A long lost relative paid us a visit recently, a lola of mine by virtue of her marriage to my paternal lolo’s younger brother.  I haven’t seen her in a long time–in at least five years, I think, and I was all sorts of delighted to hear that she was going to come over, even just for a day.  Although I’m sure that my parents tried to get out of it–it was a weekend and I know that they weren’t in the mood to entertain, haha.

With this particular lola being of a particular age and having just recovered from some sort of surgery a month ago, we all expected her to bring at least one of her sons with her.  But lo, imagine our collective surprise when she stepped off the car sans an escort. 

And so my brother and I greeted her warmly, doing the whole mano po bit that’s not usually a protocol in our house, just to be, you know, polite and all.  We all sat down for lunch and here, I thought, at last, for the first time this year I can actually tick off the whole reconnecting with estranged relatives from my list.  I psyched myself out, expecting to hear different stories and details and updates about her grandchildren, my long lost cousins from that certain side of the family.

But what came out of her mouth was nothing of value, in my opinion.  This was one of those rare situations where I would’ve gladly welcomed the pointless reminiscing of one woman’s glory in her youth.  I would’ve sad through those stories; at least they would’ve been remotely interesting.

Here she came into our house, and within five minutes of sitting down to eat, she started badmouthing and gossiping everybody in her life- her grandchildren, her daughter-in-laws, and for goodness’ sake, she even recounted this story about a nephew of hers (whom I’ve never even met) who’s done a misdeed fifteen years ago. 

Fifteen years.  How a woman of such a small frame managed to hold on to that much hatred, I wouldn’t know.  Suddenly and harshly I was reminded of the reason why these people became estranged from our family.  We’re not the sweetest and most thoughtful of persons, but we do at least try to keep things positive, and people like this particular lola didn’t help our case.

She was actually even kind of rude, not once asking about my family’s wellbeing.   No, she just started off into this rant about other people’s wrongdoings and for that particular moment, I thought about the future, my distant future (which is an unprecedented event, since I hardly think about my old age; I’m sort of pessimistic that way, I don’t believe that I’ll even reach the ripe age of fifty):

I don’t want to grow up like that, with all the issues and negativity.  It just doesn’t seem like a healthy and fun way to live out the last few years of you life, you know?