Serendipity

When one door closes, another opens, and with God's grace, two.
Around the second week of April, we got the dreaded call that someone wants our
little Mrs. A's Cupcakes & Cookies store at Westfield in Old Orchard. Our home since February of 2008 after closing our first location at Northbrook Court.

This was devastating to us, all four of us work the store as our only source of income and we had no intentions of going anywhere. We weathered the downturn in economy, struggling but slowly building our name, and this year, as we started seeing an uptrend, comes this tension causing news. The chipper leasing manager whom we hardly knew showed her corporate claws and played it as an everyday thing. Meanwhile we were grieving and worrying.

But the Lord has His ways. A guy came in asking how our cupcakes were compared to Georgetown Cupcakes, a place we've heard of many times from customers who've been there saying the lines were out the door at that place, and we deprecatingly always say ours would probably be just as good. We noticed his jacket and immediately noted it as he mentioned it was a company his family owned. A few days later he came and said we had good cupcakes. Whew. Would we be interested in checking out their place? At that point, we had not gotten the news. So we went for a look see and called for an appointment to check it out.

A few weeks beforehand, Les who has always patronized the donut place on his way to work, befriended the new owner from last year, and gave her tips, advice and gave her new vendors to try. Jason from Bear Stewart thanked Les for the new business and said, hey she wants to sell the place to you.

Yesterday, Thursday May 12th, the Pickwick Theater management team of 2 brothers-in-law allowed Mrs. A to sign a lease and anent weeks of working with Park Ridge, we look forward to an August opening.

Today, Friday the 13th, we signed papers to take over an owner financed Wheeling Donuts, because Kim Hok Chong believed in us.

Thank you Lord, thank You for loving us and opening two doors to the one that was taken away from us. Each of this was serendipity. Thank You for your love.

Manang Estella

A thin woman, dark skinned but, with a bit of lipstick, one could see the beauty she hid behind toothless cackling smiles. She had always been with GYNichols as far back as I could remember househelp, Estella our labandera.
Mom spent a fortune every few years getting Estella Custodio y Campos, pustisos, and each time after a few uses, she would conveniently hide the beautifully expensive bridges and lose them complaining they were painful. So she was toothless most of the time. Estella had a hard life. Her baby Danny was only a few months old, she lost her husband in a drunken knife fight somewhere. But memorable is that during the funeral, as people were crying and were hovering around her, she felt claustrophobic with all the mourners trying to comfort her, and she also couldn't cry, she was one of those who laughed at a time of crisis. So she leaned on a tombstone cross and of course fell into the newly dug grave. All the while laughing instead of crying, she laughed harder as people were reaching in for her begging her not to follow suit...it made for many a laughing moment whenever we would recall this incident. Bony, skinny, black beauty trying to follow her dead husband to the grave, NOT!

And who does she hook up with? One of mom's bread bakers, the complete opposite of black, he came from a mestizo (as in white) family. He must've loved her, bones and all, because they had beautiful children, I cannot remember the count as I know only 4 of them, and happily, or sadly, I have just hooked up with two of them, Linda, always the caring one, meant to watch over the whole brood, and Apple, of her father's eyes, as we used to tease. I thought Estella was pregnant every year..so i know I am missing kids other than Danny and Bobot.
But she was always there, come rain, shine or flood. Doing the laundry, chatting every body up. She also had a nervous tension when we bought our first washing machine, she thought it would take away her job, hahahaha.Once she got the hang of it, did she enjoy it! If she ever found out that here in the esta-te I wore underwear that weren't ironed, she would flip. Towels, dresses, undies and all were washed and pressed every day! She would freak out to know that I hang my clothes instead of doing laundry on them till the chocolate stains were visible and then needed washing. Or that I tried washing and bleached out the kids' clothes, which made the older kids run for the basement to do laundry whenever I said I would do laundry....She would have loved that story.

Estella was always with mom, she held court inviting everyone to our New Year's Day party for the kids in her neighborhood. She loved Fernando Poe Jr and Joseph Estrada, the two main stars of Philippine politics at one time or another. But I am happy to note, that her daughters and sons all were touched by mom's baking empire. Each of them passed through the walls of Rolling Pin learning a trade. Which kept everyone working long after we were gone from Manila. And which kept them in relative comfort so they could take care of Estella. Years of smoking and drinking (was that why she was always happy?) took its toll on her and she developed cirrhosis of the liver. I already warned each daughter to be prepared.

