November one
SPANISH “conquistadores” who came to our shores were the following: 1) Missionaries bringing the cross and Christianity to the islands; 2) Soldiers ordered by the Crown to defend newly discovered territories, including nationals; 3) First OFWs of the times – Spaniards throwing care to the wind to brave the seas, hoping a better future outside Mother Spain. Miguel Angel Espina Y Duarte, the first kin stepping on local soil was Lieutenant-Colonel in the Spanish Infantry. Around 1890s he wrote 10 books including a novel, found in libraries abroad e.g. Indiana University USA. Our National Library has a copy of one of his writing in the lingua franca of his days “On Notes For a Book on Jolo”. He was buried in the Manila Cathedral, later transferred by a grandson namesake to a location family no longer can trace. His son Francisco Espina decided to be a Filipino, becoming a Captain in Aguinaldo’s Katipunan fighting Americans. He later became a lawyer and ‘Juez de paz’ (Justice of the peace). He is buried in Cebu. On my maternal side, “Tan Ipeng”, or Captain Ipeng Remollo was Gobernadorcillo for decades of Ayuquitan now San Jose Negros Oriental. He was a 6th grader serving his constituency in slippers. He sent two sons abroad for matriculation. Years after, his sons, one of them my grandfather became the first lawyer of the province graduating from Stanford University California early 1900s. Recently, during the wake of the mother of a close friend (who used to work directly with the founder of the country’s biggest mall) but decided to go abroad with family but connected with the same group for their foreign businesses, I asked him where he would retire in the future? He said maybe the US. I failed a follow-up, a more salient one – where do you want to be buried? A question that requires asking and resolution as life is a terminal journey. When endings are answered ahead of time, the running to and fro becomes clear, the movements directed. November One we ask, do we wish to be laid to rest in a foreign soil and with alien nationals? Abroad, where family is too busy to visit? With no day for the “dead”? Pauses for family prayer, recollection and gathering?