Thursday Thirteen #32: To Nanay With Love

 Thursday Thirteen

Today would have been my mother-in-law's 83rd birthday.
But she died May 28th of lung cancer.
And no, she was NOT a smoker!

For anyone who doesn't read this blog normally (and welcome), I recounted the whole sad story of our loss here in late May and early June. Suffice it to say that her death was totally unexpected, that none of us were prepared for it, and that I am very proud to be a part of her family.
And I still expect to see her every time I am in her house.

Yesterday we celebrated her birthday by planting a beautiful pink tea rose bush near our front door. She loved roses,especially pink ones.

Ironically, during her lifetime, we never celebrated her birthday. Hell, until she died last month and we were making funeral arrangements, I didn't know her birthday or her birthyear.

So today, as I've done for the rest of the people I love, here are

 THIRTEEN THINGS ABOUT NANAY

1)Nanay is NOT her name (though her given name DID happen to start with an "N"), it is the Tagalog word for "Mommy". My oldest niece lived with Nanay a good deal when she was very small (my sister-in-law was going to nursing school at the time), heard her uncles calling her that, and did the same. So all the grandchildren(and great-granchildren!) use that instead of "Lola", which really means "grandma".

2) She was the oldest of nine brothers and sisters.

3)When she was a teen, the Japanese occupied the Philippines. She told SC of having to flee their home and hide in fields during air raids, and I know she told the Man about Japanese atrocities--including the tale of one of her uncles being taking off and never returning.

4)She married my father-in-law shortly after the war. He'd been in the Philippine Army at the start of the war and had survived the Bataan Death March. Filipino veterans got some (very few) benefits under the GI Bill, and so they emigrated to America along with their two children.

5)Through my father-in-law's days working as a waiter by night and going to college by day, she held their growing family together. And when his work for USAID took him away for years to Vietnam and West Africa, it was she who was mother and father to the Man and his siblings.

6)In those hard years she was sometimes hard on her children. She fought bitterly when my sister-in-law decided to marry someone who was Chinese. She refused to accept her sons' girlfriends to the point where my brother-in-laws knew about my relationship with the Man, but helped him keep it from her.

7)a)She grew past that. She learned, from hard experience, that race and religion didn't matter in the end--it was caring that mattered.

7)b)She not only grew past that, she admitted it openly. And she became a wonderful mother-in-law--someone why I truly loved.

8)She was an incredibly loving mother and grandmother. She cared for her granddaughter so that her daughter could go to nursing school. She kept SC with her after every Christmas and every summer for the past 7 years--and told her she wished she could keep her from July to New Years every year!
One of my greatest regrets is that JR never stayed too and got to experience being spoiled rotten by Nay. But she's a homebody, and still doesn't want to do overnights with Grandma...

9)When SC was 5 and broke her leg, and we were desperate, Nanay came down and stayed at my sister-in-law's house for a month so she could take care of SC during the week and I could go to work.

10) She was a world traveler. She and Tatay (my father-in-law) traveled to ALL of the continents. She took all her grandchildren (except for JR who missed out, as she did on other things) on cruises. The last was with SC two years ago--she was 80 and SC was 11, but she still had the energy to do it!

11)She was an incredible cook. And not just of Filipino food--but of all kinds of food. Her cookbook shelves are crammed with cookbooks from around the world.

12)One of the first things we found we had in common was a love of baking. Until last year, when my father-in-law developed a gluten intolerance, she was up daily before dawn, baking all kinds of bread. In fact, last Christmas, she told me how frustrated she was by NOT being able to bake bread!
As I recounted here last month, as Nanay was dying, my sister-in-law said "Nanay's going to heaven to bake bread for the angels. And the angels are going to get fat!"
JR liked hearing this. And as we left the cemetery where she was cremated, we smelled a delicious odor of baking bread......

13)She had an intense curiousity about everything, (I may never recover from the time she and the Man discussed my c-section),  no need for pretense or artifice, and a smile that could radiate all the warmth in the world. Through all the hardship in her life, through war, and family crises and sorrows, she never lost her joy in life. That's the gift she passed on to the Man, and I hope to SC and JR.
When the Man or SC smile and their eyes crinkle shut  like hers did, I see Nanay.

Here's a link to one of Nanay's most famous recipes--for sticky buns. I baked a batch myself tonight, and the house smells of bread and cinnamon. And love.

She's still with us. I think she always will be...............

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