This One's for You, Bro!

   

    

He was delivered at my Tita Nilda’s house, by the local midwife, Mrs. Cordero.             

I remember standing in the doorway of the room where my mother lay in labor, baffled by the mystery of my baby brother’s birth.                

Once born, Lola Tanciang took the liberty of naming him Alan—after an actor of a bygone era-Alan Delain.

He was a fair-skinned baby with pink cheeks and moist, red, lips and a cry that could blow your ear debris away.

He cried often, and with gusto—the veins engorged on his tiny neck. He punctuated his bawls with a prolonged ellipsis of holding his breath until he turned blue.
       

One time, he held his breath longer than the usual ten seconds, my hysterical mother gave him a shaking, and I, with a vague notion of CPR in mind, blew into his face and somehow “revived” him. Thereafter, I’ve been credited for saving his life. Between the two of us, it was just a case of perfect timing, because nobody ever died from holding his breath.
       

He was a sprightly kid—either underfed or overactive, however which way you’d look at it. He had limbs like bamboo sticks, and a passion for everything under the literal sun. He was never at home, always busy catching spiders or beetles (labog-labog) for sport, or collecting bottles, cans, and metal scraps from other people’s garbage to sell at the local junk dealer or climbing and harvesting someone’s santol, starapple or datilis tree. He was an ace at playing cards (pusoy), taksi (a game where players attempt to hit bottle caps or coins off a squared off area and whoever gets the most out wins), or bug-oy (where one shakes fistfuls of tiny shells and throw them to the ground, heads or tails) with the other street-smart urchins in the neighborhood. I imagine him always with a stick, thrashing at trees and bushes, or poking at crablets and scooping gold fish from the open sewage canals. He had traversed every street, road, or path, by way of feet, bike or wooden scooter, and swam perhaps, every swimmable river or creek for miles around. He would come home sweaty, dusty and hungry. At this time, not a trace of his light complexion was left to the naked eye. He was a sunbaked brown, with a sunbaked smell, to boot.

Whenever the traveling fair (peryahan) came to town, he never missed a sidetrip there, everyday, on his way to school and back. He always came home late, and often have to be scoured for many a night, and found to be at the ferris wheel or agape at the flashing lights and sounds, and the crowd. He seldom attended Sunday School but always managed to ambush the snacks that came afterwards.

He had more than the regular schoolkid’s share of mishaps. A few times, my mother had to pick him up from the hospital after getting a stitch or two. Early in his childhood, he put candy pellets inside his nose, by intention or by accident, I do not know. Another time, he came home white faced, after a biking accident, with a bleeding appendage, we had to pound malunggay leaves and apply it as poultice over his gaping wound to stop the bleeding. He was back into the streets before night fall.

Even in high school, he remained business-savvy. One day, my sister told me she had seen him downtown selling plastic bags—his take on an after school job. He had been selling plastic bags every afternoon after school, without any one of us knowing about it.

Still, as a teenager, he was never in the house, and was always away at some camp, trip or expedition to a far-flung barrio or town. He was fearlessly diving from waterfalls, climbing mountains, and exploring caves.

Where none in our family could swim, he had taught himself all the strokes, including the butterfly. Where none of us could play an instrument, he had learned to strum the guitar. He was teaching himself piano, even.

Being good in Math, we wanted him to be an engineer. He defied our expectations, and went to Bible school determined to save souls.

Years passed.

The next time I saw him he was no longer the scrawny, undernourished kid I knew, but a muscular guy with a pretty, young girlfriend in tow. He not only grew in pecs but in spiritual wisdom, as well, with an impressionable girlfriend that I bet, hung on his every word.

Later, he went to China to teach English. After several months, he told me, he had to go back home. He said it wasn’t right from a moral perspective, to stay there on an illegal visa. So back he went to the Philippines and his very low-income job as a teacher at a Christian high school. He now splits his time between teaching kids and pastoring a new flock.

This sibling of mine reminds my mother of me: our features are quite alike but our similarities end there.  He had, from birth, a spirited character and an adventurous life.

It is amazing that I have actually witnessed him born, grow up and metamorphose from bellowing baby and rugged underling into a self-made man.

These days, he’s learning Chinese.

Happy birthday, to you, bro!