Unlike My Ate My

Few people know I have an older sister, Myra. Once they meet her, everyone is shocked that I’m related to her, because we’re nothing alike.

When we were both studying in Ateneo, I would go to her hangout in Colayco Hall after school and say, “Ate My let’s go home.” Her friends would greet me politely then say bye to Ate My. I did this for two years. Until one of her friends, who knew both of us, asked, “Are you guys cousins?”

“We have the same last name. We go home together. And I call her Ate My. She’s obviously my sister,” I snapped.

“I thought you just had the same last name and carpooled,” she said.

“I called her Ate My. Of course we’re sisters,” I said.

“Everyone calls her Ate My,” she said.

Oh.

At first glance, Ate My looks like a doll—-from her curly locks, her delicate features, and her dainty limbs. She stood at not even five feet. And THAT’s with her almost size 5 shoes. I used to annoy-sing to her, Randy Newman‘s

“Short people got no reason to live.

They got little hands, little eyes…

Don’t want no short people ‘round here.”

Ate My was a life-sized Shirley Temple—confident, cute and oh, SO likeable. In contrast, I looked like an angry Wednesday with the charm of Freddy Kreuger. I was two shoe sizes larger than her. Side by side, we looked like Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo. In fact, when Ate My would do something amazing, like reach the mug from the top shelf, I would say with a trumpet flourish, “PaRaRa RAP Pa RAHHH! Puppy Power!”

When she’d get mad at me or was upset about something unjust, I’d voice Scrappy-Doo and make puny punches, “Lemme at ’em! Lemme at ‘em!”

Even her hair was uplifted. Ate My had bouncy curls that spilled over her tiny head, which was perfect for the poofy permed and scary-teased 80s haira of that time. You can’t get that springy movement with any kind of perm. When she got older, Ate My tried to tame the curls by cutting them all off and sporting a Pixie Cut, a style popularized by her same-sized Tinkerbell.

In contrast, my hair was just like me, “too dark, too flat, and too straight”. I was a natural bland.

So happy together

Ate My was just born happy. I just didn’t get it. She was always smiling and upbeat. She even talked with an easygoing lilt, like she was wondering what flavor ice cream to get. She would tilt her head and look up (she’s always looking up) as if she’s imagining the next fun thing.

Meanwhile, my baby face was an anxious frown. My default was doom and doomer. When I was 12, I worried that in a nuclear fallout, I would have to face the moral dilemma of refusing to share our limited food with our next-door neighbors because I had to feed my little brother and sisters. Yup. That’s my carefree childhood.

Naturally, Ate My was a social butterfly. Anywhere she went, she made friends. Whenever we would go together to some Churchy thing, she would be the only one sitting with a large group of strangers, while I would be eating alone in a corner away from everyone, wondering what could be so damn funny that Ate My was laughing loudly. AGAIN. At the end of the event, Ate My would leave with the phone numbers of her newfound friends and I would leave with a scathing assessment of everyone’s faults.

Her new friends would become frequent hangout buddies. They’d grow into regular pals. Then they would become longtime friends. Most would become close friends, so close that they would hang out at the house and be forced to say Hi to me, the antisocial sister.

I only had one friend in grade school then one good friend in high school. When they were absent, I would eat lunch alone.

Gifts and greetings

Having so many friends meant having many excuses to go out and celebrate. That meant you had to buy gifts. Since high school, Ate My was always buying gifts for her close friends and wanna be close pals. She liked browsing tiangges, bazaars, or fairs for unique gifts she can buy in bulk. Once I found newly bought baby clothes in her car and I asked her if she was pregnant. She laughed and said it was for her officemate’s baby shower. They weren’t even friends!

Often, Ate My would buy something just because she thought of you. One time, on no occasion, she bought me bulk boxes of Fibisco Choco Mallows and Choco Crunchies. I asked why she would spend so much money (when I wouldn’t). She said, “Because you like them.”

