Ma

She was young when she got married. The big, grown-up 19, the age when she believed she knew everything. When she knew what choices to make. When she chose to marry the man who tried winning her over in a timeframe of three months. She had dreams of becoming a nurse, helping others, wanting to make a change in the world. She was good at that—taking care of others before herself. Maybe it was because she had many siblings that she came to understand not everyone could fend for themselves.

She wanted to be bigger—she was bigger—than the small town of San Felipe. But she got married at 19. Stuck serving a man who seemed as warm as the Filipino sun but was as cold as a Melbourne winter. She moved to Australia for him. Knew no one but him and his family. She studied to be a nurse at Victoria University but never finished her course.

She was isolated with only her love to save her.

Then out popped a son, tanned skin like his father’s, with a smile as wide as his mother’s, and she finally had something to live for. She did everything she could to raise him with the love she never felt anywhere else. Dolls were bought, Barbie movies were watched, and she didn’t care. She just wanted to make her son happy.

One birthday, her son wished for a sibling, and who was she to deny her son a playmate? Now creating two children, she didn’t mind that her husband was everything but the feeling of venturing to the beach on extra humid days. She didn’t mind that her wedding ring got stolen in the middle of the night. She didn’t mind that she had to carry all her burdens and homesickness alone inside her. All the love she needed came out of her.

She suffocated us in her chest, right where her heart was. She served the house as well as the aging residents at the nursing home where she worked. It was almost as if all she knew was to take care of others. And when her children showed that they would take care of her back, she cherished every second.

She smelt of the perfumes we bought on her birthday; she applied the fragranced creams and lotion we bought her for Christmas. Before getting ready for her night shift, she would drink out of a mug given to her on Mother’s Day.

Every card and every piece of packaging kept under her bed.

Pa

He was born on the 26th of July—a Leo, which means he was supposed to be warm and loyal, but I don’t really know if I’d use those words to describe him. He’s the oldest of three siblings, all of whom moved to Australia when they were young. They attended the high school right next to their first house. He obtained a degree in science and wanted to work in a lab. But instead, he started working at a corporate company. Exchanging lab coats and safety goggles for dress shirts and prescription glasses. He was so distinctly Australian. It wasn’t just his accent, but his mannerisms too. It felt so White. Assimilated. Perhaps a part of him knew that he would be seen as an immigrant first, a man second and an Australian last.

When he went to his hometown in San Felipe and met my mother for the first time, it was love at first sight. She didn’t think much of him at the time, but he thought everything of her in that moment. However, she was taken. So, when he had to come back to Australia, he worked and saved enough money to stay in the Philippines for three months to win her over.

When he was there, she had just broken up with her first love. He was in the right place at the right time. And he showered her in everything she ever wanted.

And he came back with her.

They got married nine months after meeting.

‘True love’.

When I was born, they agreed to name me Crislin. A combination of their first names. A portmanteau. I was the physical embodiment of their love.

Although he might not have been the most loving to my mum, he was always there for me and my brother.

When I try to think of my dad, I get brought back to the warm afternoons in his study. I would lay on his chest, feeling the ribbed fabric of his wife-beater under my small fingers, him cradling me while watching YouTube videos. He wanted me to be present, even if he wasn’t—not completely. Even when it came to his hobbies, he wanted me there with him. Maybe it was because he had to, or maybe he genuinely wanted to share something he loved with me. He liked to golf, so he got me my own putter—my name engraved in red with a flower next to it—and taught me how to position my thumbs, and how my legs needed to be shoulder width apart. When I wanted to get into karate, he taught me how to tie my belt properly and made me practice my punches and kicks. He was the reason I got first place trophies. He never liked losers.

Then, at the beginning of year seven, my brother told me about the other woman he was talking to. I wasn’t surprised, he always seemed the type, I was just waiting for the when. He didn’t smother my mum in kisses and hugs; his face was never in the nook of her neck. They were cold and distant.

I didn’t talk to him for years after I found out. Daddy’s girl was gone. I heard from my mum that he cried at the realisation that he lost me. And I didn’t care. A part of me still doesn’t.

Him and I still talk now. It’s only small.

I know he stalks me online. He mentioned my Letterboxd once.

He probably reads my Substack. I wonder what he thinks of my writing.

He won’t tell me. And I won’t ask.

Even though I want nothing more than to know.

Anak

We don’t get called by our names. We get addressed the same way: anak. The Filipino word for ‘child’. Although, when you Google Translate it, it comes up with the word ‘son’, which might be a little more fitting since it seems like Mum’s only ever addressing my brother when I hear her say it. Not for any logical reason. Maybe it was her tone.

My brother and I were always together when we were younger. Everywhere he went, I would want to go. Every show or film he watched, I would watch. Every opinion he had, I would have. We even shared a bed. It was a queen, and I took the left side that was pressed against the wall, while my brother took the right side, closest to the door.

We were inseparable.

Maybe that’s why we were both called ‘anak’, not because my mum wanted to address us both at once, but because she saw us as the same person.

He was the person I looked up to. I don’t think I could love him more than I did.

