The last of my female first cousins has just been called by her Creator. Quickly and quietly, so I heard. Without much ado. No lingering illness that would have involved lengthy and vigilant attendance of caregivers. So typical of my Atsing Puring not to burden anyone, not to have anyone fuss over her. All she cared about was to give, give, and give--love, help to anyone in need, even if it meant depriving herself of some personal need. That was the Atsing Puring I had known.
Some years ago, she visited us here in LA after so many years of losing contact wth each other. She stayed in our house for two days. and we chatted deep into the night. At one point she intimated that she just gave her money to relatives and friends in need. "What do I need it for?" She asked. Indeed what for? She was a very simple woman with very simple needs. Never used make-up except baby powder. I doubt if she ever went to the movies, to Disneyland and such, unless perhaps to accompany some nieces or nephews or grandchildren by Bernadette, her only child, who she rescued from a critical illness when still a baby and took unto her own since then with the consent of the biological mother.
When I was small, probably five or seven and thereafter for some years, she would get me to vacation in Capas where she and her mother owned the biggest grocery store in town. She was her mother's right hand person in running the store, the income of which helped in sending her young siblings to school, seeing about the journalism career of one and the medical schooling of another. The journalist rose to become a daily columnist in Manila's Evening News (or was it the Evening Mirror). The doctor went on to become a psychiatrist in the state of Missouri. She sent herself back to school last and only after much prodding from my father, their surrogate father. She had argued she was too old to go back to high school, but upon the insistence of my father who believed one is never too old to finish education, she went back to high school and afterwards to college to become a pharmacist and work in thee pharmacy department of the GSIS in Manila.
Again we lost contact with each other as my husband and I had gone to Iowa City when my husband was invited with a grant to the famed International Writing Program of the University. But the image of Atsing Puring as that woman with a heart always bursting with love, especially for children, had remained in me. In fact, I remember having I written about her when in my Teacher's exam, we were asked to write an essay on The Person I Admire Most. She was a person who never had a mean bone in her body. I can only wish I could emulate her.
Rest in peace, Atsing Puring. Your legacy of kindness, virtuous life and piety will always remain in those you had touched. We love you: three words we may have shown with our respect and caring for you albeit not expressed in loud words before.
