JOLO, Sulu (MindaNews / 18 April) – Nora Aunor’s passing marks the end of my sister Rose and my generation’s fangirling and stalking the brightest Star of all. Her album covers were the FaceBook of our time, her shy insecure poses and impish smiles must have stuck hard in our heart’s eye that naturally unknowingly haunt us now in our ripened years, and become us in unguarded moments.
During our grade school programs in Jolo (capital town of Sulu), far away and unheard of in nebulous Manila where she recorded her albums, we sang and danced her Hawaiian numbers. But one of our favorite songs that we memorized well was “Waiting For You,” that we proudly belted out in front of classmates when assigned by the kindly teacher for a Monday intermission. We sang this song at the radio station DXSM weekend talent shows where we tasted our first bottle of Coca Cola in the 1970s, prodded by the “It’s the real thing!” our Nora Aunor had beamed from the posters. I was sought out by my Grade 3 classmates at Asturias Elementary School for Nora Aunor’s autograph, since her signature I had spent nights perfecting, copied from that glossy Coke print ad.
Nightly, at home, we would take out from their hiding our candy boxes housing the cut-out cloth dolls just the size of our fingers. Recycled from the “trash” Inah had banned in her house, that when caught our hands hot with, got us the scolding and given a lashing or two, but how we had lovingly brought out and dressed-up our Nora and Tirso and their child Maria Leonora Teresa in their family terno!
My sister Rose’s dolls were Nora and Manny de Leon. Selfish me at first had wailed and protested that there should only be one Nora, and pleaded to my elder sister Vangie to reprimand Rose to change her doll’s name to Vilma. But Rose would only have Nora. On one other night, Rose had pulled out her Serg’s Chocolate box away from our row of boxes and sulked in a far corner. That night, she had named her doll as Geraldine, but had a hard time finding its mate’s name. Eddie Peregrina? Edgar Mortiz? Cocoy Laurel? But she decided she only wanted Nora. So we helped her relocate her box back to our homestead and from then on she was free to name it Nora without any objections, provided its male partner was Manny De Leon or Cocoy Laurel. She settled for the one who could sing, so Manny De Leon was it.
Straining to the transistor radio, our brother Sonny deftly twisted the faded dial groping to spot the frequency of the only radio station in town. All our ears were cocked to the hissing soundbox, alert for life’s sign. My elder sister Vangie very gently moved her fingers smoothing the creases out of strips of ‘piys-piys’ (retazos) while sending signals to hush out our already stifled giggles. We held our breath, until only the gentle swish-swish of Inah’s sharp tailor’s scissors was audible. Vangie had just smuggled out the forbidden thing that afternoon from the Inah’s high aparador. As Nene (sister Vangie’s pet name) started cutting out zigzags as ruffles down the hem, and snipped tiny holes to suggest buttons out of the crinkled crepe de Chine cloth now formed the ‘badju- badju’ ( dresses), and just as then, the friendly radio announcer’s voice crackled and our doll-play was now On Air. The transistor radio, our only nocturnal entertainment, after the longest minutes finally played a familiar Nora Aunor. We positioned our little muffets in the dollhouse for a dancing pose, in what was supposedly an intimate dance number called “sweet” and “close.”
“Leave Maria sitting, she’s just a child,” Nene stiffly directed me.
We listened to “Yesterday When I was Young” stressing out as the children we were wondering what would it be when we grew old. And “Waiting for you,” from memory, I could still scan the lines that went:
“In your life have you known any lonely day
Like the one that I’ve had since you went away?”
Where, rehearsing it now, the day and world spent waiting seemed to be as gloomy as the day we have lost our Superstar:
“There are stars, but all their sparkles gone
There’s a moon, but not the silvery one
Nights are cold and days without the sun
Bubbles of tides are gone…waiting for you.”
Nora Aunor’s is the song of our heart, it will go on through our lives.
Rest in Peace, the Golden girl with the golden voice.
(MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews. Mucha-shim L. Quiling is Sama from Sulu. She chooses the word ALAL BIMBANG to contain her memories and longing of Sulu of the past and at the same time conjure up its potent powers to configure the present. ALAL BIMBANG is Sinama word describing a state of being liminal. It is a state of sailing and of sailors caught in between the crossings of two seas of being and becoming.
ALAL BIMBANG is a feeling switching between joy and sadness. As when you depart from a place, you feel sadness for leaving behind something or being unable to take it with you. Then when the island of destination is on sight, you feel the joy of arriving. But when you look back, the feeling switches to and from the nostalgia of leaving and the euphoria of arriving)