Ate Puput (that’s how I’ve always called her) was the tomboy among the five sisters. How do I know that she was a tomboy? I grew up with her and had lots of fun playing rowdy boy-type games with her. Growing up in a house right across the P. Noval gate of the University of Santo Tomas, the whole campus was our playground. Our favorites were the baseball diamond, where we would run foot races and play tag, and the old grandstand, where we would clamber up and down like monkeys on the GI pipes that held up the roof. When we moved to our house along Zamboanga Street in Quezon City, our playground was no less expansive. The expansion joints on the long driveway became lines for patintero, piko and step. Its smooth surface was convenient for tumbang preso. The large backyard became the site of games of chato,and hide and seek. The trees became forts for groups fighting each other with rubber band slingshots shooting tightly rolled wads of paper. A strong hit would leave a painful v-shaped welt. We liked climbing up the santol tree in the front yard particularly during late summer when the santol tree yielded sweet bunches of the fruit. In the backyard grew numerous aratiles trees; we staked our claims to individual trees. Every afternoon, we’d climb our personal trees and harvest as much as a cup of the nectarine fruit. Alas, a typhoon blew down all the aratiles trees. But there were other trees to climb and summer fruits to enjoy: the sineguelas and guava trees of the Fernandezes, and the star apple trees of the Aragons. Lacking gadgets, we played marbles and tex. A neighborhood toughie named Pedro, a hustler in tex, had a bit of a crush on Ate Puput, and gave her large piles. He taught me a few tricks and gave me a small stash. Soon I built up quite a cache of tex myself. How did I know that Ate Puput was a tomboy? Growing up together we had our share of rivalry, which one night turned into a fight. She was bigger and stronger and knew a little bit of judo. I tried to box her, but she got hold of me and using a deft waist throw, put me flat on the ground. Needless to say, I learned never to challenge her to a fight again. One summer, she suddenly stopped playing rough games. She stopped taking showers from the garden hose. A kid of 10 or 11, I wondered why. But soon I saw her blossoming into a beautiful young woman. In high school, she attracted the attention of a member of a batchmate Jose “Jun”” Galvez. But that is another story. ### The day after I learned that she had lung cancer, I started going to mass and receiving Holy Communion on a daily basis. The only times I missed mass was when work got in the way or when I was ill. I prayed as I had never done before for Ate Puput to be cured, in effect asking for a miracle. The miracle was not granted. But other miracles, unprayed for but as precious, were granted by our God who knew what was best for us. A family that had always been close became even closer; the assumed love among the members, sometimes taken for granted, was demonstrated in many personal ways. A major miracle was our whole family coming together for a few glorious hours in Lake Arrowhead, to share and show our love for Ate Puput and each other. The morning I and my brothers Mayo and Tato told my Mom about Ate Puput’s death, she was waiting for mass to celebrate her Parish Priest’s 7th sacerdotal anniversary. She decided for us to hear the mass. The 1st reading was particularly appropriate: it was from Ecclesiastes which starts with the verse: For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven. Ate Puput lived a good life. There was a right time for her to be born, there was a right time for her to live; there was a right time for her to love; there was a right time for her to die.