Category Archives: Family

Upon returning from a weekend of adventures in Virginia, the very last thing I wanted to do was host and entertain a couple of teenagers, I don’t care if they are related to me by blood, but when Andy sent out the invite and the twins accepted, I couldn’t refuse and risk not retaining my hard-earned most-fun-guncle title. So it was that the day after getting home a little before midnight, after an eleven-hour journey with the bestie, I found myself cleaning up the guest rooms for Noah and Emi, who by our calculations hadn’t been over together for a sleepover since early summer, when the Island called to us…

That feels far away and quaint now.

The twins have been through a lot of late, but that’s not my story to tell – not yet at least – and I wanted to mark the new moon by sharing a burning ritual with them. We wrote down the various things we wanted to let go – all those nagging thoughts and bothersome habits we trick ourselves into thinking we need. Noah’s list was short – Emi and I had a few more to evict from our minds.

As we headed outside to burn them, a snow squall moved in, along with the accompanying wind. It made the burning ceremony a bit more difficult, especially for Emi’s list, which initially refused to take flame – a signal from the universe perhaps of how much difficulty she was having in letting certain things go.

Eventually, it began to burn – fire fighting against snow, rendering its small patch of space into water, burning a hole in the atmosphere and parting the weather like some religious prophecy. I watched the light dance on the faces of my niece and nephew, as snowflakes perched in their hair and on their shoulders. We agreed there was a new lightness that came with the ritual, then headed back into the attic to warm up before it was time for them to depart.

As we have entered the holiday season, I’ll put up the small, spindly tree I have for the attic, unadorned save for a strand of simple white lights, and start making that space a little cozier should the twins want to visit again, and indulge their crazy Uncle in his crazy rituals.

Last weekend we had Noah over for a jam-packed Saturday sleepover following his soccer game. (He’s still fundraising for his team, and only about halfway to his goal, so if you’re so inclined please check out the donation page here.) We had Suzie’s family over for a pizza dinner, and when that was done Noah and I headed out for a late showing of ‘Superman’ (and a 10:25 PM start time for a movie is just too late for my old ass, but I did it).

The next morning we woke early to avoid the rush of brunch at Cafe Madison, then hit the road for a spur-of-the-moment trip to Manchester, Vermont to get the Maple Creme that Suzie I discovered at The Maple Reserve. It was Noah’s first time trying one of these amazing treats, and he confirmed it was worth the drive.

Whenever I hang out with the twins, I learn something. Sometimes it’s a new way of looking at life, sometimes it’s a new app or setting to take a picture on my phone, and sometimes it’s a little deeper – like some treatise on time itself – how it moves, how it repeats, how it evolves and keeps us going.

Noah is almost a young man, and I feel how quickly time is rushing us along.

I still remember when he was just a little kid…

… and a bit of when I was a little kid too. The world spins.

Uncle Al: Gurl, help me write a blog post for tomorrow. We will call it ‘Noah’s Wisdom’. Go.

Noah: What do you mean?

Uncle Al: Give my readers some of the wisdom you have accrued from fifteen years of life on this planet.

Noah: Like, wisdom? What do you mean?

Uncle Al: Words of advice.

Noah: You want me to give advice to your readers that are much older than me?

Uncle Al: Exactly. Hit it.

Noah: Stay consistent in what you do, you know? I don’t really know what it’s like to be an adult. Find something you like doing and stick with it. Umm, be humble.

Uncle Al: This is very general, very vague. What specifically have you learned in your own life?

Noah: You know what I think? Don’t be jealous of other people cause I feel like people my age are jealous. I look up to myself, I don’t look up to other people.

Uncle Al: That is very wise. Anything else to add before I close out this post?

Noah: Umm… what do you mean?

Uncle Al: I mean, what would you like to say to someone who’s been reading my blog for years?

Noah: Thank you for all the support. Glad they enjoy the writing. Have a good day.

Uncle Al: Perfect.

“Your Uncle needs a hug today,” I said as I surprised the twins at their summer jobs with their favorite Starbucks drinks. It was the second anniversary of Dad’s death, and after I visited the cemetery and Mom, I needed a little bit of joy, and a glimpse of the family future. After confirming their work locations (they had summer jobs at two parks in Amsterdam, where they had to entertain the younger kids who visited) I stopped by to see Emi first, followed by Noah, and spent a few minutes talking and enjoying what was actually quite a beautiful summer moment in a summer that didn’t quite have enough of them.

