List 43 memories of my Grandpa

11. I never saw my Lolo drive and I can’t be sure whether he even owned a car back in the Philippines. And when I move to Australia, I never saw him drive there either. So not sure if he did.

10. We bought my Lolo a chair for one of his birthdays, can’t recall which one. It was grey and it was HIS chair – he was the only one who sat on it.

It was a sad day when we had to give away the chair (after he passed away). The chair had my Lolo’s smell and it had his imprint. It was his chair and it served him so well. He loved that reclining chair.

9. My Lolo didn’t particularly like it when my older brother and I fought. He would get agitated and really disappointed. Sometimes he would even get really angry.

One time, when we were fighting, he threatened to smack my brother with his belt. I never got threatened. I know that might sound like he’s a mean Grandpa – but he’s not and we never got scared of him because of it. We were just really naughty :)

He did smack us at times though, but not enough to scar us and it’s not something I resented him for.

8. My Lolo had grey hair. Really thin grey hair. But he never went bald. And he took a lot of pride in his hair. He combed it even though in his last few years he was house bound and also chair bound. But he still liked to straighten up his hair.

I loved his grey hair.

7. One time, after my Lolo had finished ironing, he asked me to turn off the iron from the socket. So I did. After I did, I told him that I had “turned it off” but in Tagalog. The word for “turned off” translates to “killed” in English.

He then started goofing around, saying that he was going to call the police because I had KILLED the iron. At that time, I was very young and easily scared :)

But we joked about it!

6. My Lolo loved to iron clothes as much as he loved Western books and movies. In fact, he loved to iron while watching Western shows.

He was ironing our whole family’s clothes up until his late 80s. Even though he was walking with his cane, he would iron our clothes (by his own insistance). He would sit down though.

I can’t iron clothes to save my life. I took far too much advantage of my Lolo!

5. My Lolo LOVED his Westerns. He would read books and watch movies. For his bday or whenever we see Western books on sale at the book stores, we buy him some. He’d read a book in a day. He loved it a lot.

4. My Lolo had big, long ears. My Mum and Lola always kept saying that’s why he lived til he was 92 years old, because he had long ears :D I loved his ears.

3. My Lolo taught me to ride a bicycle. One of my favourite photos of us is when I’m on my bike and he’s posing right beside me.

2. My Lolo chewed tobacco. I didn’t like it very much. I thought it was gross.

But I would still clean his can because he was my Lolo :D