Note: This is a fictionalised account. Names, places, and events have been manipulated to suit the author’s wild imagination. Any resemblance to persons, living, dead, or undead, are (probably) coincidental.

***

When I was a boy, we had this gardener. She served our family for thirty-five years, well before I was born. We called her Tia Gelli. She was fastidious in her work and was a benevolent soul. She was also a very honest camper who was fiercely loyal to us. At the same time, she had hearing problems. Dad reckoned that she had some tough ‘pets’ in her ears.

‘House of (Ear)Wax,’ as they say.

One time, she was hard at work, weeding our front yard. There were some troublemaking boys who kept upturning her weed bucket when she was diligently gardening.

After this happened for a third time, she let out a ruckus. Our front neighbour, Zuma, was having a siesta when he was awakened.

‘Ano ya – ?’ (‘What’s tha – ?’)

PAK! Gelli’s midsized projectile hit Zuma right on his forehead. To add insult to injury, the latter’s noggin turned a deep shade of the Roma tomatoes that she cultivated in our backyard. Had she hurled a slightly bigger stone, she would’ve removed Zuma’s head. Later, she admitted that she thought Zuma was colluding with the bastards.

This reminded me of a Slam Dunk episode. Kaede Rukawa was trying to teach Sakuragi on how to sink a layup. Thrice, the latter hit Rukawa in the face with the ball.

***

Even after injuring Zuma, Gelli was still seething. Two days later, before she started work, she thrust a large envelope to my stepmom.

‘Isusimbong ko Yan si Zuma sa tanod’. (‘I’ll complain that Zuma to the tanod’). Paki bigay mo Yang sulat sa kanila (‘Please give them that envelope’).

Ma accepted the letter and nodded. She told me later that she had no intention of ‘disturbing the peace’. Ma knew that conveying that letter would only escalate matters.

I remember her chickens. They were raised fresh, free range and without any nasties. They tasted like no other chicken. When made for soup, they were the most delicious tinola.

Whenever she left, her trademark farewell was ,’Uuwi na po ako’. (I’m going home.)

***

To be honest, she didn’t have much. She had a decent plot that her deceased mother left her. This was enough to breed some chickens, small trees, and to plant some veggies. She also had a small concrete house. She saved a lot of her wages, which seems unnecessary given that she did not have any heirs. My father believed though that seeing her income grow gave her a measure of happiness.

Ma joked that Gelli was one person who had no cholesterol at all. She ate a very healthy diet, basically pork, chicken, seafood, veggies, root crops, and fruits. There was no midnight ice cream or chips in her routine. No chocolates, doughnuts, croissants, or alcohol. I doubt she even ate tinned or frozen food. Plus, she burned all her calories in her work. She was the exact opposite of a couch potato.

It’s funny. As Sam Neill said in his bio, the Vanuatuans are happy because they have so little. They only possess the clothes on their back. They harbour no other possessions of any kind, and even their food is consumed communally. Having read these words last week, I suddenly remembered our now deceased gardener. She didn’t live in a palace but her home was enough. She did not own companies yet she made a big difference in her own way. She had no children but she made her work speak for itself.

Whenever someone saw her job, they were mighty impressed.

‘Ang linis’, they would say. (‘So clean’). One of them joked that she was about to faint.

‘Your garden is spotless’, she confessed.

Finding a good gardener is tough. Taking care of a large plot requires a lot of hard work and patience. Since she passed away, my parents have tried a motley of groundskeepers but none have lasted more than a year. A look around the neighbourhood says it all. The owners themselves are the ones doing the work. None of them are as disciplined as Tia Gelli.

***

She was a generous soul. She knew when to give and when to take. I guess the biggest problem was her hearing. We always gave her merienda (afternoon tea). Calling her out for this was always a hassle. She was immersed in her work. Couple that with her pets and even shouting wasn’t enough to make her perk up.

We should’ve brought her to Doctor Orzales. He was our city’s preeminent ear specialist. My friend, Tyra, told me that she visited his clinic a few years ago.

‘He told me that I had some earwax. It was a bit hard so he told me to buy ear drops.’

‘I came back after a week. He only used a lamp. It was dark. He had this light on his head, like a miner. Within minutes, he had removed the wax. I felt better instantly.’

I should’ve put two and two together. I should’ve told my parents about this. I was busy with school. After a long day, I had no energy to spare. I forgot about Tyra’s pets and Dr Orzales. Make no mistake though. Regardless of her subpar ears, Tia never let it get in the way of her work.

***

Prior to us, she had worked in Manila. She toiled there for some time, until her poor health became her undoing. She gets a card and some cash each Yuletide. Her neighbours said that, prior to her job in Manila, she wasn’t hard of hearing.

Going back to being generous, you could say the same about my parents. We had a fair amount of fruit bearing trees on our property. When we were brimming with fruits, Ma always ensured to give some of them to Tia. We gave away our excess food; she didn’t have to ask.

‘We always see Gelli bringing a lot of bags,’ our neighbour said. ‘Around five pm we hear her scampering with her bags. We know it’s food’, she added.

‘Perhaps they thought that Fely was nicking that stuff’, Mum said. Apparently, they didn’t know how giving we were.

In the end, it was a win-win situation. Our grounds were tidy, and she earned her wage and our gratitude.