Vanj : Friendship Interrupted
Vanj arrived at my parent's house just in time for lunch, the first time I am seeing her since I left for the US in 2002. She looked radiant and almost as bright as the sunlight we were enjoying on that Sunday, also the day of the Feast of the Sto. Nino. She also had her pixie haircut which made her look like a high school kid.
During our college years, my sister and I often brought home our friends home during the weekends. My sister came home usually with Vanj in tow and Leila, and sometimes with Au and Jojo. We had then established a sort of 'extended family' since my mom often doted on our friends. While she listened to their stories about love, life and school in the dining room, she cooked their favorite meals in the kitchen nearby. My mom was the original "cool mom" who we could talk to everything from love to alcohol to hmmmm....yup, sex. She also made the best kare-kare, adobo, pusit and morcon.
While Vanj enjoyed the fresh giant tiger prawns my mom cooked in butter, she updated us with her tsismis about friends. She also had some kare-kare which she swore she would never eat anywhere else (actually, same with me). The chit-chat was easy and familiar, almost as though she was never away and is always a part of our family.
After lunch, we sat in the living room burping and feeling sleepy with our almost sinful indulgence with gluttony - hehehe. And then we talked some more about the bits and pieces of life we had missed from each other in a friendship that was interrupted by my departure for New York. She also made tsismis about their 'girls week out' when Gigi and Leila came home in October. And then before we knew it, it was getting dark and it was time for her to leave. My dad and I said goodbye to her from the gate, noting how well she looked and how she hasn't changed - still the funny chinese girl who brings my dad his favorite hopia snacks from Chinatown. I will definitely see her again when I come back at the end of the year.
She left me with the calendars she had produced for the "I Can Serve" Foundation. One sits on my desk at home and another will find its spot in my office at work tomorrow.