When I started primary school, I hated him. He’s older than me by six years, meaning all the teachers knew me by association. He was well loved, was always asked to sing at whatever event needed a performance break, and with a voice stolen from Mariah Carey, why wouldn’t he get chosen? His voice was my mum’s favourite thing to listen to, she thought it was nothing short of angelic. Not only was he her golden boy, but he was also her angel.

Then there was me. No defining traits. I was degraded to being his little sister, and I despised it. Despised every second knowing that my identity was tied to his—that my entire existence was because of him. I never asked to be born; it was him that felt so lonely that he asked for a sibling. It wasn’t kismet; I was a birthday wish that he had to wait nine months to receive.

The feeling of inadequacy never really went away, even when I started high school. It was the same burden: teachers marking the roll, seeing my last name, calling it out and with one look knowing who I was related to. I tried making a name for myself, to find the one thing that set me apart from him. My straight A’s became a given—born from two intelligent people, I was merely a mirror of their younger selves.

Yet, I was still subconsciously trying to aspire to his greatness. Anything that could give me an ounce of recognition.

Now that I’m older, my brother and I have never been so separated.

With him pursuing his dream of musical theatre, and me trying to hone my writing to feel like I could become a published author, we haven’t had much time to really see each other—even when we lived in the same house.

But when we have time, we go back to our old habit of watching films and TV shows, reverting to when we were children. And if my Mum were to interrupt and call out ‘Anak!’, we would both turn our heads.

Mahal

My parents didn’t teach me Tagalog when I was younger; they thought I would be confused hearing their mother tongue alongside English. So, I picked up whatever my parents would say. Sometimes they spoke in a long string of words that I couldn’t decipher, but I understood the gist. One of the words I learnt was mahal. It was mainly used as a pet name rather than in a sentence said to each other, so it could’ve meant anything, but with the way my mum said it to my dad, it was unmistakable what it meant.

Growing up, I felt more comfortable loving outside of my family. It made my skin crawl to think about hugging my brother, and that feeling extended to my parents—probably because I always knew it would never be completely stable. So, it became a habit to look for it outside of myself.

I remember my first crush. It was in kindergarten—he was Filipino, and had the same name as my dad (Freud can do with that information what he will). I don’t really remember why I liked him, maybe it was the closest thing to loving my family I could get at the age of four (Freud can figure it out for me).

During primary school, I never truly loved anyone—not even the ‘boyfriends’ or crushes I had—except for one girl. I can still imagine her face as if she were standing right in front of me. She has a diamond face shape and the prettiest brown eyes I’d seen in my short lifetime; she has a beauty mark under her left eye and long lashes; she’s fair skinned with wild, tight brown curls. We were just friends. Nothing we did could even be misconstrued as romantic. All we did was call each other on our landlines and played at each other’s houses. There was a time we hid under her bed just so I wouldn’t go home. Whether what I felt was platonic or something more, I knew that it was love—pure, childish love. Then she moved schools and I moved on.

When I entered high school, the stability of my family finally crumbled like aged ruins. So, not only was I outsourcing my love, I was now outsourcing a family. All I wanted was stable footing, and I had memorised the sound of my family’s footsteps enough to know that sometimes my house was just a house, not a home.

The first friend I made in high school was a girl who stayed behind to wait for me while I struggled to figure out how to work a dial combination lock. It was because of her that I became friends with an entire group that became my little found family when I needed it most. Over time, the group naturally began to split, but four of us—including me—created a home together, lasting the entire six years of high school. They got me through some of my toughest periods. One of them used to cook for me after finding out I began starving myself again during year ten. Once they got their licences, they would offer a drive or a place to stay if things weren’t the happiest at home. I’ve known these people since they were 12 and I’ll always call them my family, even if I know I’m estranged from them now. They will always be people I love.

However, one particular friend I made in high school stuck out from the rest. We met at a weekly science excursion that we had to sign up for. I only signed up because my other friends were doing it, but they weren’t selected for it, or they forgot to hand in the form, so I ended up doing the mini workshop alone. But I met him there. We were put in the same group and forced to talk, so we started and couldn’t stop. We would sit together on the bus going home every week since meeting, and eventually started hanging out at school together. He was a year younger (a year seven), so it was a little odd to me that we clicked so well. We became really close, really fast. Rumours of us dating started to be murmured. We would hug each other all the time and hold hands without question. We never dated, even though he confessed to me. I knew what I felt for him was completely platonic.

I was with him through the worst times of his life. Some of it, I don’t remember that well, and others I remember so vividly. I knew he had it rough, just like he knew I hadn't had the easiest time either—but who has? If I longed for a stable home and all-consuming love, then it was right there, all inside this one person. How lucky was I.

I can’t remember exactly when, but we knew that we were soulmates; that in every parallel universe, we would meet and love each other as strongly as we do in this one. At the end of last year, we got matching rings that fit our ring fingers perfectly—a symbol of our undying (platonic) love for each other. We were intrinsically tied.

We stopped being friends at the beginning of this year.

It was probably the biggest heartbreak I’ve had to go through.

But some people aren’t meant to be my mahal.

No matter how many times I say: ‘mahal kita.’