When I was a child our house in Dipolog was the most imposing in the block. Built in the early 1950’s, it was — I remember — a white-painted, two-storey wooden house with arched windows and an added foyer banked by a cement wall added out to look like it was made of large, irregular blocks of stone.
Vivid in my mind is the way the windows and the front yard were alive with flowering plants. My grandmother had a passion for greenery — fruit trees in the backyard and, out front, whatever was the horticultural fashion of the time, from cacti to bougainvilla. I remember the roomy interiors. It was a house a child could lose himself in: nooks to hide in during evening’s game of hide and seek corners to cower in in times of household crises, or just airy spaces to feel expansive in, delighting in the pleasures of family, love and youth.
Today, only one who has lived in the house can imagine what it once was. Squeezed in between two firewalls the neighbors had built (as though fearful of infecting decay), the house appears to have curiously diminished in size, almost like a living person shrunk by age. Weather-beaten, patched-up, deserted by many of those who once lived there (sons who have moved to other places, other homes), its interiors repartitioned to make room for renters, home has receded into a third of the old house where my elderly parents live.
What does a house speak? It speaks many things: it speaks of certain enduring affections, it speaks as well of absence, neglect, common infidelities (yet so insidious) of distance, distraction, forgetting. I have been to a house but three times in the past 20 years, quick visits in which affection and anger to child’s simple and unalloyed, but one shadowed by separateness and a few nameless guilt.
Last month, i went back to see my mother for the last time, to see her laid to her final rest. After many years, I lived in the house again, catching snatches of shallow sleep, mostly staying up for nights of prayers and vigil.
And I was visited by the sense of how much of the house had become alien space. Space had been redrawn to create rooms in which strangers lived. From within the house came unfamiliar sounds. The mind has to focus on those once well-loved details of the house now strangely altered, lost — a corner where once the family altar was, the window that looked out into the trees, the space where, once upon a time a boy slept.
There is comfort in the fact that, in a wake, the house is alive with people — relatives, friends, neighbors who come to stay in the dark hours to form a warm refuge away from grief. Yet, even such comfort does not come unmixed. I meet old classmates, childhood friends, former helpers and distant relatives I had not seen for years. In the touching of hands and the exhcange of greetings, I am grateful that they should remember as I am inwardly shamed, vainly trying to fish out of the past a face i can remember, a name.
On the day of the burial, we all stepped out of the house to accompany the coffin to the town’s central school where a necrological service for my mother was held. (Here in this school, just across the street from our house, I had gone through the grades, my mother a teacher, principal, supervisor, but above all, my mother). The procession then wended its way down the main street to the old church, then, finally, to the cemetery at the edge of town.
That night, without her, the house, now largely desserted by those who had kept vigil, seemed even stranger, more bereft.
The house will remain for years and, perhaps in time, it will be lost. Houses are such fragile structures. (There are things other than earthquakes of which we must fear.) And memory itself is a house that, in the end, cannot endure. My hope is that it shall prove tenacious and that i shall remember love moved through the rooms of this house.
a short piece of a past that had once been lived by a little boy. a house well-delighted from the outside but had kept memories of a family who had once loved each other. As years passed, the changes that the house had gone through reflected the changes that took place in the lives that once lived there. This creative non-fiction is an example of a “remembering-the-past” essay that did not over do it.
July 5th, 2007 at 7:34 am
As i was reading the lines, nostalgic thoughts about my home came to my senses. I wish I can go back to my home as soon as possible. I will be more than happy to see those old faces and things back there. Oh I miss so much my house. I miss my family so much. I love them… (tears..)
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July 7th, 2007 at 1:40 am
Coming Home by Resil Mojares is such an exquisite composition. The writer’s wit is greatly shown by how the words are being played. I highly commend the writer’s unique descriptive technique for it gives me a clear picture of the story.
The writer didn’t fail to give me a nostalgic effect. It was as if I had been to the house he used to dwell with his mother and friends. The emotion he imparted in the story is so captivating to the point that I was able to reminisce the things I used to have in my high school life. After reading it, I noticed that I was completely devoured by feelings of sadness and regret.