When I stop to think about it, I don’t envy being a kid today. Especially over the past decade, when a pandemic shut down schools and technology threatens to overwhelm, I realize how lucky I am to have grown up in a world without social media and cel phones. These kids don’t have such quaint luxuries, and they’ve already had to contend with more than any child should, so this is my little tribute to the twins for managing to turn into decent teenagers in spite of the madness that sometimes swirls around them. Too often we focus on the bad things that kids do, and the way the future sometimes looks bleak – may this serve as a reminder that there is still hope here, and I see it whenever I see my niece and nephews.

Emi and Noah, you’re doing all right, and better than I could imagine doing if I were in your shoes, so keep leading the noble lives you are leading and you will always make us proud. Whenever you need a little extra love or support, your Uncle Andy and I are here. (Now get ready to celebrate your Uncle Al’s 50th birthday at dinner tonight because he’s old and needs your flattery.)

And never forget how much you are loved.

Dear Jaxon ~

Hello little guy! How have we already made it to your third birthday?! It seems like only yesterday we were welcoming you into this world on that hot summer week in July 2022… and here you are walking and running and playing with no end in sight to your shenanigans. You have charmed us all – and you already share a love of cars with your Uncle Andy, whom you gravitate to every time we visit.

You’re just beginning your journey here, and everything must feel new and exciting to you – it’s a joy and wonder to see the world through your eyes, and you’ve given your Lola a renewed sense of purpose and joy that she must have needed. Pretty soon you’ll be old enough to start some of the adventures that your brother and sister have been a part of over the years, and we’ll start bringing you around for summer pool days and fall treasure hunts and cozy holiday gatherings. Until then, enjoy your third birthday – we’ll see you on Saturday to celebrate!

Love, Uncle Al

The Arrival

The First Birthday

The Second Birthday

This Mother’s Day post goes out to all the Moms out there who are keeping things together – it’s the most difficult job in the world, and it deserves more than one day of thanks and honor. If all goes according to plan, my Mom and I will be returning from our traditional Mother’s Day weekend in New York City as this goes live – it’s the least bit of recompense I can give for all that she’s given to us over the years. 

As the reigning matriarch in our family, she has watched as we have grown and evolved, bringing us back together and reminding us how important family will aways be. Thanks for everything, Mom – enjoy this day!

Over the past few weeks, I’ve had my first solo dinners with each of the twins – Noah and Emi – just as they enter their 15th year. It’s strange to sit across from a young adult whom you remember as a tiny baby – strange in the realization of the passage of time, strange in seeing how quickly children grow up, strange in how suddenly older I feel. It’s a happy sort of strangeness, knowing this is the way life should progress. 

I hope I’ve taught them a few things over these past fifteen years, and I’ve lost count of how many things they have taught me. As we prepare for another summer (with a theme once again chosen by Emi) there is excitement in the air, and the start of a possible new dining tradition.

Nipping at their heels is baby Jaxon, who’s quickly gaining on them as he approaches his third birthday this summer… Life is rushing by, and even capturing the moments in pictures like this doesn’t seem to slow it down. 

Happiest birthday wishes to my niece and nephew, who continue to astound and impress me with the young people they are becoming. Emi and Noah (along with little Jaxon) are the future of the family, and it feels like we may be in good hands. Today they turn fifteen years old, and while they will always be that pair of tightly-swaddled bundles of quiet joy we met a decade and a half ago, it’s a pleasure to watch them grow into young adults ready to take on the world. The world needs such goodness. Happy birthday, COT!

#14 ~ In which the twins enter one of my favorite ages (and this list was born).

#13 ~ In which a letter to Noah and a letter to Emi marked their entry into the teenage world.

#12 ~ In which a dozen years have flown by like eggs in a carton.

#11 ~ In which a full year of COVID wreaks its sustained havoc but there was still time to celebrate.

#10 ~ In which a decade of the Ilagan twins finds us looking back again.

#9, 8, 7 ~ In which a few years get away from me posting wise (and the best parts of life take place offline).

#6 ~ In which a birthday celebration takes place in a children’s museum.