Good thing I only had one friend to buy a gift for. But I didn’t even do that. I was too stingy and I couldn’t stand to spend money. So I hardly gave gifts. Maybe that’s why I only had one friend.

Ate My was also hyper organized. So she knew everyone’s birthday, anniversary, and menstrual cycle. She would always give a greeting card, written in her inscrutable cursive. She took up calligraphy as a hobby so she was able to invent her own Greek hieroglyphic. Not even the CIA can decrypt it.

After I got married, Ate My called me every year, “Happy Anniversary Bi!” which surprised me because sometimes my husband forgot. Now when it’s my anniversary, AGAIN, I replay her phone greeting from memory, as I don’t have time to decode her cards.

Ate My also always greeted my son on his birthday. She was the Generous Auntie With No Kids who freely spent her disposable income on my son.

Ate My is also Everybody’s Favorite Ninang. Friends and acquaintances who barely knew her wanted her as their kid’s godparent. That meant more shopping for baby showers, baptism, christening, birthdays, and Whatever Thoughtful Thing Ate My could come up with.

Whereas I am the godparent to only three kids, one not by choice and purely through marriage because they liked my husband, and the other two because they needed someone nasty in the godparent lineup to even out the Balance of Good and Evil. And yes, I have forgotten their birthdays. And no, I do not give them yearly gifts.

Ate My’s laugh

Ate My loved to laugh. It was waaay too easy to make her laugh. She laughed at EVERYTHING. Every knock knock joke. Every dumb movie. Shallow TV shows. Silly greeting cards. Any cartoon or comics. She laughed just seeing babies and dogs.

Even when I sang her the Short People song, she laughed. At first, she would look offended and try to glare at me, but I’d keep singing and she’d start giggling, and then she would just laugh.

I hardly laugh. When I do, it’s inward or silent. Only me and my mind could hear me laugh.

Ate My was my best audience. She would laugh at my attempts at wit. When I asked her why she wanted to quit judo in high school, she said she felt nauseated by her opponent’s body odor as they wrestled. I told her to eat an onion and breath hard on her opponent next time. She laughed.

When we would fight (often) and she’d stammer a retort (often), I would do a Porky Pig stutter, and she’d laugh! What the heck? I was trying to insult her.

One time, after a loud screaming match, she yelled, “I will NEVER speak to you again!!!” I solemnly said, “Promise?” She chuckled.

Ate My couldn’t help but laugh even when I was snide. Whenever she did the Superman stretch to get taller, I would hum the Superman theme song loudly. At first she would ignore me, so I would pose beside her with one fist extended and keep humming. Then she would lose her pose and collapse giggling. She’s too easy.

She also laughed even when I wasn’t joking. Sometimes she laughed when I just used a singsong voice to call her, “Ate MyYy”.

Ate My is such an uncontrollable laugher that she’s terrible at telling jokes. First she messes up the set up, then she starts giggling in the middle of the joke. Then she can’t make it to the end of the joke because she’s already laughing HARD. Which is annoying because she’s the only one laughing at her presumably corny joke, yet we STILL haven’t heard the punchline.

When Ate My laughs, it sounds like she’s dying from a vicious tickling attack. She actually takes gasps of air and falls from her chair until she cries. She’s the OG LMAO. Her laugh is contagious and comical. It would give any bad comic like me the confidence to believe that we’re HILARIOUS.

Her laughter is a great catchy sound. No matter where you are, you will hear her raging laughter and wonder, “What is that LUNATIC laughing at?!?”

Several times, I’ve told her, “I should record your laughter so I can play it if I want to do standup.”

I wish I did. It’s so unlike Ate My to stop laughing.

We’ve had many videocameras growing up but I never thought to record Ate My. I wish there were iPhones back then so I could’ve recorded her laughter and voice. Then I could’ve preserved it and shared it with my kids so they’ll know how their Tita My sounded. Or I could listen to her recorded laugh whenever I was down, and she wouldn’t seem gone.