I try hard to remember my mother at home. Squeezing my eyes shut, I think back to birthdays, Christmases, rosaries, weddings. I know she was there. The pictures prove it.

Chicken Noodle Soup

“Your mother was fiesta queen two years in a row,” Auntie Bernadette tells me as she places a bowl of Campbell’s chicken noodle soup in front of me. “She loved to play the ukulele and had a laugh that made you want to host a fiesta for no special reason.” Auntie Bernadette feeds me memories by the spoonful.

Then she serves me a cup of tea she makes from amot. Her medicines come from the jungles and pots of herbs she grows in her backyard.

What must life have been like for Auntie Bernadette to have a beautiful younger sister everyone admired? I never thought about that until today after studying the pictures.

I’m curious if Auntie Bernadette married an old man because he was probably the only one who asked her. Uncle Fernando is older than God, eighty-something years old. When they lit the candles on his last birthday cake, I thought the house would burn down.

“Maybe you can run for fiesta queen,” Auntie Bernadette says. “You’re pretty enough to win two years in a row, too. I could make your pageant dress like I did for Erlinda.”

I don’t want to follow the footsteps of someone I don’t remember. That would be like chasing a ghost that doesn’t want to be caught.

God’s Instrument

Uncle Fernando has children from his first wife who are now grandparents. He married Auntie Bernadette after his wife died, but they never had children of their own. I believe Uncle Fernando married Auntie Bernadette because she was a suruhana. He always complains about his head aching, his heart racing, or his bowels acting up. We don’t want to eat around Uncle Fernando because he tells us how what we’re eating is going to make us sick. “That kelaguen will give you the runs,” or, “If you eat too many betel nuts, you will get drunk in the head.”

“Fernando is from Umatac,” Auntie Minerva says. “They used to marry their sisters in that village.” She states this like it explains everything strange about Uncle Fernando.

Most days Uncle Fernando sits on the couch and watches TV or lies in his bed. From couch to bed, bed to couch. I’m sure he did something else when he was younger, but I don’t know what it was.

Auntie Bernadette makes herself available to everyone. “Healing is my gift,” she says. “It’s my responsibility.”

The only time she refuses to help someone is if they are sick with taotaomo’na disease. “I can’t cure what is meant to be. Besides, they should know better than to disrespect our ancestors.”

Most days, people come to her home with sore throats. She massages them with spoons, feeds them herbs, places her hands on their necks. Then they leave. When they awake the next morning, they are healed, but then Auntie Bernadette usually catches their sore throat. The funny thing is when she’s sick, she takes Tylenol.