Knocking on Death’s Door

Aida Bilog Sambat stares death in the face every day. As a hospice nurse in America, her work brings her to the beds of the terminally ill, those who are but a few steps away from death’s door.

Trained to care for the critically ill, hospice nurses are often seen as death angels—medical professionals who are tasked to end the life of a patient. But to Aida, who has held the hand of many a dying patient, a hospice nurse does more than prolong life or provide comfort to people during their final hours.

“Medical, surgical, and intensive care nurses help patients become well, [while] hospice nurses prepare patients for their journey beyond,” Aida writes in her book, From the Womb to the Tomb: Diary of a Hospice Nurse.

She’s seen some patients die alone and others with not a single cent to pay for their burial expenses. She’s helped relatives of the dying come to terms with death and most often weeps along with them for a patient that she has become fond of.

Had she known that she would be caring for dying patients in America, she probably would not have left her hometown, Katipunan, 14 kilometers away from Dipolog City. The experience turned out to be “an extraordinary privilege.”

“[As a hospice nurse], I had the opportunity to meet and care for many wonderful people during a different time in their lives, most often until the very end. It is hard to imagine the mindset one would have when they are facing their impending death until you see someone experience it firsthand.”

More than just a diary of a Filipino nurse who has made it big in America, From the Womb to the Tomb is Aida’s advocacy for the terminally ill.

“I feel there is a need for more public awareness when it comes to the needs of terminally ill patients. Death is a certainty, yet it is a topic that is less talked about. [For example,] many people incorrectly believe that pain medication like morphine hastens the death of the patient. Contrary to this belief, good pain management will prolong the life of a patient,” she says.

In her book, Aida takes us to the homes of her terminally ill patients, where she does more than give medication or get their vital signs. We’re privy to private conversations about life and dying. We smile when we read her playful banter with one patient, a former high-school principal who constantly quizzed her about history. She tells us of another patient, an Italian immigrant who hopes to hear from a long lost brother. We nod in agreement with another patient, once wealthy, who would realize that in the twilight of his life, all he had was a shoebox of memories.

Aida’s work doesn’t end when a patient is taken away by the funeral home. Once, she and several nurses offered to pool together their money for the cremation of a dead patient whose family could not afford to pay for it. Another time, Aida was tasked to break the news to a son that his mother only had a few days to live.
What Aida’s book tells us is something we all know but never wanted to talk about: that death is happiest for one who dies at home, where happy memories abound and where they are surrounded by loved ones, that the dying will embrace death when they have lived a full life with no regrets.

One of Aida’s patient sums it best: “Do anything you want to do now, because there’s no guarantee of a tomorrow.”

Keeping the Flame

For Fil-Am writer Carina Montoya, writing two historical books about Filipino immigrants in California was an attempt in knowing more about her father who died when she was seven

Her recently launched book, Los Angeles’s Historic Filipinotown, released by Arcadia Publishing, traces the history of one of California’s largest Filipino enclaves. Historic Filipinotown was where many Pinoy immigrants settled and put up businesses during the turn of the twentieth century.

“Getting to know my father through my books has enlightened me about so many things about the Filipino community. It lit a flame within me to preserve this history that I am very much a part of,” says Carina, a full-blooded Pinoy who was born and raised in the Hollywood area.

Carina’s father, Tommy, a native of General Trias, Cavite, served with the US Navy and settled in Los Angeles, where he found work in Hollywood as a waiter at the Don the Beachcomer, a Polynesian resto-bar that catered to the Hollywood film industry crowd.

Like many other Pinoys who pursued the American dream, Carina’s father had a hard time when he first arrived in the US.

“My father did not have any relatives in America. His friends became his family—they lived in groups, sharing food and money when times were bad,” Carina relates. He met and later married Carina’s mother Rose in San Francisco when she was visiting a brother who worked in the Alaskan fish canneries.

Later diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, Tommy became paralyzed from the neck down and had to be put in an iron lung at the Rancho Los Amigos in Downey, California. Rose was forced to find work to support an ill husband and two young children, Carina and her brother Eric.

