A Home For This Love (In the Stars)
Highway 2 Stars – Henry Zhang
A Home for This Love (In the Stars)
Olivia Rivera
May 6, 2020 at 6:15 am. Every now and then, I look back to this exact moment, forever frozen in my Notes app on my phone. One month and two days after the hardest day of my life, the suffocating spring was finally beginning to loosen its grip as the promise of summer whispered its presence through the morning chatter of the frogs and the birds. I had been sleeping, when I felt a squeeze on my hand. As I drifted in and out of slumber, I could feel the ridges of a familiar hand in mine: the calloused and strong, yet gentle grasp of my grandfather, my Lolo, pressed against my palm. I was suddenly pulled back into a state of consciousness that wasn’t quite dreaming—but it couldn’t have been real—and I found myself facing the graying leather couch in my grandparents’ kitchen in Langhorne, Pennsylvania. I stared, amazed at what I saw: my Lolo in front of me, with stars painted on his face. They weren’t like the stars you drew as a child; they were the stars that you see in the sky, the stars of the heavens. Then his mouth began moving, still holding my hand. I heard his voice around me, and he told me so many secrets, so many truths, so many words of love that I couldn’t understand it all. I felt a lump in my throat, and even though being with my Lolo felt so real, I knew something wasn’t right. We laughed, I cried without knowing why, and then he vanished. I returned to my bed in Raleigh, North Carolina, and the stars returned to the sky.
Each summer, as my family and I approached the navy-blue painted house, adorned with stone near its base, I always caught a glimpse of three blooming rose bushes, exploding with bright pinks and deep reds. Each bush had a name, and I whispered them to myself, making sure that I had not forgotten them over the past year. Henilee, Xavioli, Kaivon. The names represent each set of siblings between my cousins and my brother and I, and they were named by my Lolo. He never failed to tend to his garden—to tend to us—and his brown skin always wrinkled as he smiled, imprinted by the sun. His laughter echoed throughout the property, danced across the vast, meadowed backyard, skipped across the pool’s crisp, crystal surface, whipped around the circular driveway, and tickled each child as we chased fireworks and fireflies.
My Lolo’s only two rules were: stay away from the poison ivy, and never go in the pool area without someone watching. While I respected and feared the latter, there was no way for me to avoid the climbing, green trap. Staying away from the poison ivy meant steering clear from the bamboo forest, and I was not willing to give up my adventures to the tropical paradise, hidden away in the-middle-of-nowhere-Pennsylvania. Underneath a canopy of oak trees, bamboo shot out of the ground, constructing the best hide-and-seek-spot and the best place to escape everything, just for a moment. I would sit on a small stump in a clearing in the bamboo, turn my face towards the light as it poked its way through the leaves, and let my imagination run wild. I wasn’t always at ease, though, knowing that my Lolo or another adult could come into the oasis and scare the sunlight away as they scolded me about my close proximity to the leafy venom. But I was safe for the most part—when I wasn’t cradled in the bamboo, I watched as my grandfather cut down a fresh trunk from the forest, his stubby frame the polar opposite of the narrow bamboo. He would then gather all of his grandchildren, all seven of us, and teach us the traditional Filipino dance, Tinikling, in preparation for the annual family reunion.
The couches were never empty in my grandparents’ house, always occupied by a family member or friend resting from a long day of entertainment and storytelling. Their house was the house. Everyone knew Vic and Mila, and as the cars lined up on the lawn in the early afternoon of late July, I would be reminded of the abundance of love all around me. Suddenly the burning, sticky air felt like an embrace from my ancestors, transporting me to another country, another time. Once the younger cousins arrived, we bounded straight for the pool, living out fantasies of water wars, ocean exploration, and island relaxation as our parents watched us splash around. The water emitted a refreshing chill as I dipped my toe in, preparing for the plunge. If someone was too scared to jump in and wasn’t pushed against their will, they took a detour to the rusted, metal ladder where fear went to die and excitement grew. The slide teetered if anyone so much as breathed near it, but if you were able to keep your balance, avoid the many wasps nests and tinnitus, and garner everyone’s attention before performing your calculated descent, then others followed suit, longing for the thrill of the old, pale blue slide.
