BY REX C. CATUBIG
My cousin Jessie and wife Carol
We grew up together. Played together. And studied together. From childhood to college.
They are my Catubig-Bustria cousins who I was closest to since we belong to the same age bracket. The Laurel-Santiago-Bangsal-Catubigs and the Capua- Mundas were the contemporaries of my older siblings and were a group by themselves.
Of my Bustria cousins, Jesus Bustria or Jessie who was four years my senior, was my Big cousin. During my first trip to the US in the ’70s, he and his wife Carol accommodated me in their high-rise apartment in Jersey City. Their 4-year old son, Jeffrey, had to give up his room for a month so I could have the room by myself. The two-bedroom apartment was on floor 15-H, overlooked the Hudson river and its balcony commanded a picturesque view of lower Manhattan. It was especially postcard-perfect during a full moon.
Being just a few blocks away from the Path train station, I would regularly venture out to Manhattan: Landing at the basement of the World Trade Center, I would float and flow along the tidal wave of people ascending the escalators that surged onto the streets of lower Manhattan. Even as I gallivanted, Carol, ever the gracious hostess, who was a Pharmacist at the St. Vincent Hospital in NY, would thoughtfully leave me food heating on the rice cooker.
So I always had food waiting for me upon coming back and never really felt hunger pangs despite my long excursions in Manhattan. An inveterate shopper, Carol introduced me to the Lower Manhattan discount stores, Job Lots and Syms and took me on shopping sprees in the factory outlets of New Jersey.
My cousin Jessie, for his part, a Civil Engineer but inclined to culture and the arts, took me on a whirlwind tour of New York by train and foot, and by the Circle Line harbor cruise. He also introduced me to my first Broadway shows, notably Hair, the controversial trail-blazing theatrical icon of the late’60s.
But most unforgettable was when on one cool summer night, he took me to the open-air Delacorte Theater deep in Central Park for my first ever New York Shakespeare Festival in the Park theater production.
On stage was the Greek classic Agamemnon– spell-bindingly staged and directed by Andrei Serban and featured a dazzling performance of Gloria Foster as Clytemnestra. That experience left an indelible mark on my theater psyche and Foster’s tour de force soliloquy in Greek would be forever etched on my mind.
My cousin Jessie and I hardly see each other now. There were occasional get-togethers but are rarer now since he and his wife are both retired and I, too, have retired here in Dagupan. Still, we retain close ties, by way of social media. Jessie follows my postings on FB, liking here and there, and sends me links to interesting articles in the New York Times. One time, having read my post on FB that I was building my retirement home, he and Carol surprised me with some shopping money for my house!
Nothing could be more heartwarming. Especially when memories are sewn together with the thread of love and become the durable fabric that life is made of.