ELAINE DOLALAS

After Alex Tizon’s article "My Family’s Slave" as regards Eudocia Tomas Pulido 

(The Atlantic, June 2017)

5.17.2017

Today I read a dead man's tale about a slave who served his mother 

Was not a line I thought I'd be writing today

And yet I'm not surprised 

Because my people are labor

Labor for their own people

Labor for other people

Labor for everyone but themselves 

My heart breaks at the cruelty of the story

How poverty leads to hope in dismal situations 

Where promises are endlessly broken

And the idea of not being a servant, not serving a family 

Is a foreign concept 

The cruelty of the story feels uncomfortably familiar

The notion that this is normal, acceptable behavior 

Frightens me

Because I know it's true

Because I've seen the cruelty first hand 

Because the woman who raised me 

In her time of struggle and illness

Treated someone my father had hired 

With the same painful behavior 

Written about in this story

Today I read a dead man's tale that could have been my own

Reading reflections of rights denied 

Seething at the intolerable callousness 

Balking at the request for forgiveness 

Wishing the world was not cruel, not impoverished, not desolate

Wondering how the beauty of the written words could match the horrors of this tragic story

Sitting in these feelings 

Whispering 'bahala na' as an ode to a stranger 

Praying for her peace

Praying for forgiveness 

Praying for a speck of healing in a fucked up situation 

May the soul of the faithful departed

Rest In Peace 

Amen

Elaine Dolalas is a Historic-Filipinotown, Los Angeles based writer and This Filipino American Life podcaster. Her essays and podcasts can be found on ObliviousNerdGirl.com