One of my earliest memories is being carried over my grandmother’s open casket.  This ritual is reserved for the youngest family members and the belief is that the deceased elder would not haunt the children. The images I remember from living with my mother’s family are like a dream just out of grasp.
     I returned to the Philippines after 18 years for the first time and I felt as if I had been adopted and returned home.  My son is about the same age now when I lived there. My family’s relationship to the past is similar to Renato Canstantino’s observations of Filipino history.  My hope is to recover a sense of family history and in Canstantino’s words: appreciate its meaningful interrelation with the present.