Tides and Seashells

Dear Lala and Abbie,

It is such a pleasure to look at photographs of you with your nanay and tatay, your mama and papa faces folded together by love and affection. When I see them, I am carried back to a place I have not visited in years, yet somehow never left.

I was once young like you, growing up in Palompon, Leyte a small island in the Philippines where the beaches were generous and beautiful, and the typhoons just as faithful. Not a single year passed without the island being swept by fierce winds and heavy rain, the kind that rearranged lives overnight and left people counting what remained. Even so, there were afternoons of quiet grace. When the tide was low and the sun leaned toward the sea, I remember walking along the shore, gathering seashells and tucking them into the fold of my dress, as if I were collecting small pieces of happiness to bring home.

Your papu was often away then, traveling to visit churches. Mamu and I stayed behind in the house, learning how to make time stretch gently. My memories of Leyte come only in fragments small, bright pieces rather than a full picture. I was very young. Still, I remember an old lady with a large house. I cannot recall how mamu and papu came to know her. She did not belong to the same church, yet she showed us kindness that required no grand explanation.

Papu was a young district pastor then. Mamu was humble and quiet in her ways, though her hands carried music. Sometimes the nuns at the convent hired her to play the piano for their church choir. Other times, she gave piano lessons to neighborhood children, their small fingers stiff with effort and hope. Our life was modest, and finding a home was never easy. With papu’s work as a minister, securing a place large enough for a family one we could afford, with water and electricity always felt just beyond reach.

The old lady offered us the lower part of her house. To me, it felt enormous and beautiful. There was a wicker sofa, sturdy and welcoming, and every morning I would sit there with my toys while the soft wind moved through the curtains, as if the house itself were breathing. I did not see the old lady often, but her presence lingered everywhere. Her kindness filled the rooms more completely than furniture ever could.

One of my fondest memories of living in Leyte returns to me in a rhythm, the way certain rituals do, steady and reassuring. Every week or so, my friends and I and all the children in the neighborhood were called to line up in front of the barangay health center. We stood there patiently, our names and bodies measured as if they were part of a careful ledger. The health volunteers took our temperature, noted our height, and then placed us on a weighing scale suspended so high it felt less like an instrument and more like a swing. We were hoisted briefly into the air, light with anticipation, watched by the others waiting for their turn.

We were eager, almost giddy, shuffling forward, whispering and laughing. And when it was over, we lined up once more not for measurement, but for reward. Each of us received a ration of cheap granola and skimmed milk. We poured them into rolled pieces of paper and tipped the contents into our mouths, slow and deliberate, as if we were tasting something rare. To us, they were precious treats, worthy of convocation.

Life in that small corner of the island was meager. Families lived in narrow shanties along the shore, houses made of wood and tin, holding very little in the way of possessions or certainty. Food was often scarce. Yet what I remember most clearly is not the hunger, but the sound of children’s laughter drifting across the sand, lingering in the salty air. It was as if happiness, against all logic, had learned how to survive there, glittering quietly at our feet, mixed in with the shells and the tide.

I have always been fascinated by a modest life, the kind that moves quietly and does not ask to be admired. In Leyte, after long afternoons spent playing with my friends along the shore frolicking in the heat, our faces sunburned and slick with sweat I was often invited into their homes for lunch. At the time, I accepted without hesitation, with the easy hunger of a child and the assumption that food, like play, would simply appear.

I did not understand then how precious food was to them. I did not know that every grain of rice had been counted, that each spoonful was meant to stretch far enough to become both the first and last meal of the day for a family. Still, they invited me in. They made room.

I remember sitting inside those small shanties, the walls close, the air heavy with warmth and familiarity, surrounded by friends and their families. There was a joy that filled me, a feeling larger than the space itself being welcomed so eagerly, offered what little there was without hesitation or explanation. Only later did I realized the generosity of that act, how quiet and complete it was.

That kind of sharing leaves a mark. It teaches you that abundance is not always measured by what is kept, but by what is given away. Even now, when I think of a life well lived, I think of those meals simple, fleeting, and offered with a kindness that asked for nothing in return.

Some kindnesses do not announce themselves. They simply stay, long after the people who offered them have faded into memory. Even now, I feel that quiet generosity when I think of that house, that island, my first home.