There used to be a grove of bamboos along the left side of the road leading up to Belisario. Back in high school, our bus no. 6 would ply the route regularly and an old man in a rocking chair by the steps of a rundown nipa house under the shade of the grove, was the site that always greeted us. From early morning up till the end of the day when no. 6 dutifully brought us home, we would see him, still sitting there. Often I’m sure though, in between our daily comings and goings, he must surely have left the comfort of that old chair to do some chores. He wasn’t made of stone or anything.\
However once in a rare while, we would notice a middle – aged lady cleaning the frontage while he watched on the porch, so then I surmised he had someone to keep him company after all, even for a brief time. During the summer vacations, whenever I walked by, I was always tempted each time to engage in small talk. But I was much younger then, a little shyer perhaps at that, so I let things be.
I do not recall anymore when it was, but one fateful morning, the scene we all got used to, was missing the old man. For days, there just was no sight of him whenever our bus came by. Nearly a few weeks had passed, and an elderly farmer we chanced upon by the sari-sari store near our house told us the guy had died and sadly, only to be discovered a few days later.
Up until now, more than fifty years later, that sight of him propped in a rocking chair as old as he was, by a crumbling hut beneath the shadow of a grove of swaying bamboos, was an enduring image etched in memory. That image somehow always springs forth whenever I passed by to visit my siblings at our old residence further up ahead.
Sometimes my mind brings me back to those few instances in the past when I was almost on the verge of crossing that line which led to his yard. Had I done so, I am doubly sure, that lasting scene in my memory might have been filled with an interesting tale of a life, now forever untold. That is nearly comparable to a wonderful mountain vista one had missed taking a picture of and regretting it for always. On second thought, while there’s a saying that the most beautiful photos are the ones never taken, in the context of untold stories, his untold tale is a tragedy without closure, nipping at one’s heels and staying unforgotten.
For a few years, the sight of the snow-dilapidated nipa hut and the bamboo grove appeared to stand the test of time, beating countless rains and floods. Then one day, tractors came and gradually grounded it until high fences hinted at buildings rising on the other side. Now, to the unfamiliar eyes, who would have known what story had lain before?
