A Fruitcake And Loving Memories

Category: Mementoes

We have a neighbor, the old Mrs. Aragon, who lives across the house beside ours. She's quite noticeable in our street, also, her house is one of the ones I admire. It is a sturdy massive 70s bungalow with adobe walls, fenceless, very clean and dignified for the way it is maintained. It has prettily manicured garden areas in the front and sides of her driveway, her house, and you see the top branches of old mango trees jutting out from behind it. Like a sentry she sits by her front door, a carved massive piece of solid narra, usually in the morning or afternoon, sometimes getting a manicure or giving instructions to her gardener about various little projects they seem to often undertake in that household. Most of the time she watches the cars and her neighbors go by.

My husband, this gentle soul with absolute weakness for old ladies (probably because of his mom and mine) one time held my hand and walked us across to Mrs. Aragon's perch, to introduce ourselves. We ended up staying longer, it turned out, as Mrs. Aragon only too happily showed us around her home, so polished, with the stagnant smell of love coupled with old remembrances, where she and the family of her trusted maid, are the only occupants. She showed us her collection of saints, knickknacks from her various travels, shared bits of her memory which was sometimes quirky and caused her to laugh and tap on her forehead which was charming, really. She took obvious pride on how she was kept occupied constantly beautifying her home, and told of how she enjoyed two varieties of mangoes, yielded from her trees, all year round. Her only regret, she says, is that she would imagine how her husband would insist to take her to the hospital whenever she suffered bouts of arthritis, if he were only alive, which is just about the worst of her bodily maladies. I find that to be amazing considering she is 85 years old.

Yup, the lady is fit, I think sturdily built, and even walks to church on Sunday morning. She is not the type that's thin and frail but more the buxomly type when she was younger, who must have been pampered to the ways of her husband and the beauty parlor. Why, she even walked the novena processional once when the block rosary was stationed from her house for which she invited me to which I declined. As she further pressed about my faith (as she is a very staunch practicing Catholic), she found I was a born-again Christian, which probably clipped a chunk of budding conversation in that regard, but still left a lot of stories for her to share.

The other day, when she and her helpers were doing Christmas lights outside of her home, was the time we delivered our Christmas present, a cute story for the fact that it came after some mindful consideration. I mean, what old lady wouldn't like fruitcake? When I think about it, the last that I ever bought them must have been 10 years ago when my sister went on a fruitcake baking mania, and I forcibly had to buy a lot, as all her other friends had to at the time. The fruitcake, I thought, Mrs. Aragon will eat by bits and slices, and would keep for her as long as she wanted it. I just really hope she'd eat it, as much as I hope it wouldn't be too bad for her, in her beautiful, polished home that smelled of stagnant love and old remembrances of Mr. Aragon, this Christmas time.