Lola

Josefina, me, is a strong lady who even won Mrs. ALA or American Auxillary Association competition, and became queen, which was held in Baguio City….

Haaa…this is so much fun. Lola became a queen, why I always wanted to be one too. But as she always call me, Inday!, it’s new to my ear but a sweet remembrance that Lola loves me and always was there to support and care for me and her grandchildren, no matter what.

I read through Lola’s diary, and I miss her so much….now! It’s been, what?....thirteen or fifteen years since she passed and as if it is just yesterday when I come to think, smell and remember the days I spent in her room, and home in Lamuan. I may not know how Lola felt or what she experienced during her time, maybe she also suffered a great deal and women during the war were not just there to be soldiers’ mates but women who fought strong, hard and smart to survive and live to tell their stories.

Powerful, strong and beautiful women are the people who have been part of my life that shaped me to become who I am now. Their stories are what inspires me to write about them and how these remarkable beings helped and made an impact, in my life, of who I am today. Their story is my story.

Obsession is a term where one’s desire becomes a need that when she or he didn’t fulfill is like a crippling experience and it is sad, uninspiring, demeaning.

Women are often pictured as weak, needy and pickle-minded but no. We may be those but most often than not, we are strong, resilient, crazy forgiving and loving up to the extent of building bridges just to reach out to others even if it’s not necessary or the people we are trying to please, help are cold and are not worth it. But as a woman myself, however bad the person or the situation is, I still think of the positive and deal with the person or event as a challenge and learning experience that truly enough, is always worth my time and effort.

I was asked before about my style of writing and neither I nor my mentors know what my type of writing really is. I have read so many books when I was little that I couldn’t remember where I learned to write but just wrote as I was growing and never looked back.

I wanted to become a nun or servant of God ever since I can remember and tried to talk with sisters of a certain convent which I don’t want to disclose because I was traumatized when I presented to them my weird writings. Why?, it was because, the scribbled words are out of this world, maybe, different languages that I already foreseen for myself happening, after twenty years. And now that I am in my forties. I see why I wrote them in my worn-out notebook and not understanding what they meant. The sister who was so kind and talked me out of forgetting what I wrote which in fact ordering my books to be buried on the ground, were stories of books, people and events that will happen in the future. The movies that I have watched, the people that I would meet and the events that will happen that neither them nor I can understand.