“My mother took English and business classes, which resulted in her finding a job at Occidental life Insurance Company in downtown LA,” Carina relates. While she was not earning much, Rose managed to bring food to the table, pay rent, send her kids to private schools, and even afford music lessons.

When Carina’s father died, the family moved back to the Philippines, where they often traveled to see relatives in Ilocos Sur.

“There was no electricity, no indoor plumbing, and water was drawn from the well,” Carina recalls of this Philippine visit. “But the country was beautiful, and I will always remember the beautiful clear blue-green water and the fruit trees.” After a year in the Philippines, Rose decided to bring her kids back to the US as they often fell sick.

Discrimination
While researching for Filipinos in Hollywood, an earlier book, Carina realized that discrimination in fact existed, and Pinoy immigrants like her parents were victims of it.

“My brother and I never felt the effects discrimination and interracial marriage. Language barriers and identity confusion were never issues. We viewed ourselves as American and had no socialization problems,” Carina explains.

Now having come to terms with her Pinoy roots, Carina is working on several projects that, she hopes, “will keep Filipino history alive to pass on to future generations.”

Carina is happy to share that her kids are intent on understanding and preserving their Pinoy roots.

“My children’s cookbooks [with renowned artist/muralist Eliseo Art Silva as illustrator] are also an attempt to preserve our culture, identity, and heritage by passing on this information to future generations.  The cookbooks incorporate Filipino history and food, such as where adobo came from and its Spanish influence, and how it is made,” Carina relates.

Another of Carina’s projects is the Los Angeles Filipino Museum, which is housed in an original Victorian house purchased in the thirties by one of the city’s oldest Pinoy families. Located at the heart of Historic Filipinotown, the museum will display photographs dating back to the twenties when Filipino immigrants first settled in LA. The exhibit will also include prints of the first Filipino organizations founded in LA, among them the Filipino Federation of America, Philippine Women’s Club, Santa Maria Ilocos Sur Association, Pangasinan Association, and the Cebu Brotherhood.

With all of Carina’s efforts in preserving the Pinoy culture for the children of the diaspora, Tommy Montoya must be very proud.

Carina Montoya’s books Filipinos in Hollywood and Los Angeles’s Historic Filipinotown can be purchased at all Internet book stores, Barnes & Noble, Filipino American Library and at her Website.

First Person: Layoff Psychology

By Joan Lopez Flores


It wasn’t the perfect job, but when I got a callback from an online promotional products company back in October 2007 hiring me to be their newest copywriter, I thought just that. Not that my copyediting job prior was that bad—in fact it’s still one of the companies that I’m proud to have been associated with to this day. It’s just that, well, I felt underpaid and undermined, thus my eagerness to get into this new company that promised an exciting new work environment and a host of benefits you can’t find elsewhere!

November 1 was my starting date, basically because the company wanted me to begin right away. Now I’ve never been a superstitious person, though I’m occasionally curious of eerie events, but now when I look back I sometimes find myself thinking, maybe I shouldn’t have agreed to start then.

Working there wasn’t quite as I imagined it would be, but it was okay. I was treated decently. I gave them what I was asked of—copy for all new merchandise to be uploaded in the company Website’s online catalogue, pretty much. The team I got assigned to wasn’t necessarily my idea of friends, but then I’ve always been complimented to have the talent of making friends anywhere.

What I looked forward to every day were the coffee breaks and lunch hour, where I would get together with two of my colleagues whom I’ve become friends with during my previous employment (actually we resigned from there at around the same time, too, and got jobs in this new company). To that end, I guess it was almost the perfect job: working with friends.

Recession
Three months into the job and things started getting shaky.  The company was US-owned, and with the economic recession then in the advent of burgeoning into the gaping hole it is today, the execs were all on their toes, panicky. Soon talk of “cutting costs,” “making ends meet,” and eventually “company-wide layoff” became everyone’s daily gossip.

