Learning to Live with an Open Hand

The author in front of Santo Niño Church in Poro, where her great aunt’s novena was held. (Photo by Anthony Garciano)

By Alyssa Garciano

Poro, Philippines

My hands still smelled like the mounds of garlic I had peeled the night before, the sun so hot I felt as though I were being sautéed. The trek from my aunt Mama Concepcion’s house to the cemetery was long, and I remember wishing I had packed clothes of lighter fabric. Since I was traveling alone all summer, I tried to pack only what I thought my five-foot-one-inch self could carry. I had never been to the Philippines before, or even outside of the United States, and in my excitement (or maybe anxiety), I had packed for every chance occurrence I could think of: rubber shoes for cave exploring, a frilly dress for running into my favorite Filipino singer, Arthur Nery, and some professional wear for my summer internship with EducationUSA Philippines. I had planned clothes for everything but a funeral.

The kitchen table at Mama Concepcion’s house.

Funerals in a culturally Catholic Cebu, Philippines meant nine nights of prayer followed by a burial on the morning of the tenth day. This is called a novena. My great aunt had passed away toward the end of my time in the Philippines, and testament to the woman that she was, her novena was well-attended; each night, we gathered at Mama Concepcion’s house to pray and prepare food for each other.

My great aunt’s burial was even more heavily attended, and on the traditional trek to the cemetery, my sandal prints were indistinguishable amongst many others—even paw prints. Walking beside me, I observed a little girl (perhaps my cousin, but at this point, I wasn’t sure who was related to whom) share some food with the four-legged friends looking for a bite to eat. I watched as she reached her chubby hand towards a stray, and without touching, allowed the dog to sniff her open palm.

The first stop on our walk to the cemetery was the church to pray one last time. I clung to my aunt Tita Oding’s side, and even after nine nights of practice, I still struggled to follow the service, drowning in a Porohanon much deeper than I was exposed to in the U.S. Porohanon is a language unique to the island of Poro, one of four islands that comprise the Camotes Islands, located off the coast of mainland Cebu in Central Philippines. Born and raised on Poro, my parents and four older brothers spoke Porohanon as their first language, and I wished they were here with me. I felt lost in the heat—lost in a language and family I was still learning.

I didn’t have to understand, however, all the words to the prayers to know what I needed to do. When the congregation kneeled, I kneeled. When everyone sang, I hummed the melody and followed the gestures of my aunts as we held our hands up, cradling the air in front of us as if in offering.

A plumeria blossom in Poro, the Camotes Sea beyond.

From the church, we walked along the southern edge of Poro. The bumpy trail was covered with plum rinds and gravel—plumeria petals a sure sign we were getting closer to the cemetery. We passed the places of my bedtime stories: the small power plant where my brothers played their familiar games of catching spiders only to let them go, and the small resort adjacent to Buho Rock where my mother and Mama Concepcion stayed up all night laughing, or so Mama Concepcion loves to recount.

We passed my eldest brother’s junior high school and I allowed myself to play my own familiar game imagining what it would have been like if I grew up on this island too. What if I had stood witness to storm clouds that briefly glow golden or stood sheltered under puffy, passing clouds? If all I had known were Sunday morning markets of fresh fruit with my mother carefully holding my hand, I think I would have been too scared to cross the comforting ocean that lulled the island of Poro, cradling it away from the rest of the world.

Chickens in front of Mama Concepcion’s house. Her son Jhung (Alyssa’s cousin) lives next door.

At the cemetery, I whispered sorry with each step, every inch of land occupied. I contemplated the utility of the barbed wire surrounding the cemetery as my cousins and I slipped in; it wasn’t keeping anyone out nor could it hardly contain the many graves stacked on this small plot of land.

Though unfortunate in the circumstance, I met many of my relatives during my great aunt’s novena, and I met even more of my relatives here at the cemetery. Whenever I met a relative older than me, they would hold their hand out towards me and I would press the flats of their fingers to my forehead in a sign of respect. Unsure of what to do when Tita Oding showed me my grandparents and uncle laid to rest next to each other, I brushed my fingers against the rough concrete of their graves.

The families in Poro seemed to be laid to rest together as I inspected the surnames surrounding me. This reminded me of the way the neighborhoods were organized in Poro, with families choosing to build their houses close together. My parents’ own cement home was constructed on the lawn of my cousin Rhea’s house, which was just a few feet away from her father, my uncle Papa Regino’s, house, whose coconuts fell by my cousin Jhung’s house, whose baby daughter could run a few feet to her grandmother, Mama Concepcion’s, house—and I was never sure whose chickens belonged to whom. My family’s cement home was now abandoned and doorless, devoid of life except for the jackfruit my eldest brother had planted in the front yard, still blooming.

Inside the abandoned cement house where Alyssa’s family lived.

After the burial, I returned to Tita Oding’s house where I had been staying. Unable to sleep, I thought about the walk to the cemetery and all the thoughts running through my head that day. I worked so hard to land an internship in the Philippines and a grant to fund my trip here, giving reasons that were all true but so very incomplete. My truest motive for spending a summer in the Philippines was to understand my mother better, something I could not have done without traveling here. I realized I had been running from a single thought the entire novena.

I wonder how my mother’s novena was.

Alyssa’s aunts threw a going-away party (despedida) at the end of her summer visit. The feast included roast pig (lechon), grilled fish (sinugbang isda), cassava cake wrapped in banana leaves (balanghoy), and empanadas. 

As my mother’s siblings, Mama Concepcion, Papa Regino, and Tita Oding had held her novena in Poro two years ago (though my mother is buried in the U.S.). I really wonder how my mother’s life was here. I wonder how she had dressed for cave exploring. I wonder if she fed the stray dogs and what church song was her favorite to sing. I wonder what kind of island cloud she preferred and how her laughter sounded blended with Mama Concepcion’s. I wonder how she felt crossing this ocean and leaving its safe arms for a bustling metropolitan area.

She must have been so scared.

I continued to toss and turn in a bed that was not my own. I imagined what it would have been like to have gone to the morning market with her holding my hand. To be honest, I don’t remember my mother ever holding my hand. She seemed to hold me at a distance, as if unsure of how to raise an American daughter. I think, though, she held me the way the people of Poro, the way my family, have always held everything: with the knowledge that nothing is really ours to keep. Food, memories, the clouds, and each other—we are given these only to hold briefly. Because this bed is not my own, and my mother was never mine to keep. She had things she wanted me to know and things I will never get to know. The life that is mine that I hold like a prayer… I’m learning to live like this—with an open hand.

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Alyssa Garciano, from Kansas City, Missouri, is a junior at Tufts University majoring in psychology and Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora (RCD). Last summer, she spent 11 weeks in the Philippines interning with EducationUSA and Fulbright Philippines, where she supported Filipino students navigating the U.S. college admissions process. Alyssa also traveled to China, Japan, and South Korea during that time.

Where to next? As a writer, Alyssa hopes to explore more of the Philippines and Asia to complete her debut novel, I Still Can Live With It, and find inspiration for future works.

* All photographs by Alyssa Garciano unless otherwise indicated

Published June 12, 2025

Alyssa on the grounds of Poro Central School, where her mother and brothers attended elementary school. (Photo by Anthony Garciano)