(August 15, 1910 – May , 1999)

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What I am now as a person, a husband, a father, a grandfather, a professional, a leader and, in fact, all about me I owe it to a large extent to Lola Cion or, simply, Lola.

Lola came into my life when I was a 9-year old kid from Cebu City who was moved to Liliw in 1961 together with my younger brother, Jun (later in life, as Bernie) and with whom I spent my youth and adulthood as my mother and, when Lolo Barang died in 1963, as my father, too. Altogether, I was with her for 38 long and happy years. She was 89 when she died in 1999 and I was 47 years old at that time.

Lola was firstly a loving and charming person. I came to know early on that she was a “Miss Liliw” based on photographs I saw displayed in the house she shared with Lolo Barang (please see my separate story on him).

She was a petite, “mestiza-like” (Spanish-looking/speaking) beauty of fair complexion and long wavy hair, no wonder as I also came to know that when she was still single, she had suitors from well-known families in town. She was elegant in a simple way, and would take hours before going out of the house to make herself look nice and beautiful to people she will meet about town.

Since she was a doctor’s wife, she was mostly a homemaker – taking care of her children (and later me and my brother), fixing up the house, marketing, cooking the dishes, entertaining guests and patients, and did many other house chores. What made her unique as a homemaker though was her “good taste of finer things” – from furniture, appliances, linens and drapes, decors, etc. She also took pride, for example, of having the tallest house (at three floors) in town, the few to first own a coloured TV set, an imported phonograph, fine china and silverware sets, among others.

Material and physical things aside, Lola was foremost a “strategic thinker, a visionary” (to borrow words from business). She knows what she wants and how to get where she needs to be in the future, as I cited above. In the case of Jun and me, she made sure we get college degrees despite her dwindling resources when Lolo died. From homemaker, she abruptly turned entrepreneur by growing pigs for sale and for maximizing the “fruits of the farm” that she had inherited. She knew that if we get good education, which we did, we will survive and thrive into
the future. She was right all along!

 

There are many other good things that I can say about Lola which may fill more papers but these are the ones that stuck to my mind and, to be honest, I was teary-eyed when I was writing this piece. I miss Lola all the time!

 

By:
Octavio “Bobby” Borlaza Peralta
“My one and only Lola Cion”
December 27, 2019