It was funny, because I didn’t feel that much affected. Not that I had zero fears of getting fired–after all, I was one of the newest ones on board, but somehow, for some weird reason, I was indifferent about the whole thing. Sure, I engaged in talk of so-where-do-we-go-next-if-ever among close friends, but not every two seconds like the others.

A week passed, and indeed, the layoff happened. First two, then four, sometimes even almost a dozen people at a time, one department after another. Accounting. Sales. Art. Marketing. Still not feeling the tension.

Then that evening came. I got to work pleased that traffic wasn’t half-bad when it was in fact Friday night, ergo congested EDSA night. I ran into my supervisor on my way up the building, talking in a hushed tone with two of my other colleagues. I thought nothing of it and went straight to the elevators.

Mindless hours later and into my coffee/cigarette break, I went out and there my supervisor was again. This time she asked me, “Joan, they’re asking me to pick three people.”

I honestly thought my heart sank, but it didn’t, although I pretended to be devastated. It was really funny, this feeling of distance from all the panic. She went on about assessing performance, tenure, and all that, but I could really care less, I thought then. Maybe it was an instant defense mechanism? I didn’t know. But I remember just thinking then, if it’s going to happen to me, then let it. I’ll manage. Or maybe, I was really convinced at the back of my head that I was going to stay. I mean, I did a kickass job at copywriting, why would they want to kick me out?

Bad news
Conference call, everyone in the team was in the room. The VP from offshore rambled on and on from the loudspeaker about how she didn’t see this whole thing coming, and so on and so forth. And then finally, the names. Three people. She said my name last.

I swear, I did not expect to be the least bit stirred, but I was actually floored to the hilt! I realized then that the reason I was indifferent all the while was because I really did not expect to get fired, and I really did not want to be, no matter the countless times I’ve said the words “there are so many other jobs out there, anyway.”

And just about then, when everyone was consoling me, even telling me the company made a bad call kicking me out and that I deserved to stay, the reality of being “jobless” started to hit me like one thick hardbound thumping on my head after another. I thought about my baby girl just about to turn one that year, my mom and my two brothers still studying who depended on me, especially since my dad had just died two months from then. My husband had a decent job, but it would not be enough to support all of us.

I kept cool going through the paperwork that very same day. No more coming to work Monday, they said, but I’ll be paid for a whole month on top of my last paycheck.

Bouncing back
It wouldn’t be until two months after that I’d find another job. Not the same benefits, what with all other companies tightening belts as well, but decent enough. The days that followed were grueling, I must admit. It wasn’t easy to find a new job with the description and salary you want and start from scratch again when you’ve just settled in. I found myself busy with other things besides applications, like my mother’s small business that sadly didn’t do well and taking a work-from-home stint that ended up not so well either. I had to brave myself to face every day knowing I did not have the security I used to have, reassure myself that I was worth a company’s trust and investment. And I had to learn to fully, even blindly, trust God to take care of things for me.

I turned out okay, and it’s been over a year. I’ve put the experience behind me, and I look back at it with a smile now and a lot of gratitude. I still have that same job and it paid the bills. Getting laid off and being able to go through it and survive has permanently reshaped my character, I must say. I’ve learned to adapt better, to hold on, to value what I have. It taught me to be prepared for any jab and that sometimes it can be an uppercut from nowhere, and how to cope when it does hit hard on the nose.

And now that recession continues to happen and affect many others–would you believe, my husband got laid off just last week!–I know better than to care less and prepare for the worst. Prayer has never failed me too, I learned, and so I continue to trust Him and let Him be God. Yes, never mind if my next job come another year or so signs me up to start November 1 again.

Cafe Mary Grace: Homemade Goodness

By Francis Acero
 
In 1994, Mary Grace Dimacali, a homemaker and mother of five, had a dream of building her own business selling ensaimada and fruit cake she would bake from her own home kitchen. The problem was, she was a psychologist by training. She didn’t exactly have the tools to make the dream a reality. So she went to the US to learn baking at the Pierce College in Los Angeles. When she came back, she took a master’s degree in business from the Asian Institute of Management.

