Remembering my Lolo

Is there any food that connects you to your family?

When people ask the question, if there was one person, living or deceased, that you could have lunch with, who would it be? I’ve always immediately known the answer to this question, my grandfather, or as I called him, my lolo.

My lolo came to the United Statement in 1930 from Umingan, a municipality in Central Luzon, the northernmost island of the Philippines. His accent was strong, and as a child, I wasn’t always able to understand him very well. He would insist that we spoke English, though, because he felt it was our responsibility as Americans. It wasn’t that he wanted to erase our Filipino identity, but he wanted to ensure that we didn’t face the same challenges that he had as a Filipino immigrant.

I don’t remember him telling stories. In fact, I really don’t remember him saying much. I do remember is the tone of his voice, the way that his mouth would form around the words as they came out, an accent that sounded like a beautiful melody, the way that his words sounded different when he said them as opposed to when I did. I remember wanting to sound like him. I remember the warmth in his words, the kindness in his eyes, and I remember him hugging me like there was no tomorrow.

I don’t feel like I ever got enough time with him. I often think about how I took his presence for granted and didn’t realize how much he meant to me or how much he’d later mean to me after his passing. I've made sure to collect every photo that I could find of us together, but it never feels like enough. I know that time has a tendency to muddle our truth, lead us to latching onto moments, and create stories that reflect what we want to believe happened. I've often asked myself whether the memories I have of him are fictions that I’ve created just so I could spend just one more moment with him than I had.

Regardless of my uncertainty, some memories are so deeply ingrained in me that there’s no denying them. When I read about how strongly our sense of smell and taste are deeply entwined with memory, my first thought is always of his cooking. Cooking for his family was one of the things that I remember bringing him so much joy.

I remember the cramped space that served as the dining room in his tiny home. I remember how you couldn’t pull the chairs back from the table very far because of how narrow the space was, and how I’d sometimes crawl under the table to get to my seat in the back by the wall. I remember the vinyl off-white, green and yellow tablecloth. I remember sitting there long before the food was done just so I could take in the strong smells of garlic, vinegar, and soy sauce as his chicken adobo simmered on the stove.  

I remember the bottle of Kikkoman that never seemed to empty. I remember the stacks of old Reader's Digests at his table and how I'd sit there and read him the jokes that I found funny. Given how young I was at the time, I’m sure that I was stumbling over most of the words, had terrible comic timing and didn’t really understand the punchline. It didn’t matter. He always laughed like I’d told him the most hilarious thing in the world.

I remember tracing my fingers over the lines of the roads contained within the multitude of maps he had tucked away near the table or staring out at the enormous garden in his backyard thinking about how I might sneak outside, sit below the canopy of his large tree and secretly eat all of his string beans.

I remember the first bites, when I tasted the love that my lolo infused into his adobo, and the joy that I felt when he explained to me that this time, it was perfect. It felt like it was rarely perfect to him. He almost always thought that the chicken could be just a bit more moist, the rice just a little less sticky or the sauce just a little less watery, but I never cared. I’d closely watch what he did to his food before he ever ate it, putting just the right amount of soy sauce on his rice, and then, despite being told to watch how much salt he was eating, deviously sprinkling just a little more onto his chicken for good measure. If that's the way he did it, I assumed that was the right way to do it. I'm not sure that he ever noticed that I'd do exactly the same.

I know that I couldn’t have possibly realized how important those memories would be to me as I grew older.

Lolo died when I was fourteen. I regret not learning how to make his adobo from him before he passed, but I’m so thankful that my dad taught me how to cook it soon after. More than any other thing, my learning how to cook Lolo’s recipes felt like a rite of passage, the moment where I truly grasped the importance of Filipino culture as part of my family’s shared history.

My dad is now eighty. A few years ago, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, and it's progressed far faster than anybody thought that it would. He doesn’t speak, laugh or smile like he used to. His eyes often seem like they're staring into the distance at something very far away. His tremors have robbed him from being able to cook, and just like his dad, my dad is someone that truly loves to cook for his family.

I spent the anniversary of my lolo’s death at my parents’ home, and I asked my dad to cook Lolo’s adobo with me as a way to honor his dad. When he raised his shaking hands to me to tell me that he couldn’t, I asked that he just share the time with me while I cooked it with him, that he tell me what to do, help guide me to make sure that it was just like his dad's.

My daughter came into the kitchen as the first hints of vinegar wafted into the air. It wasn’t long before my dad had her tying up pickling spice into a cheesecloth, setting the table with us, and engaging her in a friendly debate about how much water one should put in their rice (hint: always use your knuckle).

She joined my dad and I at the table to eat, and it wasn't lost on me that she was getting a chance to share in the same experience that I did so many years ago. I watched her as she saw her lolo put just the right amount of soy sauce on his rice, a little extra dash on his chicken, and I saw her do the same. She took the first bite, nodded her head in what seemed to be strong approval and was already taking her second bite by the time dad was able to take his first. As my father took his, I saw his eyes open wide in delight and his face lit up in a way that it doesn’t often do these days. My eyes started to water, and it took everything I could to not start sobbing uncontrollably in that moment. As he loaded up his fork for another bite, I heard him whisper words that it felt like I'd waited a lifetime to hear, “Son. This time, it’s perfect.”

My daughter answered, her mouth still full, "Yes, Grandpa. It is."