Fun memories with Lola Bats

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I fondly call my paternal grandmother, Juanita Cuevas, Lola Bats. I don't know where the nickname came from but she liked it so much that the nickname stuck. 


When I was a kid, I'd usually vacation in the family farm in Padre Garcia over the summer (with my siblings) to be able to spend time with her. She'd wake us up early in the morning so that we could go to the vegetable patch and pick what would be our lunch and dinner. Sometimes, we would go to the village well to get water. If we didn't do our assignment, we wouldn't have anything to eat (because we didn't get the vegetables) nor water to take a bath with (because we didn't go to the well).

She was also always ready to go on a trip with my parents and siblings. When I was 13 years old, we just dropped by for a visit before going to Baguio. She wanted to join and had a bag already packed before we got to her house! When she was 85 years old, she insisted on joining us on a hike along the rice fields of Banaue Rice Terraces (we were with Tita Ising's family). We were all okay with that. But we cancelled plans to explore caves and waterfalls in Sagada because she wanted to join too. As she grew older and frailer, our road trips became increasingly shorter (we'd just visit the farm, for instance). I just realised how frail she was in 2009 (I think), when she was 93 years old; we dared to go to the farm (as we often did), just the two of us. By then, she couldn't walk distances on her own anymore: she needed help walking to the toilet, she gasped for air after several metres of walking, and I couldn't park far away from the door of restaurants.


Since then, we'd go on day trips with her house help. Our last trip to the farm was on February 13, 2014. Ninang Trining, Mommy, and Daddy were with us. In her excitement to drink mango shake, she slurped it down in one go; her blood sugar went up, her body temperature went down, and her blood pressure went all over the place. In short, we were reprimanded by Tita Ising (a medical doctor) because Lola was already weak by then.


She always said that I'm very brave because when the rest of my family moved to the US, I was living alone in the Philippines. In contrast, she was a coward (according to her) because she couldn't live alone in a house. She was scared of non-Filipinos; so it's a wonder how she was able to cope when she and Lolo Bats were in Michigan with Ninang Trining and Ninong Romy. Despite her fear of the unknown, she was able to travel around. Aside from Michigan, she fondly talked to us about Washington, D. C. and New Jersey... she, in fact, got tired of riding airplanes so when she got back to the Philippines, she wanted to try riding the train! And when we got lost while en route to UP Diliman on one occasion and to the STAR Tollway on another, she shared a lot of stories about the places we passed by. She never realised that we were lost (because to her, we weren't)!

Lola Bats turned 102 years old this year. A wonder because she suffered from congestive heart failure, diabetes mellitus type 2, hypertension, blindness in one eye, and deafness in one ear. 


Months after her birthday, she rested in peace. In her last few moments, she was still in a cheery mood, entertaining visitors in hospital. I'm sad because I wasn't able to say good-bye but I have faith that she has joined my family's three other guardian angels (Lola Estay, Lolo Roman, and Lolo Bats) and take comfort with that thought.



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