A Eulogy for Grandpa

1932-2024

When Momsie would take me and my brothers out to Toys R Us, Popsie would jokingly ask us on the car ride over, what kind of basura we were going to get at the now bankrupt retailer. To Popsie, if it wasn’t food, water, or shelter, basura lang yan. 

Honestly, that was of my favorite things about Popsie - his simplicity. He was a minimalist at heart.

This minimalism also translated to his advice for me. After a recent break up, I would spend more time with him and Momsie watching basketball or grabbing dinner. Popsie told me that because I was single, I should go and talk to pretty girls more often. How do I do that Popsie, I asked. Well, he said, you walk up to a pretty girl and ask her how she’s doing. And then, you ask her for her name.

That’s it? I asked him.

That’s it, he nodded back. 

At the time, I dismissed the advice as too simplistic and a bit impractical, but I’m not so sure anymore. Since he’s passed, I’ve been seeing all these photos of Popsie in his younger days, and I actually think that his opening pick up line - or really any line - would have worked for him. He was a good looking guy.

It was some combination of these good looks and his simple directness that allowed him to successfully court the beauty queen of Biñan - although I’ll have to confirm this with Momsie. 

This simplicity also translated to financial success in life for him. There are all these complex ways in which people talk about making money these days - options trading, reverse mortgages, crypto currency -  but for Popsie, things were simple. Save enough money for a down payment on a home and buy said home. And do that again. And again. And again. 

And it’s not like Popsie was some trust fund kid - for the most part his money came from his job as an admin guy at USC. And I don’t think he ever worked another job in the States.

I asked him about his time at USC and he told me he never felt fully appreciated there. Given that he was working through the sixties and seventies, I suspect he got treated differently by management who just saw him as the Filipino guy who had been there forever and would never quite be manager material, although it would be hard for them to exactly say why. 

The funny thing to me about all this is that even after three decades in the job, Popsie was maybe the most financially successful person amongst his colleagues. And whereas other people would have maybe flaunted their newfound wealth in an effort to overcompensate, Popsie kept the same frugal, simplistic energy. Popsie drove the same beat up cars. He would eat at the same Thai restaurant he’d been going to for ages. And he would wear the same clothes that he’d been wearing to work for decades.

To Popsie, the definition of success wasn’t about the number of cars you had or the restaurants you ate at. His definition was quite simple - it was about leaving his family in a good place. 

I spoke to Popsie a couple years ago about death. We were watching a Lakers game together at the house on Imperial and he told me that one of his oldest friends had just passed away. All his friends were dead, and he was the last one left.

“What does God have planned for me now?” He asked me. “Why am I still here?” 

These questions, while hard for anyone to answer, would have been especially hard for Popsie, since he had done so much in life. As my brother John said, he was like a character who had not only finished a video game, but had completed all the side quests too. What do you do after you’ve accomplished everything you’ve sought out to accomplish? 

He survived World War Two despite having his home occupied by Japanese soldiers. 

He moved to a brand new country and was able to establish himself well financially. 

He sent his kids to USC, allowing them to each to have successful careers in their own right. And his grandkids ended up doing ok for themselves too. 

I told Popsie about all these accomplishments when we were watching that Lakers game. 

He said everything I said was true but it didn’t change the fact that he still wasn’t sure what was next for him. To be honest, I don’t know if Popsie ever found out the answer to that question before he passed. 

And while there is some sadness to that, there’s a beauty in being able to ask those questions at the end of your life. 

To be in your nineties and to have completed all your quests in life, to have lived life to the fullest and to wonder what’s next.. All I can say is that my brothers and I have big shoes to fill.