Personal Experience - Draft 1

Melandro Gonzales Dionisio was born on September 25, 1950, in Manila, Philippines. He has four children, two born in the Philippines and the other two he currently takes care of, born in America, my sister, Esther and me, Melanie. Ironically I was named after my dad, having the same initials and similar first name. He and my mom had me at a fair age of 37 while my dad was 41. My sister was born eleventh months later. My sister and I are the first generation of Filipinos born in America. Unfortunately, we do not speak Tagalog, the main language of the Filipinos, but we do understand it.
When Filipinos come to America, they usually look for a better opportunity to spend the rest of their life. The currency in America is different in the Philippines, so sending money and clothes to the Philippines was nothing new to those who have done it since they have moved here like my grandfather. He provided a lot for my family in the Philippines. We they all moved here, we all had so many family gatherings of my father’s brother and sisters, it was just one big family; the Dionisio’s. My grandfather was a funny man who always teased his grandchildren for fun. He always made each and everyone of us smile. Sadly, he died on March 3, 2000 when I was in third grade. I remember during this one week of April going into March, my parents would bring my sister and I to New Jersey where my grand parents lived. My whole family was there; my cousins and I were in the living room while all the adults were in the bedroom. I asked my cousin David what was going on, he told me that our grandpa, Tatay, was dying. I didn’t believe him until it actually hit me the next day when we were in my aunt’s house again. My mom came to me with tears coming down her face that my grandpa passed away. She told me to see him, in his death bed, to pay our respects. As Filipinos, it was tradition to bless the elderly by putting the back of their hand to our forehead. At the time I was scared because my grandfather was dead, I too afraid to touch him.
The day of the awake, I remember a lot of my cousins younger than me were too young to understand what happened to him. Most of my cousins who had kids told them that Tatay was asleep. All of my aunts and uncles were crying and my sister was crying too, while I did not shed one tear. That was the first funeral I attended to and till this day I still feel guilty that I did not cry for my Grandfather. I remember a couple of days after, I returned to school like nothing had ever happened. I missed my grandfather and realized that people do die in real life. I just never thought it would have been my grandfather. At the time kids my age don’t really think about death as a everyday thing. It was just so sudden when he died that day.