The Fragments of the Last Letter
an excerpt

Chapter 1

I once told him that I had a crazy family. We had cousins who were strange, uncles who thought they were saints, and aunts who actually were. But we all got along – so, good luck to him! Instead of shrinking away, he said, “Your family sounds like fun!” I never thought I would hear that from someone, especially someone who seemed so withdrawn at the beginning. Turns out his family is as crazy as mine, too.

If you’re after seafood and cheap, yummy cookies, then Iloilo is the place to be. But if you want to rest in the arms of your family, cry your eyes out, and get some sympathy, then look elsewhere. I should know; it’s where I ended up after I had my heart broken just a few weeks ago.

Right – let me slow down for a moment, and start from the beginning, or somewhere near it. I don’t really have a lot to get moving, but I do have a heavy handbag filled with books, and I know how to use it.

Well, except that I know I shouldn’t. That’s the strange thing about family: you can get smacked emotionally by your bevy of impossibly happy aunts, laughed at by your naughty cousins (who, by the way, are all younger than you are, but are apparently more street smart), and berated by your well-meaning, but sometimes pushy parents – and you will not have the slightest urge to wreak havoc. In fact, family makes me want to go, “Hey, beat me up some more! I want another smacking! Hit me baby one more time!”

Chances are, with a world as crazy as ours, you have a family just like mine. It’s the one you go home to on the holidays, the one that makes you laugh and splits your sides – but it’s only fun as long as you’re on the laughing side. When you become the butt of jokes, things aren’t so funny: you want something to the tune of, “Oh, you poor thing!” or “It’ll be ok, you’ll see!” with a matching pat on the head and a long hug and lots of Kleenex.

Instead, you get irreverent jokes, snide comments, and a whole host of cousins with heads bobbing like hyenas on heroin. He disappeared and left you high and dry? Wait a minute, did you feed him something? Maybe you were too available – like he had you on a leash! (cue panting and pretending to be dogs, which isn’t too difficult, considering the hyena angle) She gave you a really low grade? Maybe you were using curse words in your paper! Are you sure you wrote about DNA? You were all about eating roasted pig last week. Maybe you put in lechon ten thousand times in your report!

Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera – you get the point. I have a funny family, and I’m fixated on telling everybody about it. Well, it’s not like I can help being fixated. I grew up with them: I visited Iloilo from cosmopolitan Manila, and since babyhood, I learned that the adjustment is not from town to country; it’s from weird to weirder.

And I had to deal with it for the next twenty-nine, thirty years. It’s not like the family’s nasty: we support each other, cheer each other on, make sure that we’re all ok and alive. But like I said, if you want sympathy for your problems, talk to a father confessor, a psychiatrist, or your super-serious best friend. Better yet, talk to a wall. Family is just going to laugh – just hope you aren’t on the other side of the laughter, and you’ll be fine.