Upon graduating in 2001, her five-year plan was to take her ensaimada business, which was gaining popularity from her participation in food fairs that pop up at Christmastime, and translate it into a growing, sustainable enterprise.

A little bit under seven years, thirteen kiosks, and two cafés later, I find myself talking to the woman whose name has become synonymous with the best cheese rolls that can be found in Manila in her café at Serendra where she talks about life, food, family, and the community.

Francis Acero: Where did the idea of this—everything—come from?
Mary Grace Dimacali: I love baking! I’ve always had a natural love, a fascination, for what happens when you mix flour, sugar, and yeast. [Baking is] something great to do when you’re raising kids. So while the kids were growing up, I managed to steal some time, develop my recipes, and sell my products within the little village where I live.

I had gone to baking school and came back with tons and tons of recipes for American goodies, but I didn’t feel drawn to developing sourdough bread, croissants, and things like that. I wanted to develop something Filipinos love and that is close to their hearts—the ensaimada.

While my children were growing up, I wondered what business would allow me, while still making full use of my time as a mother, to explore possibilities in entrepreneurship. So I joined bazaars, which I did for the longest time—seven years.

How was that first bazaar like?
Oh, it was scary. It was at the Polo Club, and my son Gabriel, who now manages the kiosks, was with me. I wasn’t selling at all! Ang hirap [It was difficult]! It was a new product and people were wary of it. So my son says, “Mom, cut up your ensaimada and give samples to people!” So I did. I asked a waiter for a plate and a knife and a fork, and the thirty boxes I brought that day went so fast, I came home with nothing. That gave me the courage to do it week after week from September to December.

It’s hard work. It’s tiring. It’s not easy. You’re standing there, talking to people under the rain! I’m not kidding. Once, I set up a tent in Santuario (de San Antonio) and there was no more space inside so I had to set up outside in the garden and it was raining so hard, and there I was with my ensaimadas!

One time, I remember I didn’t sell so well at a bazaar, I had so many boxes left! I went to Magallanes church and I set up outside. I ended up selling all my boxes.

It’s funny. It must be in people to want to do this. What I was doing, you have to love it.

What made you love selling? Was it the people you met? Was it the look on their faces when they tasted your ensaimada? What was it?
I love to sell. It’s natural to me. In college, we had these fairs and we would have contests on who would sell the most halo-halo, the most barbecues. I’d stay there from opening until the late, late hours, just selling. It’s a natural thing.

If selling things comes naturally to you, then I guess this line of work is a lot of fun.
It’s a lot of fun, but at the end of the day, it’s very draining. I guess it was fun meeting people. You know, the kindest people would come by my table and buy a box from me because they wanted to help. Other times, they’d pass by and say, “Grace, next time na lang ha. I still have ensaimadas in my fridge.”

You’ve become quite known for the cheese rolls. How did they come about?
I started out making the ensaimadas with cheddar cheese. Then someone suggested that I make them with queso de bola, which I did. But then, not everybody likes queso de bola because it’s got such a sharp taste. The cheese roll is something designed for children to like quite easily.

The ensaimada and the cheese roll come from the same dough. Only the shape is different. The ensaimada is large and round, while the cheese rolls are small and elongated.

Right now the ensaimadas have cheese only on top but I used to make them with the cheese inside. Then we found out there was no difference in taste between ensaimada with the cheese inside and with the cheese outside, so we kept the cheese outside. It’s more appealing that way. Besides, queso de bola is very expensive. It’s P750 per ball.

I notice that the café has a different design than the kiosks. The kiosks are more “modern” while the café feels like your living room. Is that intentional?
That’s true. You know how you discover who you are through time? This café is who I am. When we put up this café, it wasn’t easy because we had all these influences around. There’s Starbucks, which is more modern, while Figaro’s also quaint. So I decided I’ll be me. With my sister-in-law Marilen and her daughter and my architect, Mike Chan, this is what came out.

