Growing up my family was living the Filipino American standard in the 1980s. My parents came from middle class, some might even say upper middle class means, in the Philippines. When martial law became their norm and my mom’s siblings made their way to the States, my parents began to make moves to emigrate there as well.
My parents moved to the States when my mom was 7 months pregnant with me. My Lola Sabel freaked out that I would be born on the plane and then have no citizenship. Mom was on various drugs throughout her pregnancy because she was continuously spotting. They worried that they might lose me. When they arrived in California her doctor’s were surprised that she was on a certain medication that had a side effect of giving baby’s malformed hands (aka lobster hands). She was immediately pulled off that med. A few months later I was born with 10 fingers, 10 toes, and no lobster hands.
My first home was a small apartment in Sun Valley. If you ever drive on the 5 freeway and see four smoke stacks in the distance. That’s where our apartment was. Then we moved into my Lola’s house in Panorama City. Literally next to train tracks. Next to the Van Nuys Drive-In Movies. We ultimately ended up in townhouse in Sepulveda, which is now called North Hills. At the time the neighborhood was up and coming. However as I grew up, the neighborhood grew more and more working class.
A core memory I have is lining up at the register at FEDCO and asking my parents if I could get a toy being sold at the impulse buy section of the register. It was a small black car that converted into a transformer. At most the toy was probably $2.50, maybe even $4.99. Mom adamantly told me no. She said that we couldn’t afford it. I stared at the price tag and thought to myself, “We can’t afford this? We must be poor.” All while the cashier was ringing up various sundries (i.e. paper towels, toilet paper, dad’s fuji film stock, mom’s contact solution) that we needed for our house.
To be honest Mom probably said no because I was asking for a toy that was for boys, but even my dad who enabled my love of things GI Joe and Thundercats said “No” when I tried to add this to our cart.
From that point on I had it in my head that we couldn’t afford things. That we could only buy things for the house when we needed them. This is why mom used to sew my clothes instead of buying me clothes. This is why I wore the same clown costume for multiple Halloweens in a row. This is what I learned and held onto for most of my life.
Until…we lost dad. Until I had to parse through the boxes upon boxes of things. Until I realized that my parents saved everything they owned for fear of losing what they had moved to this country to afford for themselves, for me, for our family.
When we first lost dad I was so angry and upset that they lived like they were paupers. I was so upset that did not get to enjoy life.
But as always, it takes someone from the outside looking in, to point out that they truly did enjoy life. My husband Mike pointed out that my dad treated himself to camera equipment almost every other year. The years he didn’t buy cameras or lenses my dad was buying a new firearm. Mom loved her Dooney & Burke purses. She memorized QVC and HSN channels and when the networks would highlight the bags. When Dooney & Burke she liked was on the screen, she would jot down the numbers of items she wanted to buy.
I continued the Dooney & Burke tradition one Christmas by getting her a new purse. Still the crossbody style with zipper closures she liked, just bigger in size to hold all her trinkets and tchotchkes.
When we lost mom I started to go through more of their things. During the most painful moments of grief I found this check that my dad wrote to my mom. Apparently Dad practiced manifestation before it was the trendy thing to do. Reflecting on the life they built together. The life I continue to live on in their name. I know they made good on this check.
The worries are different at this stage of my life. The economic anxiety still lingers in the background. However I know at the end of the day I will be okay because of them. The abundance that I thought I would never get to is finally here.
Thank you mom and dad. Thank you so much.
🙌🏽