Truly, scanning through the archives of my memory makes me realize that the strength I possess today came from the failures I had in the past.
July 8th, 2007 at 12:01 am
this poem frightens me on what will happen to my family in the future. i don’t want that it will happen to my family that the house which we call home will someday be deserted by my family. I want the happiness we have in our house to be there forever no matter what.
July 8th, 2007 at 12:42 am
Wow! this article is wonderful… i can relate to the story… hope to read essays like this more!!!
July 8th, 2007 at 1:05 am
i love this essay!!!
July 8th, 2007 at 10:50 pm
A house is only a structure unless a family lives in it, thus it becomes a home where there’s an atmosphere of hope, love, and care. It is a witness of all the experience of the family, the ups and downs,and the struggles in life. It is seasoned with zests of life and as the years go by, it grows old but never became weary. Nomatter what, the good and bad memories in a house, the laughter and tears, and the love never fades.
July 9th, 2007 at 2:22 am
the article is realy touching…sometimes, things in the past reflect the things that had happened…!
July 12th, 2007 at 12:36 am
This article, “Coming Home,” is very touching. The emotions were so true. As I read the passage, I was really teary-eyed because I missed my family. I missed home. That is the place where I never fail to feel the love, concern and comfort. That is the place where I’m comfortable with, as if I have no worries nor problems. That is where I belong. I think I would never want to leave our home when the time comes that I become an adult. That’s the place where I wanna die.
July 12th, 2007 at 10:45 am
haha. this makes me feel so homesick. yes. it really feels different to finally come back to a place you call “home” after you’ve been gone for a long time.maybe even for a while, just like me who lives not so far away from home, yet still badly misses my family. i could not help but read and reread this article, because i want to absorb the author’s emotions, and feel like he/she also sympathizes with how i feel regarding me missing that homely ambiance. yes, the house’s structure may change in time. its wood and furniture may rot and decay. but the memories formed within it won’t.=)
July 13th, 2007 at 7:08 am
bad memories in the past could be a problem.but recently, I’ve just learned that behind all problems is an opportunity.
somehow, i could relate to this entry.i had also experienced coming home crying knowing that my father died. honestly, it’s hard to accept it and adjust in the reality.loosing someone is like loosing hope to live.isn’t?but one thing I’ve realized is that,trials in life mold you to a better,strong,and good person..
July 15th, 2007 at 3:04 am
this poem just showed us that changes are inevitable and how that change can bring regret in the present. its just a sad story how the boy in the poem didnt looked back in his past, and suddenly realizes the effect of that change after her mother’s death.a change that i know no one wanted to happen, yet i know that change will help us to grow better.
July 16th, 2007 at 12:30 am
A heart- warming, tear- jerker and touching story of a house that once been lived by a happy and loving family in the past and then turned out to be the boy’s worst experience of having a family. A boy haunted by the past because of his experience of losing a home. It’s a good story of a family who was teased and yet devoured by fate.
July 18th, 2007 at 10:27 pm
The article talks about the changes that would happen as time goes by… as we live in this place we face problems but then no matter how difficult it is, surely it mold us to be a strong person.
July 29th, 2007 at 12:26 am
There is indeed no place like home. It is where you can do whatever you want, and is it where the most important people in your life lives. I like the article because it emphasized on family relationships and other family matters. While reading the article, I missed my family so much specially my sister working in Makati. But I began to realize that even though I am away from her, a little thing like distance could not break our ties and love will still reside in our hearts.
August 3rd, 2007 at 8:41 pm
what a nice essay…everyone could really relate on this.even though my family is not anymore complete, but still our love to each other would always remain…i don’t want to get to the point that what we called home would just turn to a house. as time goes by, ther will always changes but i do hope that what i called home would not change.
September 18th, 2007 at 9:35 pm
Nice article!
I wonder if I’ve seen this house in Dipolog.