Then there are these fantastic letters beneath the glass. They seem to be changing every time.
Yes. People love to write! Isn’t that great? They take pen and paper and they love the feeling of slipping these letters under the table. It started out with celebrities, and then people who come to the place and appreciate us, they just write their kind messages there. That’s how I grew—through the kindness of people. Some of the letters are in Trinoma as well. People leave letters there too.

What happens is that some people slip it in there themselves and sometimes, they just give it to us. Then the servers come in the morning and arrange them in a circle. It’s great feedback. We don’t only collect good feedback, we also receive constructive criticism. That helps us improve a lot.

You have these ink prints of old Manila on the table as well. What’s the story behind them?
If you notice, the café is quite Filipino. We have these ventanillas designed on the wall, too. [Ventanillas are these small windows above the main windows in a Filipino bahay-na-bato design that are opened to induce air to circulate]. We also have these crochet doilies aside from these ink prints of scenes from old Manila. That speaks of a bygone era. Before that we even had a mamang sorbetero [ice cream vendor] and other Filipino knickknacks to bring back memories of an older time.

Cooking is like writing, where food, like writing, changes with one’s influences. What are your cooking influences right now?
I love Italian cooking. I was in Italy recently, for two weeks. I love arugula [rocket], how they make use of it. I had a pizza with arugula on it, and it was so good! I’m open to other cuisine as well, but I decided to develop around the pasta and the sandwiches. I’d also love to explore other Mediterranean cuisine. I had the good fortune to be in Tuscany. Great, great cuisine. We also went to Provence. I wish I could go there again. That’s my dream, to take another course in cooking—Italian cooking.

What makes good food?
Balance. The flavors. You have four basic flavors. Sweet, sour, bitter, and salty. You take these four elements and you balance them so when the pasta lands in your mouth, it isn’t too salty; it isn’t too sweet. The flavors work together and come together. When they get there nicely, that makes good food.

Ingredients, of course. Use only the freshest.

Technique, too. How the flavors come together with the ingredients depends on your technique. Like when you make a pasta sauce, you stew it for a long time so the flavors come together.

Also a sense of health. My husband’s very health-conscious, so we have a lot of pasta that use olive oil. Of course we make ensaimadas and brownies, and people ask us if we can make a sugar-free version. I just tell them to eat moderately [laughter].

Aside from running this business, you’re also village president. How does your day go? How do you manage to squeeze everything in?
Ay, hectic. I meet my sales girls at eight in the morning. I continuously train them. I meet them at home to hone their communication, their speaking, their selling, and their product knowledge. We talk about problems and difficulties.

Then I’m in production, checking quality. Then I go to the café or visit the occasional kiosk. [My work is] really hands-on. I admire investors, actually, because they just hand over the money and forget about it. Me, I have all the problems!

I try to go to mass every day, though. I feel more grounded when I go to mass. I try to make it a daily habit. When I do, everything seems to fall into place. When I don’t, I get angry, irritable. There might be a thousand and one things going around you but when you go to mass, there’s this grace that comes to you that you can meet life’s challenges as they come.

Entrepreneurship is 24/7. I find I’m thinking and working, even into the late hours. I’ve never had a quiet, pleasant Christmas. That’s one thing about this business. I wish I could just enjoy Christmas, do the things that ordinary people do, but for me, I’m tired. That’s the payback of this business that I have come to love.

I heard you’re big on women empowerment right now.
We have this can-do board beneath one of the ventanillas. I’m an entrepreneur and I started from home, so now I put this can-do board for women entrepreneurs, so they can develop this skill and craft from the home.
I want this café to tell women that they can do it. They can become someone even if they stay at home, even if they decide to be homemakers and raise their children. If ever they find themselves on that path, it’s okay.

There are a lot of good things that come from being at home and raising kids. Who would have thought that at 44 I’d be running a business and taking up my master’s?

To the women out there, just be good at what you are: foremost, a mom. Be a good mom and pay attention to your kids. That time won’t pass by again. Now that my children are all grown up, it’s time to do this.