#5 ~ In which the twins and their friends rounded the half-decade mark.

#4 ~ In which a birthday double-header brings happiness to the family.

#3 ~ In which a ride in the Radio Flyer signifies a Happy Birthday.

#2 and #1 ~ In which the birthday blog posts were part of all those lost in a revamp. We lived then, offline, and in all the glory that being off the grid entails.

The past few weeks I haven’t been sleeping well. 

It’s mostly my fault, turning to the phone when I get the slightest bit restless, which is the worst thing a person can do when trying to get to sleep. 

And then there is the pesky new habit of waking way too early (like 4 in the morning) and not being able to get back to sleep, which is the scariest indicator of age I’ve had in a while. 

The other night it was merely a bad dream. Well, maybe not bad, just slightly disturbing. 

I was in my childhood bedroom waiting for a boy to look in my window and find me. Enticing him with a lamp, I flash the light to tell him to climb up the wall and come inside. My Dad is somehow onto me and waits for the boy to arrive. I flash the light and the boy is there – just as my Dad bursts in and goes for him. I scream at him, ‘Don’t, it’s just a teddy bear!’ and suddenly the boy has actually turned into a huge teddy bear, the kind that my brother used to beat up at Suzie’s house. The dream ends, and I wake a little after three in the morning. It leaves me flummoxed and searching for meaning. Dad’s visits aren’t usually filled with such conflict, and suddenly my perspective changes as I lay in bed and dwell upon things while trying to get to sleep again.

With eyes that are the same age as my Dad’s when I was about two, I see now that he was merely being a good Dad – a tad overprotective and overbearing, with a delivery that may have been a bit too rough and jarring, but at its core was love, and wanting his child to be ok. 

It reminded me of the day in real life when he yelled at my friend Jeff for dunking the basketball in my brother’s new hoop. It was markedly lower than the standard basketball hoop, and such a circumstance attracted the boys of the neighborhood, who were drawn in by my brother’s notice. They took turns dribbling the ball down the driveway then jumping into the air and dunking it like [insert famous basketball star of the 80’s here since I was gay and unaware]. Jeff had come down from his home on Van Dyke and was mid-dunk when my Dad, to my embarrassment, shame and chagrin (because I knew I would be mocked for it) charged out and began yelling at them not to do that. It was noisy and in his mind dangerous for them to use the hoop that way, and though the delivery was loud and unnecessary, it was another form of protection – our own and Jeff’s – he didn’t want an injured kid any more than he wanted a broken hoop after just one day of being erected. 

I see a similar conundrum when my brother yells at his kids. Part protection, part overreaction, part worry and part fear. The terror of having kids of his own, and finally knowing firsthand how our father must have felt. The additional loss of control in a life that must have felt a little uncontrollable and unfair, all those years growing up with the comparisons between us both. The impossible paradox of love, and wanting to protect your child so much that it brings out an anger that can only be founded from fear. Love, in all its forms, always so troublesome and fickle and infuriating, always so worth the risk of making oneself unliked by your own children if it means keeping them safe, even if they never knew that’s all you were trying to do. 

I see my Dad differently now, in a way I wish I had seen when he was alive. I see my brother and friends who are also fathers a little differently too.

I am constantly at awe and wonder at love, and awake at night typing this out on the phone so I don’t forget. 

Today marks my mother’s birthday, and we’ll be celebrating with a dinner tomorrow (weather-permitting). For now, a little post of appreciation for all that she has done and continues to do for our family. She has been leading all of us for more years than we care to remember, and with Dad gone she now forms the solitary nucleus around which we revolve. 

It’s a bit of a milestone birthday for her, though she is too much of a lady for me to reveal the actual number. Happy birthday, Mom – I love you. 

It’s been a while since I’ve felt Dad near me. I still think of him every day, not as intensely or as all-encompassing a way as a year ago, but he’s still here. Lately he’s felt somewhat distant, or maybe I’m just focusing on other things and giving grief a break. The past few weeks I’ve missed him a little more than usual, and I hadn’t received any signs or signals that he was near. 

Yesterday I woke late and was puttering about the living room when the familiar tune of ‘Lara’s Theme’ from one of his favorite movies ‘Dr. Zhivago’ came over the radio. Immediately I felt Dad near me, and I stopped to listen. I would play this song right after he died as I drove through the backroads near Amsterdam where he must have driven half a century ago. So far from his homeland, it was my homeland, and it’s always signified my father to me. 

