The Lolo I Never Had

My Lolo at his best.  Jan. 4, 1997
I've always thought he was a handsome, old man, more handsome than in his youth,
and more handsome in his usual scrunched up, weird-smelling clothes. 

This was my lolo, Plaridel, the grandparent with whom I have the most memories. Memories of him consists of afternoon walks around the village with him walking backwards and his sweater worn backwards, or inside-out or both, peeling mangoes with our hands and wiping the stickiness on leaves, throwing macopa flowers at each other, playing in the backyard baha during rainy days, watching him cook rice with firewood under the makeshift shed he made his carpenter build, being spun in his office chair as transport to Quiapo, and feeling grossed out when he put the molted skin of an insect on his navel, saying he was breastfeeding it. 

He was a lawyer, and a queer man. His office and bedroom was a makeshift extension of our house, and looked pretty much like the houses of informal settlers. His files were kept in cut Tide boxes. His drawers had disgusting things no one wanted to touch. His bed smelled of him, the smell of an old person. Under his bed was a small, old hopia box with soil, where he would spit out phlegm. In his bookshelves, he kept a small pack of lemon drops, which I would try to find every now and then. And in one corner, very accessible to children, he kept the rifle he allegedly used in war. The place was dusty, had a weird smell, and was covered in agiw. He let us play there all the time. 

I liked playing with his office supplies-- the inks, the stamps, the staplers, the paper and all that magical paraphernalia that can do all sorts of things. I was allowed to play with his computer when I was, like, in kinder. It was Windows 95 with Solitaire as the only game I remember but couldn't understand, so I messed around with MS-DOS and learned how to use Microsoft Word. He also let us watch his TV whenever we wished, even though we had our own TV in the sala. He let us jump on and mess up his bed. He even let us use his drinking cups to build soil towers and mud cakes. 

We played a lot, but I don't remember talking. I was perhaps too young to talk substantially. He told stories, but only that one time I specifically asked to hear some. I don't even remember what they were about. He was gone by the time I could really talk about stuff.

C.S. Lewis is the lolo I never had, the lolo of wise words, and stories. Reading his books feels like sitting on a couch and having long conversations about life, Christianity, and the issues in between that I've always wanted to talk about with someone wiser than me. What he says about the matters I'm concerned with has never disappointed me. He says exactly how it is. He knows what he's talking about; he understands and has put it better than I ever can.

I picked up A Grief Observed, hoping for the kind of conversation we had in The Four Loves. It's about a love I have never known, a love I cannot relate with, an experience mocking me; nevertheless, I got what I hoped for. Earlier, I picked up Till We Have Faces, a novel described as non-Christian as it's a retelling of the myth of Psyche and Cupid, but it spoke to me so obviously of Christianity, and hit a really sore spot.

His writings, whether fiction or non-fiction, strike deep on a personal level. They expose the workings of the human psyche, its tragedies and imperfections, which often leads to reflections on one's own workings, revealing one's own follies. Many a time, it was his work that have led me to repent, his words leading me to understand that obscure and forgotten passage in Scripture. 

I wonder if he ever intended his words to have such an effect. Perhaps he didn't. Many a time, he talks of an entirely different context, but to me his words mean something else, something more profound than what the text obviously meant. Like this quote I leave you with: 

There had been a time in childhood when I didn't yet know I was ugly. Then there was a time (for in this book I must hide none of my shames or follies) when I believed, as girls do- and as Batta was always telling me- that I could make it tolerable by this or that done to my clothes or my hair. Now, I chose to be veiled.

 -C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces