Auntie Maria

HAPPY WEEKEND
Gina Dizon

SAGADA, Mountain Province -- Auntie Maria is my great aunt. She always preferred to be called Auntie. Even if she was supposed to be referred to as my grandmother as she is the sister of my grandma, Emilia Magalgalit Likigan who is the mother of my mother Shirley Pacyaya Dizon.

Her preference to be called Auntie must have been that she never got married and didn’t have children making an endearing term as Auntie more relevant than calling her a grandma.

Auntie Maria lived to reach 84 years old, going 85 on Nov. 19 when she resigned to the call of the Creator on May 21, 2010. She died having suffered her first and last deathly ‘stroke’ for nearly two months paralyzing a part of her body which got her stuck physically helpless on her bed, causing her to barely utter a word , and getting her fed via a tube attached to her nose.

Such a state I wouldn’t want to talk more about and instead talk about Auntie Maria and how she made herself and her being a part of me and a part of other cousins, aunties and uncles as well who stayed with her sometime in their early lives in Ambasing, Sagada.

I stayed with Auntie Maria when I was in high school. Yes, dear Auntie Maria who was a stickler to good manners and right conduct got her words firmly and repeatedly reminded in how a lady should sit, eat, walk, talk or act. I would like to think that her Victorian and conservative advise stuck some values in my already liberal thoughts and acts sometimes.

Anyway, the dinner table is a place for Auntie Maria to get her tongue lashing if one did not wash her hands before sitting down to eat. It was a reprimand when someone eats a big chunk of meat by tearing this by the teeth instead of getting a knife and cutting these into pieces or tearing it apart with the fingers.

Well, it was a sin to eat very fast, or fill the plate full with food as one can always reach out for more on the table. And yes, slouching when eating is a no-no. I really wish I don’t slouch as I catch myself slouching most of the time while eating and facing the computer.

And when you don’t like to eat raw tomatoes or an eggplant as Manang Rose Baaten said during the burial mass in church, Auntie Maria would tell you to open your eyes when you eat it.

Good eating habits is a healthy reminder for everyone, much as good habits teaches one to relish and respect while enjoying food which goes into one’s biological, physiological, and spiritual body for nourishment.

Before I go further talking about what to eat which is not much of an issue as food in the countryside is organic with camote tops, sayote and lowland vegetables available on market days, added with some helpings of meat shared by relatives who do ceremonial butchering of pigs for thanksgiving purposes, I talk about other things having stayed with Auntie Maria for practically four years in high school.

Sitting with legs spread apart like a man gets one sharply rebuked at. Ahuh! had always heard some lashing from the Victorian Auntie Maria whenever she caught me sitting like a man instead of having my legs crossed. For Auntie Maria who was a part of the Jurassic age not to have logged in World Wide Web to discover how women now sit, it must have been a world gone upside down with such discovery.

Community responsibility as an obligation is a strong principle Auntie Maria stressed over moments of my being non-conformist. She religiously gave supon (tokens) to kins and friends who got married, gave abuloy as well to relatives and friends and community members who die, attending wakes and weddings and baptisms, while taking care of her ailing mother then. Such is a value of sharing and belonging which is worth keeping. After her retirement from teaching and as principal of Ankileng Elementary School, she busied herself joining women’s groups including the Episcopal Church Women and retired and elderly organizations.

It was a reminder to listen to what others are saying before telling what one will say, something I cherish remembering with the many moments of conversations I shared with Auntie Maria over bouts of laughter. It takes patience and reflection to sit a while and munch over what one says before telling what one thinks, that I wish to be more attentive in listening. This I think is one of the most relevant lessons I learned from Auntie Maria aside from the automatic habit of washing my hands before I eat.

For a great teacher too many pupils and a mother to children - cousins and aunts and uncles- may Auntie Maria join the Greatest Teacher in the kingdom where spirits continue to teach and remind the living how it is to live and die and live again.