And Then We Moved...

Since I am already into it, let me share with you how our life was when we were still in Leyte.

I was around 4 or 5 years old when we moved from Camarines Sur to Leyte. There I met my two half-siblings(my mother was married two times before she met my father) and my grandparents. My Ate Rona was actually the first perdon who welcomed. I remember her running towards us and hugging us with a smile plastered on her face, while my grandparents and my uncle was not, although they still welcomed us, I can still feel the animosity in them. My Kuya Jun-jun was just the typical pa-cool guy, not caring about the world, just doing his thing. There was an occassion a few days after our arrival, although Im not sure if it was my birthday or my younger brother's but all I know is that it was somewhat grand, since there was lechon. I thought I'm going to be living a much better life here. But I was wrong. It was only my ate who really cared for us, my kuya,nah, he sometimes pretend we doesnt exist.

Living with our grandparents was quite difficult, so my mother decided to move out. She found a house that can be rented on a near barangay called Malidong-lidong(trust me,that's the name of the baranggay). It was just a nearby barangay, also near the school (by the way, our grandparents house is just beside our school) so going to school was not a problem. We experienced a lot of difficulties in that house. It is where my mother hit me in the eye with a santol fruit. It is also there where I first saw my mother and father argue,causing my mother to leave and taking my youngest brother with her. It is also in that house that someone almost break in in the middle of the night. During our stay there, almost all of our dogs died, so we would end up throwing our dogs in the Malitbog river (sorry, we were supposed to bury them but my mother would insist for us to just throw it). It is also in that house that my mother left us under a friend's guidance to look for our father whom we haven't heard for more than a month. It is also during our stay there that my ate Rona left and work abroad. A lot of bad stuffs happened there so my father advised my mother to go back to our grandparents so we did.

Again, the same scenario while we were still staying with my grandparents. My mother and her parents along with his younger sibling would argue. Good thing, there was a vacant place just in front of my grandparents house. It was an old "karinderya" with a stockroom in it. The owner allowed us to stay there for free. And so we moved again.

The 'house' was quite spacious. It has a wide space that we used as the living room/dining area. There is a separate kitchen since it was a karinderya after all. There is also another room which we used as our sleeping area although we eventually moved to the living room to sleep since it was scary there at night.LOL! The only downside of the 'house' was it doesn't have any toilet. So we would use the toilet of our neighbors since toilets are usually separated from the house, which got clogged one time when I was using it, so we ended up using an arinola or a urinal.

We didn't stayed there for long because it was not very convenient. So my mother looked for another place,and luckily she found one,also in the same barangay. It was not that far from our grandparents house still, and was an empty lot,so they constructed a house made of wood, bamboo and nipa(I thought it was ours so I was so happy, but I just recently learned that we were just caretaker of the said lot). That's the house were me and my mother saw the manananggal. It is also in this house that we experienced having our electric line disconnected, our gas stove run out of gas, leaving us with no food all at the same time. I don't know if my father is not sending us enough money or my mother is just not good at handling our finances. And that's the last housed I have stayed since it is on that house that my parents had an intense fight, which ended with their separation.

We left that place with a heavy heart, leaving our mother behind all by herself as we moved to a much farther place, in Ilocos.

My stay in Leyte holds the most memories that I had as a child. I might have experience a lot of hardship in life there but it still has a special place in my heart. I was actually supposed to go back there when I was still working in Manila if this pandemic didn't happen. I am actually crying while writing this and the other article that I had just published.

Let me just cry myself to sleep just this once 😉😉

Jaljayo yeorubeun!😴😴😴