HUMMING IN MY UNIVERSE By Jim Paredes (The Philippine Star) Updated February 21, 2010 12:00 AM

Family first: (back row) Tictac, Lory, Meiling; (second row) Raffy, Babsy, Jesse and (front row) Gabby, the author Jim Paredes and Ducky.

We had a family reunion in Manila recently, after almost 15 years. My two sisters, Tictac and Babsy, with their husbands Doug and Ivan, flew in from the US. It was a pity that Aping, who lives in Florida, had to attend to his wife Mary, who is recovering from an illness. But succeeding in getting nine out of 10 siblings in one city was quite a feat in itself.

Allow me to say at the outset that I am one lucky guy to have been born into the family I belong to. It is an understatement to say that I just love my family.

Jesse, Ducky, Babsy, Tictac, Aping, Meiling, Gabby, Lory and Raffy are my nine siblings. I am the second to the youngest, coming before Raffy. We are not exactly a young family. Jesse is 73 this year and Raffy, the youngest, is 57.

This reunion was a long time coming. My sisters Lory and Meiling prepared everything — the itineraries, the logistics of board and lodging, the schedule of activities, the parties, and the people to inform about our coming reunion.

I cannot even begin to describe how great it is to have siblings you genuinely love and get along with so well. I’ve heard of many families whose members somehow never managed to get close and are even estranged. Some are even hostile to each other. That is sad!

Our family has quite a different story, even if our history is quite complicated. Relationships among us were sometimes less than harmonious at different times in the past. There were the quarrels — big and small, tampuhans — long and short, misunderstandings (major and minor) that families normally go through. But fortunately, we always managed to find ways to overcome them. At this stage, we all find ourselves so affectionately close to each other and basking in the warmth of family love. And that is one of the most wonderful things in the world I can think of.

Someone once said that “families are like fudge — mostly sweet with a few nuts.” This, I think, is an apt description of the Paredeses, except that at times, there are more nuts than fudge. When we are together, the fun, the jokes, the puns, the ribbing and the teasing play unabated. There are funny, embarrassing episodes and nicknames and monickers from the past that have achieved lore status and which we have told and retold over and over but still manage to get a laugh out of everyone each time.

And throw in a guitar and the singing can go on for hours, often extending to early morning. I remember that when we were growing up, we were always singing — at home, on the beach, in the car — with my sibs. Aside from the fact that we are quite a musical family and we did not have the luxury of a car radio, we always broke into song while riding the car, mainly to prevent the family driver (our mom) from suddenly praying the rosary the moment there was a lull in the noise level.

I recall countless hours riding our old Taunus with my sibs and just singing away to our hearts’ content. While the activity of singing was our excuse for being less than prayerful, we probably still managed to please the Creator. Who was it who said that singing is twice as glorious as prayer?

For the big night of our reunion two weeks ago, we invited cousins and friends who had lived with us while we were growing up. Our cousins, Sally and Cris Bermont, lived with us for a time when we were kids and despite the rationed meals and the often rough accommodations, they say that those years under the strict supervision of my mom were the best years of their lives. That is quite a testament to how the love — and fun — we shared made up for the material shortcomings of our growing-up years. And it is true, love was something we gave to anyone and everyone who graced or shared our home.

For the reunion, my sisters even arranged to bring back from retirement in the province two of our dearest household help who took care of us when we were all much younger. It didn’t take long to transport everyone back to the happy, colorful and rambunctious moments of our youth as we exchanged stories and reminisced about our childhood pranks, memorable incidents and the people in our old neighborhood that comprised our golden collective memories.

All of a sudden, it was like we were back in the home our parents built on 76 Boston Street in Cubao, the setting of much of our wonder years. It is true that it was also the place where we experienced great upheavals as a family, which began with the death of our dad and the resulting decline in our fortunes. Yet, even the pain we went through has become a precious jewel in our treasure chest of memories.

How can that be, I asked myself amid the warmth of the storytelling among my sibs? How can pain be transformed into something good, even something to re-experience? I wondered, but only briefly, realizing that above everything is the love we all have for each other. Our cups did runneth over, but we did not realize it until years later.

The genuineness of how Mom and Dad loved each other and their children must have permeated each of us. I know this because we see in each other not only our obvious flaws as human beings, but more importantly, the beautiful reflection of the patience, caring and love that our parents had for each other.

There are other potent elements in the brew. I am talking about the colorful heritage of our Paredes and Misa lineage. The Paredeses are of down-home genuine Ilocano origins and the Misas (through our grandmother, Lucia Erquiaga) come from a line of rebellious Basques. These two great bloodlines, whose styles and values are sometimes as contrasting as fire and ice, liquid and metal, black and white, frugality and extravagance, discipline and laxness, have melded in each of us. Knowing this, it is easier to make sense of the loudness of voice and laughter, the swagger and recklessness, the shining idealism and strength of character in each of us, and the healthy tolerance, generosity and forgiveness we all seem to have learned more of as we got older.

It is difficult to describe objectively the qualities of something I am part of. It’s like trying to find something that is inside, outside and all around you at the same time. But objectivity is not something you would expect of one who tries to capture something as primal as one’s family.

We are like a vortex of love. The love we have is inclusive. It blurs all delineation and sucks in everyone who comes in close contact. Everything is experienced whole and complete, even if the love itself is shared by the many.

A Sufi saying goes, “I am a drop in the ocean and the ocean in the drop.” To put in a really corny way, we are both kapamilya and kapuso.

After a most enjoyable night we spent at a beach house a few days before my Stateside sibs went home, I felt quite depressed. How precious and rare these moments we have shared will be from now on, as we are all getting old.

It is true, we had no choice which family we were to be born into. I know some people who find reason to complain about this. But the thing is, our sibs didn’t mean to be born into our family either. It’s just the way it is.

My siblings have gone home and our lives are back to normal. But the emptiness is temporary since it is filled by the memories of a really great reunion week and the gratitude I feel that fate and fortune has made me a sibling of nine loud, outrageous, funny, talented, generous, crazy and wonderful stragglers in this life.

A writer, Ashleigh Brilliant, wrote, “If you don’t believe in ghosts, you’ve never been to a family reunion.” Mom and Dad would have been happy to be with us. Actually, we are sure they were there.

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