Toy, Lolo

There are just some people you get along with even without words. Relationships without words. How about that?

Lolo Toy was my grandfather from my mother's side. He died when I was about 12. When I was in grade school, he used to bring me to the academy. He drove the pedicab. I felt proud and cool being seen with my grandfather looking hip and healthy pedalling his way through the streets. I can't recall why I felt high-and-mighty, but perhaps it's because I was the only kid who had been doing that. I was the only one being brought to and fetched from school in such fashion.

That is the most resonant image I have of him (the only one of roughly three). Just that, an image, and a faint one at that. I remember no talks, no profound conversation, not even a funny exchange. But I do recall him smiling and smirking, and sometimes a feeble sound of a grouch. I do remember his false teeth. Yet I will always go back to that five-minute ride where I would sit back and relax inside the pedicab, put my small feet on a metal support in front and Lolo Toy would just pedal away. His energy spent with me and for me.