The story of our family's little brave-heart

A mother whose depression and anxiety was manifested through her screeching wails that can be heard through the thin walls separating our houses, a father whose gambling addiction was taking a toll on his family's poverty, and a sister who grew up to endless screams and ended up mentally retarded--this is the kind of family Harry was born into. To make things worse for him, Harry can be considered an 'accident.'

It was around 2 am on the sixth of November (if I remember it correctly) when we heard Nanay shouting her lungs out in front of our door, "Myrna, manganganak na si Cecil!" My mother, who is a midwife, got up right away, took some utensils from Tita Cecil (who was a government nurse), and helped her younger sister deliver birth. For nine months, Tita thought she was nurturing a single child inside her womb. My mother also believed her ordeal was over after successfully taking out a bloody baby boy (later named Harold) and handing him over to Nanay. She was puzzled when she noticed another human being encapsulated in the womb: after a few minutes of tugging and carefully holding the infant's head--there he was, the unexpected twin baby brother: Harry.

The twins were extremely good-looking but badly taken care of. I would hear Tita Cecil crying and wailing against the two babies' cries of hunger, "Bakit ba kasi ganito ang buhay ko? Hirap na hirap na 'ko!" She would yell to her heart's content until everybody in our cramped neighborhood was awake and Nanay would have to comfort her and the three kids. Hilary, the oldest of them who was three years old, not understanding any better, would sometimes chime in. When there's calm, I would visit the babies, play with them, and put them to sleep. Sometimes, the calm was because the babies were left to their own cribs and Tita has gone off somewhere. 

When times got so hard, Tita Cecil would try to commit suicide by blocking the jeepneys going through our street. She also attempted to jump off the Tullahan bridge. You'd think she was bluffing until the day after her daughter's fourth birthday, when she hanged herself to death on their upper floor. I can vividly recall that moment when Nanay, looking a lot weary and older, told me to come over and look at Tita's lifeless body on the floor. Nanay said her body was still warm when she saw her and she shouted as loud as she could to notify everyone. It was too late.

Their house was later evacuated: Tito Allan, the father of the three and widower of my departed Tita, Harold, and Hilary would live in Caloocan leaving Harry to my grandparents. In turn, the house's leasing charges would be given to Tito Allan. Harry grew up with us in the tiny compound, nourished by Nanay and Tatay, but his siblings were less lucky. Hilary and Harold lived in a tiny cardboard shelter which roof would fly along with the wind during a storm. Harold was way darker than Harry, his teeth untended, and he would speak colloquial and swear words. Harold, being calmer and kinder, was my favorite of the twin when they were babies. Due to their living conditions, as kids Harry became more well-mannered.

Harold would sustain his and his sister's food by scrapping, as noticeable by his distress when we would throw away plastic, "Akin nal lang. a! Pwedeng pang-kalakal 'to!" Tito Allan was a failure of a father who would spend his nights gambling. Some days, he would come to the compound and would take Harry with him and leave Harold with Nanay. One such unfortunate day was when Harold took Harry's yellow bike and drove off to the street, only to meet a fatal accident with a jeepney at the corner of the road. Harry lost his twin brother to excessive blood loss due to his lung's injury. However, the one to take the hardest blow was his eldest sister. During his funeral, Hilary would mutter, "Wala na. Wala na si Harold, wala na akong kasama. Ikaw na lang Mama ko, Tita, Wala na 'kong mama e." It was heartbreaking.

Almost a year later, Harry would lose his second father figure as well. Our dearest Tatay passed away last August to a heart attack.

I don't know how much an eight-year-old boy could endure. Similar to his sister, Harry is suffering from a mental illness perhaps brought up by Tita Cecil's upbringing with endless screams and forced alcohol consumption (both by Tita and Nanay) when he was an infant. It's hard for him to focus at school and learning to read is quite catastrophic. He has such an unfortunate family background (although I have dysfunctional relatives as a whole) and he has experienced so much loss in the few years of his life. I cannot speak for his pain nor can I gauge how far he understood. All I know is that the kid definitely needs some loving. Right now, he walks from school back home alone and would help Nanay in selling ice candy and gelatin on the street afterwards. What a little brave-heart.

Our little William Wallace