Friday, November 2, 2007
all saints' day
Great news: I'm finally home (yay civilization).

November 1 has always been the same thing for me every year: (1) watch lola es make her flower arrangements, (2) try to get in the memorial park without suffocating from the massive crowd, (3) alternate standing, sitting on a monoblock chair and making "kandong" to anyone with an available lap, (4) eat fishcrackers while passing time, and (5) repeat steps 3 and 4 until boredom sets in and everybody decides to go home. Every year, this day is considered a father's-side holiday, for the simple reason that the dead in mama's side are buried in far Ilocos. It's been sort- of a tradition, actually, to do things exactly the same way year- after- year during all saints' day.
But traditions (like promises.. haha) are made and eventually broken, so this year I decided to forget the steps above and make it a less predictable holiday. I spent the day at a memorial park in Taytay, Rizal- even though not a single person in our family is buried there.
I sold flowers.
Yes, flower arrangements for the dead, the kind that comes in small pots and green floral foam.
Never in my craziest mind state have I imagined myself doing this, but I guess there's always room for surprises. Tita lelet had this weird business idea of buying flowers by the bulk, arranging them, and selling them to people who entered the memorial park without flowers to decorate the niches of their loves ones. I initially thought we were going to taytay just to visit my grandparents there, but as it turns out, I was so wrong. While karmel freely expressed her creativity by helping with the flower arrangements (in the comforts of a house), I was stuck at a chairless booth in the place of the dead.
Realization: People are kuripot when it comes to giving flowers to their deceased loved ones.
I was all for the new experience, though. It was boring, definitely, to sit at a nearby boulder (no chairs remember) for hours. But it was still something new, and that made it somehow un- boring. I guess that's the good thing about breaking traditions- it gives us space to step out of our comfort zones.
_______________________
I laughed so hard at the line my 6- year old cousin used to lure people into buying some flowers:
"Bili bili na kayo ng bulaklak dito.. para po sa mga nililigawan nyo!"
Just imagine a loud- voiced, high- pitched little girl shouting that line out repeatedly in front of a cemetery.
0 comment(s)