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My first memory of Lole is of the night she bit me. I realize that is not the typical memory most women have of their mothers-in-law, but you need to understand that Lole was not the typical mother-in-law. The first time I went to meet her, she told me that a traditional village doctor had mentioned that in a former life she’d been a dog. I was brand new to Guam. What did I know of the local culture and belief systems? So, I said, “Okay.”
“You want to know how the doctor knew?” she asked.
“How?” I asked.
“Because there was a dog-shaped lump growing on my back,” she said. “Here, you can feel it.”
Unsure how else to respond, I reached over to put my hand on her back. And that was when she barked and bit my arm. She found this very funny. The whole family found it very funny. Apparently, I was not the first girl friend to receive this kind of unusual welcome, but I was the last.
Neither her bark nor her bite deterred me from wanting to join the Garrido clan, and my husband and I married after only a few months of dating. Part of the rush was that Lole had already survived a serious heart attack and her kidney (she only had one) was shot. “I just want my mom to be able to make it to the wedding,” my fiancé nudged.
That was thirty-one years ago.
Lole finally passed away last Tuesday. It turns out that in a previous life, she was not a dog, but a cat… with well more than nine lives. Over the past three decades, Lole survived too many hospitalizations to count. She faced cancer and diabetes and eye issues and, well, you name it, she probably dealt with it. But the one thing that never changed was her sense of humor.
Thinking back on the thirty-two years that I knew Lole, I cannot come up with even one bad memory of my mother-in-law. Not one. And I realize that being able to say such a thing about one’s mother-in-law is even less typical than having a memory of getting bit by one’s mother-in-law. Ninety nine percent of my memories involve Lole laughing.
The one memory I have of Lole being stern was immediately before our wedding. The fandango following the ceremony was taking place on the front lawn of the family home… and the back lawn… and the side lawn. The family was expecting around 2000 guests (about 75% of whom probably should be counted as family.) Five pigs had been killed. Lole had worked non-stop for days. (Weeks?) And four days before the wedding when I arrived at the house, she simply walked up to me in the middle of all those setting up pala palas, pointed a finger into my chest, and brusquely said, “You. Never leave my son.”
I am happy to say, Lole, that I still do not plan to.
Tomorrow the pala palas will be set up again on the lawn for her funeral, and I very, very much wish that I could join the larger Garrido family in person to remember Lole and celebrate her amazing and long life. If I could be granted one superpower, it would be the ability to close my eyes, click my heels and instantaneously be in another part of the world. I wish travel worked that way. If it did, I would be back in Guam all the time, and most certainly this weekend. But even as I am not able to be there in person, I am very much there in spirit. I want to express my gratitude for Lole’s life and her consistent kindness toward me.
The picture I’ve included atop this newsletter is one of the few I have of Lole and me. It is from my wedding day (which you can probably guess), standing underneath one of the pala palas she’d helped set up. I thought Lole was elderly already when I met her son. I look at this picture now and realize she was so young. Younger than I am now, yet she had already lived through so much. From heaven, may Lole continue to smile upon us. May she generously pass on to you and me the capacity to keep laughing even when life is full of challenge. And until we meet again, may she who was so faithful to the Barque of St. Peter, now keep St. Peter in stitches with her bark.