The kitchen has come to symbolize many things in the American experience: a place where children gather for nourishing comfort, the table where parents balance their checkbooks, the one true area in the home where families are united together. For the Filipino-American it is the center of the expression of true love. It’s the first place Filipinos are beckoned to when they visit another’s home. For my family the kitchen is where my parents helped me with my homework. The kitchen was the last place in the house my Grandma Fel stood prior to her death while she baked Christmas pastries. And it was the place where my Lola Tina has left me the most indelible image of love I have ever known. No one really knows if she actually enjoys doing it. She probably does. But for as long as I’ve been able to remember Lola has been the busy bee in the kitchen. When you enter my aunt’s house the first thing Lola asks is if you want fruit. Before you can even object she’s at the cutting board slicing apples. Magically, a kettle of water instantly appears on the stove for tea. “Or do you want coffee?” “Tea’s fine.” I sit down to eat my slices of apple and, in a snap, cookies appear on the table. Slices of cake. The kettle shouts. I get up to pour myself a cup. She gets there first. She really doesn’t move that fast. I assume she arranges the furniture in the kitchen to maximize her advantage of getting around quicker than anybody else. At dinner she’s the last one to sit down at the table because she is constantly putting food on it or making sure everyone has a plate. She does this despite the pleas for her to relax and eat. These pleas are currently done in raised voices due to hardness of hearing. I think she just refuses to listen. When she does finally sit down she looks around the table, looks at someone else’s plate and in her soft, sweet voice says, “Eat more.” At one point this was followed by, “Ma! Don’t worry about him. Just eat!” I help myself to a second serving. At this point she has left the table to start on the dishes. *** As I grow older I often wonder what image people have whenever they think of me. The exercise is quite absurd, encourages a little vanity, but it always ends with the same question: What likeness and image do we take in the event of an afterlife? What images will our family and friends take? In my hypothetical heaven my Lola Tina and Lolo Ben take the image captured from a memory in the early nineties during a visit to my grandparents’ house in East Palo Alto. They’re not yet retired and are holding Uno cards in their hands. Lolo is sitting with a basket on his head that serves as a makeshift dunce cap. He’s looking up at a standing Lola who is leaning in for a kiss. Their smiles are wide. Their eyes seem twinkling. You can feel their affection for each other. This was the lens I viewed my grandparents with when I was a child. Such wide smiles hide the ultimate immigrant story my grandparents led and the experiences that embed their personal history. Looking at my Lola Tina today one may believe the wind may knock her over but she is one of the strongest women I know. The invasion of Pearl Harbor occurred when Lola was a sophomore in high school. Her parents were murdered during the brutal Japanese occupation of the Philippines where at one point she and her siblings had to flee their home. Despite the traumatic events she became the bedrock for her family. My Lola raised five children, many times while my grandfather was out of the country for work. She persevered through my father’s rambunctious adolescence (and adulthood as well), my aunts’ and uncle’s time as guerillas, and assimilation in the United States. So it comes at no surprise that my Lola had the strength to beat cancer as well. The doctor laid the options available to Lola quite bluntly: undergo the pains and rigors of radiation therapy for a very small probability of living a few more years or pass away in a less painful way. Not fighting wasn’t an option. She was receiving treatment while staying at my aunt’s house in San Jose. My family was in San Diego so I can’t personally say I witnessed her do this. But she fought against breast cancer determinedly and with courage. Therapy took away her hair, her breasts, and her body but she refused to let it take her fortitude. Through it all, Lolo sat by her side, usually with a pocket book in his hands and a plastic of packaged apple turnovers for his stomach. I’m unsure of the details. Lola had beaten cancer but she was having complications with some of the after-effects. Her body shut down, forcing her to the hospital. You are never told the details even when you are junior in high school but my family drove up to see her right away. I remember entering the hospital room and Lolo being there by her side, calmly watching her in a deep deep sleep, her stomach undulating up and down with every machine supported breath. Admittedly, I believed she would never wake up. I should have never second-guessed her ability to fight in her sleep as well. In a very cruel twist of fate my grandfather was diagnosed with lung cancer which had spread to other organs of the body at the same time Lola had awaken from her slumber and been discharged from the hospital. I like to think that Lolo, who I believe was not all that God-fearing, prayed to take her place. Within a week they had switched roles, my grandfather on a respirator slowly regressing into a vegetative state while Lola loyally watched on. I tear up whenever I think about it. *** We were in our home in Ramona when we received the call. This was a moment we knew was coming yet it still took me by surprise. Dad hung up the phone. He told us Lolo had died. “I’m sorry, dad” was all I could say. Everyone packed a bag. We loaded the van and drove up that evening, making stops only for gas. I drove the whole way. The van was silent as we drove the long, dark passage up the Highway 5. We arrived to my aunt’s house at 4:30 in the morning: tired, emotionally frayed. The sun was not due for some time. The whole townhome complex was asleep, not even the cats were out. I remember knocking on the door so as not to wake anyone else. Karen answered the door. Her sleepy eyes indicated no one else was awake. Todd, Theresa, and I give her a hug. We’re the first ones through the door. We put out bags down. The lights were on in the kitchen. Perhaps there was a piece of bread to have before I passed out on the couch? Theresa, Todd, and I walked down the hall, past the laundry machines and into the kitchen. Suddenly, I took a quick breath. Lola was awake, hovering over the stove. The room was hushed except for the crackling in the frying pan. She was making eggs. She hadn’t seen us because her back was turned to us, tending to the eggs as we gazed on. She was wearing a sweater. It was a size small but still hung from the weary and withered body radiation therapy left her. She wore a cotton hat and in that moment a wave of emotion came over me; part paternalistic, part reversion to five-year-old child. This is when I realized. It’s 4:30 in the morning. God has taken all that has made her woman and has just taken the love of her life. Yet she’s still in the kitchen making breakfast for her family. This is the image of true love. *** I don’t remember conversations I had with her when I was younger, just footprint paintings, and leaves etched into sketchbooks, and Uno.Recently it has been hard to communicate with my Lola about all the things I feel about her mainly because all the important things she has taught me she has been able to do without speaking a word. She has taught me about duty and what true strength really is. But most importantly, she has made me realize how I want to be as a spouse, as a parent, and as a grandparent.