So Estella was waiting for GYN's cremains to come home. But we were not able to do that this year, so the day after GYN's 92nd birthday, I guess, Estella decided to follow mom and report to work, just like old times at 527 Mariano Marcos (159 Ortega). This is my tribute to someone who was a major part of my life, with her funny personality, her trials and travails, and friendship, Manang Estella.

Grace under Fire, with apologies to Liz.

In the haze of grief, where surreality overlaps reality, losing mom, Gloria Y.Nichols, to a short bout of pneumonia, and figuring out where to come up with an up front fee of 8 grand for one night of wake, daughter in law Dawn came up with a few names for crematory services.
So we sat down with Liz, a smartly dressed, soft spoken woman who runs a cremation service. As she explained what the $650 fee entailed, (as in pick up the body, bring to crematorium, return the ashes with 2 death certificates), my sister Patricia and I asked a few more questions and then decided to look no further.

With her patience and ability to be emphatetic, Liz gave us a bright spot in an otherwise really depressing duty. At the back of our minds, mom had a first class, top of the line funeral plan with all the trimmings from a premier funeral home in the Philippines. And here, we end up with a bare bones package, pardon the pun.

But here are snippets of why we were comfortable with Liz.

Can we dress her up in her favorite color (lavender/purple) dress? Sure, and she agreed to pick the dress up from us. No make up, no embalming. After all, it's cremation, right?

A day later, oh, by the way, my cousin cannot make it to the cremation service, can we come over so he can see mom? And Liz patiently waited for us (3 hours late) as we comfortably lost our way and drove further west than east. Typical of GYN, in her heyday. We used to go to wakes and funerals, as far away as Ilocos Sur at night where a giant bat like figure followed us during our midnight drive to a place I am sure only had a few homes with electricity, and others around towns where we had no names of either deceased, family or place but still found it. So here's to mom again, even in death are we following the principles of her adventures in attending wakes and funerals. It actually made us laugh.

And, Liz did a great job with mom's remains. She looked even better than when we last saw her at the hospital. Like she was sleeping, no artifice, and beautiful in her lavender outfit, made for her by a society dressmaker Inang Paras, one of the women she played mah-jong with and who'd gone ahead of her. See mom? You outlived them all.

Oh by the way, can we have her cremated next week instead? After Labor Day? So our kids can come and say their good byes and we can get a priest to do the final blessings? Again, she said sure. Are we staying the entire time? It may cost a bit. Nope, just us traipsing to a place 2 hours away from our regular route and seeing GYN one last time.

It was almost a party being in a huge warehouse where two ovens (one fired up for GYN) and they brought mom out, a bit sunken in the eyes but otherwise, still as beautiful that not one of the kids, or Mercy or her kids blanched. I think the visiting Pinoy priest was a bit weirded out. We listened to the prayers, talked around mom as if she were only sleeping, I put sugar flowers on her hands instead of getting fresh, after all, she started the hand made sugar flower industry years ago where it is now a common place home industry. Again, a pioneer.

So Liz patiently waited for us. Being there was the formal acknowledgement of the body and the go signal for cremation.

Oh, and can you wait till Saturday? Patty wasn't ready to bring mom home. As usual. And so GYN , like in life, also in death, went around town and travelled to places here and there on the back of Liz' van, so typical of her itchy wandering feet, which is what we all have, thanks to her. Poor Liz, even if she were the msot professional of professionals, I am sure we really took the cake in some of the things she did for us, as we thanked her profusely for taking mom for a ride.

This piece, as garbled as it is, is to thank Liz and acknowledge her patience and service for GYNichols and her dysfunctional family. Thanks Liz for being the way you are. (How did you get into this business? My mom was a funeral director. Bingo!)

On a quieter note, thank goodness for dedicated people Like Liz and her Cremations by Grace Company. A life saver for those who cannot afford the wakes and funeral services. And a bonus to have someone like her, patient, understanding, and thorough.
Patient above all. Thanks again Liz for taking care of mom.