the first one to taste her freshly cooked spaghetti. I miss how I always transfer the macaroni salad from the freezer to the chiller (Mom, it’s not ice candy; it should be soft and creamy, not frozen). Most important, I miss going to the Misa de Gallo with her. I’ve always been my mother’s Simbang Gabi buddy. It’s because of her that I completed a streak three times in a row.

I miss my father. I miss his delicious sauce, which makes you pig out on pork barbecue. I miss watching him make those amazing lanterns from indigenous materials with such awe. But more than that, I miss how he fills our home with laughter, love, and guidance, especially during Christmas.

I miss my siblings. I long for how my younger brother decorates my room with his mess, how my sister rolls her eyes when she is told to chop the onions and tomatoes, and how our youngest brother becomes the source of sweetness and love all the time. I’ve had the best privilege of babysitting all of them when they were infants. And now I love to think that I’m still babysitting them even from afar.

And, of course, I miss Christmas Eve, when we watch happy television shows, eat all the food we have, and peacefully go to sleep without need to wake up at midnight. I’m not kidding: I’m the only one who wakes up at midnight to get a slice of that, a bowl of that, and a bite of this. Spare me from the lecture; it’s Christmas.

You see, there’s nothing like that where I work. The closest things to Christmas lights are the red and green buoys and those constellations formed by the lights of flocking fishing boats from China. We do have a sumptuous feast, but you know what they say: Food always tastes better when cooked at home. We don’t get to play Christmas songs, too. It’s just emotional murder for everyone. Above all, I don’t have my family here—no Mom, Dad, or sibs to have fun with, just one captain and 19 other men also missing their families in their lonely cabins.

So how do I make this season wonderful? How do I grapple with my emotions when my youngest brother tells my parents plaintively, What will I do with all this food if my brother is not here, anyway? How do I manage a smile in the midst of longing in a supposedly joyful time?

I think about why I’m here. I think about why I’m away from my loved ones. And since I do not come from a rich family, I actually do not have a consistent joyful memory of Christmas in my childhood. Some Christmases were fortunately happy, but not grand, and some were just heartbreaking. I think about one Christmas Eve when I was a child where we had to depend on what our relatives would have for noche buena because we didn’t have enough money for our own. I think about that plate of spaghetti and slice of cake that our neighbor gave my family. I think about the hardships of my parents. I think about the future Christmas celebrations of my siblings. I think about how I should not let them experience the same sad Christmas even if that means I’ll be out of the picture. I think about my love for them.

Because isn’t Christmas about love? Is it not about sacrifice? Christmas is not about fancy things. Mary and Joseph had Jesus in a manger. Does it not make us all realize that while we try to make this month as glamorous and festive as it can be, we are bit by bit forgetting what it should be?

Christmas was a humble night when the Lord came to us in that manger lit by a bright and shining star. It was a night filled with love, that God sent his son to live among us, to be persecuted, and to die in order to save our souls. It was a night of thanksgiving, a night to be genuinely happy with the love that needs no physical evidence to be proven true.

Christmas is love, and love is why I’m here. Love is why there are millions of overseas Filipino workers who will spend Christmas away from their families. Love is the driving force behind why many of us choose to leave the country: to provide a better life for our loved ones. Love is why there is a mother hugging someone else’s child on a Christmas night: because she misses hers so much. Love is why there is a father guarding a building on a Christmas Eve: because he is guarding the future of his kids back home. Love is why I am battling the waves on the North Pacific.

And as long as we live with love so profound, Christmas will always be my favorite season—wherever I am, whatever I do, whoever I am with.

My salute to and utmost respect for all OFWs! Wishes for a meaningful Christmas from across the seas!

Elijah Jose Barrios, 23, of Santa Barbara, Iloilo, works as a third officer for Pacific Basin Shipping Ltd.