The Road to 40 Day 68/365: Birthdays with family

We celebrated two birthdays today because of three celebrants in the family.

My cousin Jarred and my Uncle Jer were both born on the 16th, while my sister was born on the 17th. Usually, there are two parties that happen on this day.

Before everything went down, Vino and I went to Eastwood to check out his birthday venue just so we know that we’re all good to go. I told him we can eat lunch first before going home, and I bought some meat for salpicao I was going to cook for my uncle later on.

We had an ice cream break before we went to the grocery store and walked around for an errand.

After we had lunch, I messaged Uncle Owe, who was on his way via public transport from Lipa. It turned out we can wait for him so we can go home together.

While my Uncle Jun was famously incarcerated, not a lot of people know that Uncle Owe was with him during that time because the case involved him. He is one of my closest uncles growing up.

The other adults would argue that he is a bad influence – he smoked, he drank, he talked arrogantly. What the other adults never realized is that even before they said we shouldn’t be like him, he already told his story and why we shouldn’t follow his footsteps.

He is one of the first adults in my life who admitted fault and showed vulnerability. He’s never been shy on sharing his mistakes and his could have been’s. If anything, he was a reverse role model – someone who can serve as a cautionary tale if you make the wrong choices in life.

Not to say that he is in a bad place. He’s had his ups and downs, and he knows what led to his “down” years after the fact. So he always told us what happened and what he should have done so that we don’t make the same mistakes.

We drink for fun, we laugh out loud, but we always take away lessons from those long drinking sessions.

I was happy to see him in the outside world after three years.

We went to Tita Oyes’ place to celebrate Jared’s birthday. Every year, he only wants to celebrate with boys, with no females welcome to the party. So we usually start the party there, sing him a happy birthday, and then he’d ask us to leave.

This year, he looked happy to have people around for a longer time. He even sat with us while we were drinking.

Tita Oyes cooked ingredients for tacos, fried Vietnamese spring rolls, and Japchae. At some point during the celebration, I did a crash course on drone flying because they wanted to see what their roof looked like.

I couldn’t pair the drone to my phone, and after I struggled to figure it out, I learned that my aunt already paired hers and she just didn’t know how to fly it. We were ultimately able to get the job done.

Vino expected to see his Ate Chelsea this day, she is the first-born daughter of my closest cousin. He has been counting down to the days when they would be able to play. Unfortunately, I learned from my cousin that she decided not to come.

When I told Vino the news, he was sad and disappointed. I brought him over to my aunt’s place so that my cousin can call his daughter. When they went on the call, Vino cried loudly. I’m not one for gentle parenting, but I understood that he needed to let his feelings out.

I asked him to walk with me and he proceeded to cry almost all the way back to my parents’ house. I told him that I understood that he’s sad for the first half of the journey, but he was just making noise at that point. We talked about things we can and cannot control as I tried to calm him down.

By the time we got to the house, he was back.

My sister had food prepared for the visitors, and we got some of the food from Jared’s party, so it’s an even bigger party once we got to the house, especially because Tita Oyes and Auntie Nene also came by. 

We usually do this in the garage, but everyone got comfortable on the dining table, so we stayed on and talked there. Vino played Roblox with his cousin Marcus while the adults had their fun on the table.

It was a weekday night, so it was an early night for the others, but Uncle Owe, Ino, Tats, and I stayed on. Vino kept getting snacks while he was with Grammy, but when he was sleepy, he went down and asked me to come up with him.

I stayed beside him until he was sleeping soundly and went back down to the guys.

They were discussing religion at this point, which could lead to intense arguments when sitting with strangers, but kind of amusing when it’s family.

We ended up talking until about 3am. On a normal drinking session, this is the time we eat our midnight snack – usually Mister Kebab, but there can be other options. However, I didn’t want to leave Vino even if he’s asleep, and Ino had Thomas with him, so the night ended there.

It was good to get a familiar feeling in a family gathering, with both Uncle Owe and Uncle Jun able to join us like before. We weren’t able to play tongits like back in the days, but at least we’re all under the same roof laughing together and making fun of each other.

For lack of a better description, “character-building” is the best way I could describe these Lozada gatherings. No one was safe – no weakness, personal struggles, or life choices were off limits for the sake of laughs.

At least for a night, a lot of us got that feeling again.

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