Children of the War

My maternal grandfather was born in the late 1800's and his first three children were born in the first quarter of the 20th century. By the Second World War, the three had grown into adolescents who already knew enough and understood enough not to be untouched by the war that hit them hard.

No one emerges from a war without being broken in any way. And where my uncle and two aunts were concerned, this brokenness came in the form of this fear of losing everything and ending up with nothing. Perhaps this was the reason why they always had this overwhelming need to hold on to all things possible as if there was value in every little thing and it was a mortal sin to throw anything away.

My sisters and I grew up in our motherhouse. And a large part of the first ten years of my life was spent with my two aunts — who were old maids by the way — who also lived with my grandparents.

My aunts' stinginess went from silly to downright outrageous. They kept scraps of paper that belonged in the waste can more than anywhere else. And there was, of course, nothing anyone can use them with except as paper money when we children played bank. Disposable cups and cutlery were not disposed of but washed then stored in a cabinet full of precious plastic junk collection. One time one aunt gave me a mild scolding when she caught me putting away the Chippy bag I just finished. I was baffled and later mortified to find a frozen fish in the fridge wrapped in my Chippy foil!

They were also very skillful with the sewing machine which was a bad thing for me and my sisters. Come summer they would take piles of their old clothes from an ancient glass aparador in my grandfather's bedroom and start sewing away. And there would be new cases for our pillows which was fine with us. But then there would also be new pajamas, shorts and skirts for us from those worn pieces of cloth which was deplorable for any young person, naturally.

We were in a state of having and not having, of being with and without. For some time, I had this notion that we were kind of rich. We had kasamas (tenants who worked my grandparents' land) who came in and out of the house on a regular basis. I was pretty sure none of my friends' families had their share of kasamas. But hey I was the only one in class who wore clothes made from old ones at home, who brought baon, pandesal with varying filling and lemonada, to school as to be always short of allowance. So at one point, it eventually dawned on me that I was not the rich kid I thought I was. Destitute was more like it.

But if we were so hard up, why was there so much food on the table? The mandatory soupy vegetable, 2 kinds of meat (poultry, pork or beef), seafood and fruit were always there. We ate three big meals a day and three small meals in between. We were always eating it seemed. I remember my aunts would get all fired up about us girls leaving morsels on our plates and I always thought they were a bit over the edge. It was only when I was a little grown-up that I realized that it was never about the money. It was about the war. Even the abundance of food on the table was about the war.

I started writing this thinking that this was going to be hilarious. But it did not turn out to be. Because no matter how funny my aunts' efforts at frugality were, I did not have it in me to laugh at these two dear women who had to suffer a devastating war at a very vulnerable age.