Later in the day, I was making motions to clean up the guestroom. Sorting through old letters and playbills and photos, I found an unopened letter addressed to ‘Allen’, which I recognized at once as the writing of one of Dad’s caretakers. She would occasionally write out a card with whatever he had said that day, and sometimes he would do his best to sign it – the handwriting a touching work of child-like scrawling, but glimmers of Dad’s penmanship would show through, even to the end when it was mostly abstract squiggles. 

The letter I found hadn’t been opened – it was sealed with a sticker of a blue jay, and as I ripped it open I realized it was a message from my father even though he was gone. It tugged at my heart and I cried a little, going back to the time when it would have been written – in the sunny and warm days of his final spring. On the front was a painted beach scene of summer. Inside, in his caretaker’s handwriting, his words rang clear, if confused: “Where are you? Can you turn off the sun? It’s too sunny! It’s too hot to write any more.” 

Maybe it was dementia-addled gibberish, or maybe it was clarity and wisdom from an expert – for the last couple of years Dad could go either way. On this day, when I had been missing him so, it was a glimpse of warmth and comfort in a snowy winter. I was still somewhere between smarting at the memory and being grateful to have it. 

Going through more photos, I stumbled across one of us at the beach. I am now almost the same age as my father was in this picture, and my godson is almost the age that I must have been here. There are echoes of him in the little boy I used to be. 

The tears come a bit more, and I let them fall, strangely welcoming their testament to how much I miss him. When I find a tissue and collect myself, I check my phone and there’s a message from Andy – a video of a cardinal chirping in sunlight. He hadn’t known I was crying and missing Dad, but he somehow got the idea to send it to me at that moment. 

“May the roof above us never fall in, and may we friends gathered below never fall out.”

Being fourteen years old was one of the most exciting times of my life. Not quite old enough to fully step into adulthood, but old enough to experience many of its enchantments and brush up against the young man I was going to be, it contained the best of both worlds. Part of me also understood in a way that none of my peers seemed to understand, how lucky we were to be just fourteen, and still clinging to the innocence and hope and happiness that childhood, at its best, affords to the fortunate. 

When my niece and nephew turned fourteen, I advised that they make the most of it, embrace each day, and savor this time in their lives. They’ve already been touched by loss in ways that I hadn’t at that age, so perhaps it’s too late. That’s still sound advice for any age, and I should probably take more of it myself. With the tenderness of that time in my mind, I threw them their first grown-up dinner party, and invited their respective boyfriend and girlfriend, whom I had not met. Every dinner party should have elements of excitement, awkwardness, sparkle, and uncertainty. (And meeting me for the first time usually has all of that and more.)

Originally I had planned on just having dinner and sending them on their merry way, but friends of mine who have children kept asking what we were going to do, at which point I realized that teenagers might need to be entertained, especially as I didn’t want everyone just lamely resorting to their phone. And so I put a little more organizational effort into the evening (in addition to making Patti LaBelle’s Over the Rainbow Mac and cheese, appetizer meatballs, and a batch of collard greens). 

We began the evening with a custom that the twins and I have had for a while: the Circle of Trust. Banishing all responsible adults from the vicinity (in this case that was just Andy), it’s an opportunity to share whatever is on anyone’s mind. The twins are comfortable enough with me simply to talk – I figured that two new people would not be as forthcoming, so I printed out a bunch of questions and sprinkled them into a bowl, where we would each randomly select one and answer it. 

I thought we would do one round and call it a day but they wanted to go through the whole bowl of questions, so we did. At the end of that it was time for dinner, and I passed around the Goblet of Toasts, which had several toasts printed that we each read – some silly and saucy, some sweet and sentimental. 

Since the twins haven’t been too keen on dessert of late, I had some Christmas sweet treats from Andy that Ryan assembled on the platter in the feature photo. They then suggested we play pool and chess in the cellar, so I went down with them and promptly lost a chess game to Ryan – which is my first loss in decades – perhaps a sign of passing the torch on to the next generation. It feels like time. There were several pool matches after that, and none of us were very good at it, which made for a relatively level playing field. Planting a hopeful seed in the wintry ground, Emi and I discussed a theme for summer and settled on one – she came up with last summer’s coquette theme, and this one seems similarly scintillating. 

