My sister Leilani (April 19, 1966 - November 18, 2007). At 20, a new B.S. Psychology graduate, she
had it all figured out. Her little orange typewriter, the carefree smile, the
movie star pose, the hand-lettered desk signs that read “Smoking Area” and “Silence:
Writer at Work.” Her red t-shirt says “I’m an alcoholic. In case of emergency,
give me a beer.” Her name in cut-out letters (hand-made as well) on the shelf
behind her, and a Menudo collage by the window. Her little Post-its, her colored
markers and her lighter carefully arranged before the typewriter.
The words on the large cowrie shell read “Golf Club.” These were
her new barkada, her new friends; they liked to hang out at our house happily
drinking. “Golf” was for “golf-golf-golf,” i.e. “gulp, gulp, gulp” which can
sometimes sound like the same word in the Philippines. A few weeks before, she
had taken a treasured photo album with the name of her old barkada, her group,
on the front, stuffed the photos into an envelope, and replaced them with
pictures of these new friends.
She left to take a master’s degree at the Ateneo de Manila the
following semester. Manila – the sudden absence of community support, the
different culture of that Catholic university, the urban fashions and the disquieting
coexistence of extreme wealth with extreme poverty -- changed her. As these
things go.
Our best and closest years were when we were young. Not young-young,
but young teenagers, starting from when I was about 10 and she 13, up to when I
was 15 and she 18. We had the fantasy world that I have written about previously.
She had her imaginary boyfriend, and I had mine – in fact, she had tremendous
influence on whom I chose to be with in there. Of course, in this alternate
universe we were both exceedingly beautiful and irresistible, as were all the
other girls who populated it (no female bullying, no nasty put-downs). We were not
sisters, but distant cousins – I think I must have been an embarrassment for
her, with my glasses and my awkwardness and my bad Cebuano. And incidentally, we
were war orphans, because in a fantasy world, parents tend to complicate
things.
We developed this world through stories and pictures. When
people interview me about my published work and influences, they always ask, “Who
is your father? What is his occupation?” Rarely, “Who are your parents? Who is
your mother?” and never “Do you have any siblings?” They probably think I
formed my worldview reading the Bible and Dickens at my father’s knee.
My sister never got a chance to get interviewed for her
published work, because she stopped writing fiction in her junior year at college,
at around the time she began to work seriously on her grades. She ultimately
graduated Magna Cum Laude at Silliman University. As far as I know, up to the
time of her death she never wrote fiction again, although when I was a lifestyle
editor around 1997, I pestered her to write a few pieces for my page. She
complied, and the work was (of course) brilliant and funny. My editor asked for
more, but Lani declined; the first baby had come; she had no time. If she drew
at all, it was chubby, pleasant little cartoons of her co-workers, for
birthdays and such.
We fell out, actually, nearly overnight when I was 15, and
really did not reconcile until a few weeks before she died, which is a weird thought,
considering there are studio photographs of our grinning selves, and me and her
daughters playing. But our relationship was fraught. (Come to think of it, the
only boyfriend of mine she’d really approved of was “Paolo”, and he was a jointly
created fantasy in the aftermath of a movie we’d seen. When I fell in love with
another movie boy but wanted to string “Paolo” along, she wrote a short novel
about a man-made plague that killed off the new boy AND the entire world including
herself, leaving “Paolo” and my character along with two or three others,
presumably with the task of repopulating the earth).
So why am I remembering this now, why am I writing this now?
Especially since it is not the hagiography we are expected to write of a loved
one who has died? Because I cannot find her anywhere but within my memories and
a sad boxful of notebooks at the bottom of a closet. She died before Facebook,
before Pinterest. When I Google her name, the only things that come up are the brief
tributes I posted shortly after she left.
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Lani (right) and Bing, 1996
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With our mom, 1979 |
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July 1969 |
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1970 |