This is the story of the start and end of the life of our bookstand- assuming it had its own life.
Since I was very young, I grew up with a bookstand that is not really a literal bookstand (I'm referring to the small square of wood where you put your book while you are reading it).
It was actually a 4-foot bookshelf made from rattan sticks (just like the picture I attached in the article) where we put an assortment of items.
On the top shelf were my mother's religious items: an image of the Holy Family (that we still have today), our rosary beads (we prayed the Holy Rosary every night), Novena guides, and Bibles that we never read before.
The second and third shelves consisted of different items at different times in my life. When I was 1-6 years old, they had our clothes on them, but when my parents finally bought a closet, they consisted of pocketbooks, notebooks, and BBDN newspapers.
I can still remember days when I was a bored 12-year-old girl, and I would read everything in there that I could read, including my mother's green Hunter-X-Hunter notebook, which has Novena 'para sa mga patay sa purgatoryo' guide, my sisters' borrowed Precious Heart Romance's novels, and the classified ads of the BBDN newspaper, just to entertain myself.
I don't exactly know when and where our parents purchased the 'bookstand', but I'm quite sure it was a couple of years after they started our small family in 1995.
I can't speak of our bookstand's life before me, but I know it was there when my father started selling ice cream as our main source of income. It was there when he would wake up at midnight and make ice cream, sleep for another 3 hours, and wake up again and continue making it.
It was there when my sister left home for the Sisters of Mary School to study high school, and still there when she finished and came back 3 and a half years later.
It remained standing when our house shook from the 7.2 magnitude 'Linog sa Bohol.'
It got wet but stood still when Yolanda came.
It was there when, for the first time, I witnessed my parents fight, bursting my bubble that they never fought.
It was there when an 8-year-old me hid under the bamboo chair while my mother was in labor to give birth to my new brother in our small sala.
It was there when my mom had another baby at the age of 41, and we asked her to name the baby 'Reid' if it's a boy and 'Myrtle' if it's a girl.
It was there when my oldest sister stopped going to college, and still there when she went back a year later.
It was there when I started going to college myself, and still there when my sisters and I all graduated and became a licensed Forester, Engineer, and a Teacher.
It was there when my two younger brothers were growing up, and my parents were growing old.
Until I was 21 years old, the 'bookstand' was still there, but not really needed because my parents bought a new one.
It slowly crumbled due to age, and most rattan sticks snapped.
It came to a point when it looked like a worn-out soldier returning from war, triumphant but utterly damaged. And if I think about it, it's actually on point.
The bookstand was there throughout our lives. It witnessed countless fun family moments, siblings' petty fights, natural disasters, family disagreements, and hundreds of mysteries from the Holy Rosary.
It witnessed the ups and downs of our family throughout the years.
One day, during the pandemic, my sister and I came home after resigning from our jobs, but it was still there. It looked so bad, but my mother didn't have it in her heart to throw it away.
So, on a mundane afternoon in 2020, when the world was in chaos, and people didn't know what the future held, one important decision was made in our house: to sneakily throw my mother's 'bookstand'.
It was an easy decision for my sister and me, but we knew we would be dead if my mother knew.
Hours later, when she eventually learned about the crime that we had committed, she went to the back of our house and fetched the 'bookstand' and put it near our caimito tree.
Not exactly inside our house, but not entirely in the garbage area.
With so much disappointment in her face, she said, "Kamo, Maristen ug Maryane, grabe jud mo'g kabuang, nganung inyo man tong gilabay, nga mas maguwang pa raba to ninyo. Hala, iapil na lang pod ng mga sinina ug plato nato diha!"
Haha! Sorry, Ma! 😂😂
0 Comments