‘Bag Lady’

This essay formed in my mind soon after Dad died, I would have mentioned it at the funeral, but it wasn’t well formed and maybe I was still too sad.

—

Dad plants epithets on everyone. He usually chooses play-on-word- names: Guilagid, Palayuk, Si-shen, Abingot. But of all the names he planted on me, the one which was guaranteed to make me stomp my feet and to render me splutteringly angry, was “Bag Lady”!

I’ve only seen Bag Ladies on TV, but Dad had observed them for real during his stay in Philadelphia . These women wear ratty clothes and carry all their earthly belongings in garbage bags. He started calling me that name when I began my high school years.

Perhaps one, in teenhood, is illogical and sensitive at times, but I felt I did not merit the name Bag Lady. Sure I had a bookbag with textbooks and notebooks and papers… and a knapsack for PE clothes and shoes… and a plastic bag with an experiment or art project in it… Okay. So maybe I did deserve the name. Perhaps I was simply a teen who easily got pissed.

I remember at one time being so livid that I went ahead of Dad, stomping to the jeepney stop. I jumped aboard the jeep right away, bags flying, rumpled skirt flapping, uncombed hair streaming in the breeze. Passengers stared at me, but midway through my trip I was staring at something else. Unbelievable! Dad, in his gold metallic Mitsubishi Lancer, was right behind the jeep! He broke off later in the traffic but I imagine he was smiling, if grimly, to himself.

It wasn’t always like that. In kindergarten I had just one bag, a white drawstring bag Mom had made, embroidered with Hello Kitty. (I erroneously told my classmates that it was made from diaper cloth, which made them “Ah!” in wonderment.) Dad would park the car, then a white Holden, across the street from school. We would then walk hand in hand, chattering away.

Later in college and med school, my Ate and I stayed in a dormitory, then a condo, so Dad only drove us once a week. He now drove a heather mist silver Honda Civic which our eldest brother (and 2 sisters) gave him. I was really a Bag Lady then, with sacks of clothes and parcels of food, but Dad didn’t say anything; we were past the joking point by that time.

Later, as an anesthesiology resident and fellow, he would drive me to work. He had switched to a satin silver CR-V (another brother-bestowed vehicle). Mai would say “Duty ka ba? Marami ka bang dala? Den, marami palang dala!” I would say, “No, okay lang, two bags lang naman. Mauna na ako.” I’d dash out before the gate was unlocked. But halfway through to the jeep stop, I’d hear a familiar hum. I’d look back. Lo and behold, Dad in his CR-V has caught up with me! Silently I would slink into the passenger seat, and off we’d go.

Dad is the only constant in my evolution from Bag Lady to Dr. Bag Lady. Even while I was in kinder he looked old with his “baldy head” and his fringe of white hair. My classmate said “Nakita ko lolo mo, hinatid ka kanina.” When I grew up he still looked like a lolo, no dif. Dad had aged prematurely so that twenty-five years later, he still looked the same.

But later, he was tired. I knew he was tired, because when I went on ahead, he didn’t try to catch up with me anymore. I was both relieved and sad: relieved that he didn’t, sad that he couldn’t.

Now that he is gone I definitely will not hear the hum of the car trailing behind me. Bag lady or not, no one will call me that way. Perhaps it was his attempt to bring a smile to my surly lips, but either which way, he had always tried to help me.

I hope somewhere he is happily driving a big silver car, which dwarfs him yet is in complete control by him, no longer stressed by other cars cutting across, no longer befuddled by puzzling directions, no longer rushing to catch that elusive green light. His load is light and the highway is long and clear in front of him. If he stops to pick me up, and calls me Bag Lady, I wouldn’t mind at all. I’ll just smile.