Our Uncle's Birthday

*A Comm 1 writing assignment turned blog post. The assignment was a "travel essay". I wrote this yesterday, Nov. 8, at the time stated in the timestamps within this piece. Basically, this was a "live" piece. The only thing that differed was our topic of conversation, but we'd already had a similar conversation in a different car ride before. I just incorporated that conversation into last night. 

Other than that, all sentiments in this piece are, for all intents and purposes, very true.

Dec. 9, 2015: This post has been edited. This is now the revised essay.

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Our Uncle's Birthday

The streetlights blur past us as our car attempts to push through traffic. We find ourselves at a standstill only seconds later. 7:05 pm. We promised our aunt, “We’ll be there by 8”, to their place at the other end of the province, but we know we won’t make it.

Still, it isn’t a problem. There’s nothing that can be done anymore. No point in rushing. We have to travel from Talisay to Consolacion, both at opposite ends of Cebu, both too far from each other.

2013

We silently decide to cherish the car ride, knowing that it will be another while ‘til we would see each other again.

My sister, buried in work as someone who has to talk ears off for 8 hours every night, finds herself in a state of calm as other vehicles rush past us on the highway. 7:11 pm. “It’s okay,” she says. “They’ll understand.”

My brother, driving the 10-year-old Adventure at a speed of 40km/hr, begins replying to whoever textmate as the stoplight hits red. “I’m tired of home,” he says suddenly, placing his phone back on the dashboard and releasing a heavy sigh. “I’m so glad I’m going back to New Jersey next year.”

7:20 pm. We pass by E-mall.

I keep quiet, deciding not to ruin our rare moment together. My sister lives in a boarding house in Banilad and my brother always goes home late from class—home to the place that has long felt more like a slaughterhouse with bloody parts hanging on hooks than a residence with live people.

I have to go home. I am the youngest. I am dependent. I will have to deal with a whip to my back disguised as violent words and a drumming loud enough to break my eardrums masquerading as indignant voices. It is me who will come home expecting another blow from the knife of verbal abuse and it is me who will break the dam when my tears burst through.

It is me who will carry the weight of my parents’ frustrations, alone.

My siblings have held my hand all these years as we trudged through our adolescence that felt more like a desert with no oasis. They have saved my life more times than I can count, made me drink from what water they could find even to the point of leaving nothing for themselves, but this time…there is no more saving.

2014

I suppose it is only just. The whips, the drumming, the knives, all these they have had to suffer worse before me. Seeing the terrible words that manifested on my sister as innumerable gashes on her back and the emotional bruises forming on my brother’s arm from protecting himself, I know that I cannot take away what they have been seeking for so long—freedom from the chains.

I suppose I’ve been lucky, blessed that they were there for me through all these years, even when all the wounds just wanted to break them apart. I have never asked for much precisely because they have given what I needed without knowing, but now that they are leaving, all I want to do is crawl after them, to hold on to their feet before they walk away for good, to beg for them to stay for me. I can’t do this alone. I can’t survive alone. I can’t let the sweetness of comfort leave. I can’t let my only oasis be taken away from me.

But it would be selfish.

So I stay quiet. Instead, I crank up the volume. Urbandub’s “First of Summer” resonates throughout the vehicle.

L-R: Ariane Gabrielle "Gabbie", Claire Michaela, Raphael Yves "Red"

2015