Once my shriveled fingertips resembled crinkled paper, I hopped between the wide, flat stones of the patio, following the warm, garlicky stream coming from the kitchen. I stopped for a moment to admire the gentle, firm body of the great jade plant, passed down for generations, and it felt like my eyes were glued to the green beauty while the rest of my body continued forward rapidly, hungrily. After what felt like hours spent saying hello to all the relatives on my path to the food, I bolted to the dining room, where the catered Filipino food was resting in aluminum dishes, kept hot and fresh by the blue flame of the burners lit beneath them. I filled my plate until it overflowed with meat on a stick, lumpia, rice, pancit, ginataang, turon, and corn on the cob from New Jersey—that all the children had the job of shucking upon its arrival. Constant chatter, the clatter of pots and pans, and scattered melodies rang throughout the house and through the open doors as the reunion progressed in full swing; my heart became fuller, its weight grounding me on the cold kitchen tile.
Eventually, the festivities of the reunion died down as the lawn returned to a sea of empty grass and the couches vacated, leaving a lingering silence in the house. Although we were nearing the end of the trip, my brother and I still woke up earlier than our jetlagged cousins, so we would sneak down the creaky steps to enjoy the stillness of it all. While he played around with the mahjong tiles, the soft taps of the pearly tiles tickling my ears from across the living room, I pushed each key of the piano so gently that no sound could be heard; yet, I could still feel the lull of the percussion inside the instrument meeting the weight of my fingers. It always felt like an eternity, waiting for everyone to wake up so I could play each note as loud as I wanted, but as soon as he came down the stairs, my Lolo would join my playing and sing with his booming bass voice as it rang clear and strong. As I began to wake up more, another sound would be introduced into the atmosphere: the subdued blow of a knife hitting a cutting board would stop my playing, and I knew what was in store for me as I tiptoed across the hardwood floor and kitchen tile to my grandmother. I would say good morning as I hugged her, knife still in hand and juice dripping from her fingers, and she would smile, knowing that my primary motivation for my affection towards her was to steal the fruit. Freshly cut mangoes, plums, and nectarines would glisten in the pool of rays beaming through the mesh of the window screen, tempting me to eat it all. A mirror bound between time and space, I would devour the core of the mango like my Lola did when she was a child in the Philippines, and a sticky, sweet residue would coat my fingertips.
The searing, popping oil from the lumpia pan splattered my suntanned arms, leaving specks of white like the fur of a baby deer. I was always the first to pester my Lola to let me “taste test” her food, and her carefully crafted pieces of treasure, in the form of a crunchy spring roll, would quickly accumulate in my stomach. Round like the bellies of the figurines my grandparents collected from their travels to Asia, I found solace during my food coma on the living room couch, sharing the cushioned arc with my other weary cousins. As I laid against the faded pillows, staring around the room, I saw the entire world, reflected through mementos from my grandparents’ trips: chess boards from different countries, glass jars filled with seashells, mini statues and pottery, and scrapbooks filled with memories. The items rattled as the ceiling shook from the impact of little feet sprinting up the stairs to reach the attic. With this, I knew it was time to return to reality—rather, to discover a new one in the attic as our stories came alive—and join my cousins.
May 6, 2020 at 6:15 am. I stared at my ceiling, the fuzzy outline of the stars burned in my vision, splattered on the white paint. I wondered about the flowers: just one month and two days ago, they were in full bloom. Who would take care of them now? Who would take care of us now? When someone’s gone, how do you remember their voice? How do you keep the stories written in the lines of their palms and along the ridges of their face alive? How can you be sure that it was ever real?
My Lola moved to California, my dad moved the jade plant, dividing the branches into seedlings to give to each family member, and we were all supposed to move on: I believed that I had lost my one, true home forever. The Langhorne home held my grandparents as they built their life in America, saw every angle of the sun, and wove our songs of love between the walls. Now, the backyard has shrunk as two houses were built in my endless valley, the oak trees are a mere patch on the ground of remembered grandeur, and the bamboo forest has disappeared, transported back to a biome where its presence is logical. Another multi-generational, Asian family breathes the air that was once ours, and while I once scoured at the idea of anyone other than my family being rocked to sleep by the creaking structure, I know that this is what my Lolo wanted. I believed that I had lost my one, true home forever, that is, until I found myself facing its front door with my cousins and my Lola this past summer. I covered every inch of the house, starving for the feeling that I had so long ago. Years of memories played in front of my eyes, moving so fast and all at once, and I leaned against the familiar walls for support. How lucky am I, to know this kind of love? With the house or without the house—it’s everywhere. The walls that saw our beginnings, ends, hurt, and joy still echo the breath of our souls, but they weren’t built to hold on to the pieces left of us, forever. Each moment was on its way to the stars. And when I look up, I see it all. I see my Lolo. And I am home.