As the evening wound down, I wondered if any of the teenagers would remember this night years from now; fourteen was the age when I started making the memories that I still have to this day. Even with having written this brief recollection down in a blog post, I’m likely to forget all the details by next week. I asked everyone to write down their favorite moment of the evening in an effort to remember (usually we do a rose and thorn with one good and one bad, but I wanted to end the evening on a purely good note so we omitted the thorns). One person wrote down their positive and insisted on adding a negative as well, which was as follows: “Not enough time here.”

When it was time for us to bring everyone home, we looked outside and saw that a heavy fog had descended during our dinner party, making the ride to Amsterdam something out of a surreal dream – the ideal accompaniment and ending to a dinner party of sparkling enchantment. 

“May the best of our past be the worst of our future.”

When Suzie and my therapist give me the same advice, I know it is sound and likely something that I should probably heed. In this case, it was putting some distance between me and my family, something that is directly anathema to the way I was raised, and to how I’ve tried to conduct my life over the past few decades. That’s a long time to indoctrinate the psyche into a routine, and all the more difficult to break because of it.

In the Philippines, nothing is more important than family. You stick together no matter what, bound by blood and living arrangements, and you do for family what you would never do for anyone else. In my own prickly, socially-anxious way, I’ve tried to do that for the past half-century, and it’s taken me all that time to realize that the idea of family has changed. 

Whether it was the example of Dad sending money back to the Philippines and supporting his siblings, or the opposite end of the spectrum of my Mom pining and wishing for a playmate as an only child, the notion of family was drilled into my head. Over the years, the addition of guilt, and the spoken and unspoken responsibilities and expectations of the first-born child, created shadows upon shadows, and I struggled with being a good son and brother in the face of often-disparate treatment. It manifested itself in various ways of acting out and deciphering how to gain unconditional love when I was so decidedly different. That cannot have been easy for any of us, and in seeing that now I am given a glimpse of how to forgive. 

Part of that is in the decision to step back at this point. While COVID may have contributed to a lessening of time spent with them, I’d slowly and quietly started to pull away from family for several years. After a big blow-out fight with my brother at Christmas one year, and the umpteenth time that my parents asked me to be the understanding one, I remember sitting at their kitchen table and just crying. It wasn’t so much out of sadness or injustice anymore, it was simple exasperation. In a scene that would be repeated again and again, my Mom realized it was wrong and apologized, but the words rang hollow because they’d been said before and would be said over and over in the years to come. We’re always sorry, and we always just keep on hurting each other. 

And so for my own mental well-being, I’ve withdrawn a lot over the last few years, cutting back on planning get-togethers, no longer insisting that I maintain some type of friendship with my brother, and I’ve noticed that no one has picked up the slack, which is its own message, and its own confirmation. If I feel excluded these days, it’s as much my fault as anyone else’s, but I now realize there is purpose and reason for it; people will find a way, no matter how convoluted or bizarre, to protect themselves from hurt, even if it’s all we’ve ever known.

My own head is adept at self-preservation, even when I’m not quite aware of what is happening. Like animals born in captivity, we don’t necessarily know what we’re missing, it just never feels quite right, and fitting into a typical boy’s mold in this world is trying enough for most boys. It was also a long time ago – another generation really, and things were decidedly different. There was so much we simply didn’t know. 

There are deeper things at work here, stories and situations that I’ve mostly held back, as much out of protecting them as for my own desire to move beyond and pretend they never happened. That’s not always healthy, and as much as I want to let it go, I also need to exhume and address them, if only to acknowledge and move beyond the hold and influence they continue to exert. 

The holidays have always exacerbated this; instead of being a healing time, they seem to bring out all the latent grievances, illuminating and highlighting the chasm that has grown between me and a family from which I’ve always felt, and been treated, as different. Too delicate for some, too harsh for others, and no way of winning or even being unconditionally loved or accepted. In turn, I’ve created my own ostracization – for protection, for prevention, for punishment – and for the preservation of my own worth. 

That is going to have to be ok for this holiday season. 

That is going to have to be enough. 

And it will be.