Balance of opposites

There were two sides in the home where I grew up—the quiet and the loud.

In the loud side lived my brothers and me with our toys, books, and a black dog named Whoopi. My lola and my mom lived there as well. It was filled with words, jokes, games and the occasional teleserye. It had my lola baking in a corner, with the radio turned up loud, reprimanding me when I tried to help her bake but ended up making a mess. It was in this part of the house where I made vivid memories of growing up.

In the quiet side lived my lolo and my dad. Sometimes my dad would cross to our side—during Sundays spent in bed with my mom shaving his beard, on trips to McDonald’s for sundaes and fries and the nearby mall for buttered corn topped with bacon. But my lolo always stayed in his place. Or so I thought.

I know my lolo through stories. He was from China. His mother died when he was young and his father remarried. It forced him to move to an unknown country, with few friends and family. He was a working student and paid his way through school. His travels led him to my lola, a beautiful nurse in Bacolod who had many suitors. It was his kind demeanor, his tall, gentlemanly looks, and his promise that he would never leave her and would always take care of her that made her say yes. Many years later, he still keeps his promise.

Ironically, my lolo sold radios for a living. I guess he wasn’t that quiet, after all. If he were, how could he sell so many radios that gradually gave him a house on a pretty street, four children well-schooled—luxuries for a man who started with almost nothing?

When my lolo did talk, it was in a booming voice. It scared me when I was small. Only when I got older did I learn that he was not being angry or mean; it was just his way of talking. And because he was so quiet most of the time, I always noticed when he did speak. Beyond the usual “good morning” and “good night,” I don’t think I ever had a long exchange with him when I was a child. It was my lola who taught us songs and combed our hair, and took us around the city to deliver her brownies and butterscotch. My lolo I only saw at the peripheries—on the couch in the living room, at the far left side of our dining table, at the right side of the bed when they went to sleep. In my mind, he was always sitting down, looking around, smiling occasionally.

He showed his love in such discreet ways that you’d have to think to notice—through red envelopes at every birthday and Christmas, through sandos and socks when he saw that ours were getting a bit ragged, through fixing the table in a precise manner, and calling us to eat when the food was ready.

Sometimes my lola would cross over to his side. There she’d tease him and he’d smile. She took care of him well. She made sure that the food he liked were always on the table: a big bowl of soup, a plate of vegetables, a dish of meat, another of fish. It was always a bountiful feast in our home, something that I miss now, when I have to cook for myself. She also made him sing. He has a beautiful singing voice, and it was peaceful to hear early in the morning or late at night when he listened to his music.

As a child, I did not appreciate the silence in which my lolo thrived. I preferred the shouts and the laughter, emotions all laid out. But as I grew older I slowly realized the worth of quiet, and in turn the value of my lolo and how his ways balanced our home.

I was in high school when we had to move from the pretty house on the pretty street where I grew up. Now, there are no more sides, and my family is scattered in different houses. But in my heart, we are still in one place as one family, learning from one another the value of being both quiet and loud.

Samantha Sy, 27, a lawyer, grew up in Davao City and grew older in Manila.