I grew up in the Pacific Northwest until 1980. My Dad died of Cancer in 1978, leaving me and my mom in Portland, Oregon, with a house and a small pension to live on. My Mom, a Filipina-Italian-American, had been living in the US for sixteen years at the time and decided that life without my Dad was too unbearable in a foreign country, so she sold our house and moved us a continent away – back to her homeland, and away from mine.

I was eleven at the time and had no say in the matter, as any child of that age does; my opinion and protests did not matter to her. She was lonely; a grieving widow with a daughter to raise. I acquiesced.

My first visit to my mother’s country of birth came four months after my Dad passed away on February 20. It was my summer break. I had missed out on a lot of school since the night he died. The months following his death were a blur – for both of us. Life was sadder, scarier, simpler, without Daddy. And all of a sudden we were on a plane to go to an island I had only read about in a book called “Let’s Visit the Philippines”. Continue reading →