Looking Back
by Almira Astudillo Gilles
“Ang hindi marunong lumingon sa pinanggalingan ay hindi makakarating sa paroroonan.”
— Jose Rizal
How exactly does this work? Is it necessary to mourn things we have lost to appreciate what we have now? Do we look at our past life to foretell a future that might become? Can we pick and choose anecdotes that stand out, lessons forged from heroic struggle, grand gestures, life-altering moments?
My father passed away three years ago from cancer. Recently, my son, who was as emotionally close as you could be to a grandfather who lived halfway around the world, had a special request. He asked me to look for “Turtley,” a stuffed animal that Lolo had given him as a very young child. We all knew Turtley well. My son loved this plush toy with a tan head and a green shell. It kept him company through days of youthful wonder and disappointment, teenage angst, and possibly the anxiety of college applications.
So I turned my three storage units inside out, looking for Turtley. I opened boxes long sealed shut, tape curling away from crumbling cardboard. I looked through bins of possibly 50 stuffed animals, remembering when my daughter would fall asleep with Pooh Bear in a tight embrace, when we bought her Finder the dog after she got separated from us on a mountain hike, when my son went through his otter phase. Scenes from East Lansing, Tulsa, and Palatine flashed in my mind.
Now that my children’s lives are no longer conjoined with mine, all I can do is to reminisce. I hope they would continue to immerse in their heritage as Filipino Americans. I hope they recall the time they were tattooed by Apo Whang Od, the New Year celebration when a firecracker chased my son, the numerous Simbang Gabi Masses in winter when they shivered in delicate pineapple fabric. I would be tickled if their taste buds remain receptive to soy sauce and vinegar, milkfish, ube, and mango.
Rizal’s famous quote says “lumingon,” or to glance backward. In my mind, it does not imply dwelling on the long, convoluted equation of a life and whether we came out on top in terms of prestige, wealth, or influence. A thoughtful glimpse is sufficient and is probably all we are capable of processing. If we can say, simply, that we came from a place of hope, whatever path we embark on will lead to a destination of joy. And I hope that my children, even once in a while, would look back and savor the warmth of family, community, and their mother’s homeland, so that they can enjoy the journey and confidently face wherever the future takes them.
Almira Astudillo Gilles (almiragilles@gmail.com) describes her heart’s work as conservation in two areas: indigenous cultural heritage and natural resources. Her cultural heritage work includes a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation grant for Art and Anthropology Project: Portrait of the Object as Filipino, an international artist exchange. She was the founder of 10,000 Kwentos (“Stories”) at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, a model of direct community engagement with the museum’s Philippine ethnographic collection.
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