American Filipina

We often say we will do things later or when we have time.  The reality is there are only twenty four hours in a day.  If we were granted one more hour, what would we do with it?  Would it make a difference?  Would it make you use the hour to the best of your ability or would you be back in a place, wanting more time? I think of the moment I heard my grandmother died.  I knew she was sick and in the hospital, but I thought she was getting better.  I booked my trip to London for work and a weekend trip with my friends to Barcelona.  I guess I just thought, she would live longer. The woman was incapable of dieing unless it was on her own terms. The first scare we had was a few years ago.  She was waiting for her ride home and she said she started to feel the world go black while she was watching one of the judge reality shows.  She pressed the emergency button.  As the story goes she flat lined twice and the doctors managed to revive her.  At that moment, the doctors realized how bad

     We were a very Catholic family.  Five children born two years apart.   The year was 1980 when my father imported my grandmother to the United States to help with child care.  I was six years old.  Little did I know how much of my life would be defined by this decision.      The arrangement was to care for my sister, number four in the birth order.  She was a baby.  I remember this because my grandmother fondly referred to my sister as "her baby".  It amazes me, that my mother, who worked full time as a nurse at the hospital, through her varicose veins, managed the family before my grandmother arrived.  She worked the midnight shift from two to midnight as a nurse.  Mom got us ready in the morning and dropped us off at school.  After school, we carpooled, stayed at a Filipno lady's house until my father picked us up.  He probably thought when child number four was born that it probably did not make sense to pay someone to watch that many children economically, if hi