Eccola! Eccola! qui, qui!” (“Here, Here!”) shrieked Demi as she pulled out lollipops from the loot bags containing party giveaways. Wow, she was speaking Italian! Hearing her speak Italian made me feel both amused and sad. Was I overly nationalistic, realizing that the bond between my granddaughter’s motherland and her extended family separated us by many seas? Tears began to gather in my eyes, but luckily they dried up with the breeze that teased the curtains as balloons danced madly. That’s because tremendously huge Florentine wooden doors and windows shutters from the top floor to the ground floor of the Zini residence were left ajar to invite the sunshine and cool air to enter, this springtime.
What a privilege to touch and squeeze my child’s daughter that only happens three times a year, an opportunity so rare, even looking at Demi’s huge brown pleading eyes. “Wawa,” she shouted to call my attention. I am the consenting yes-yes grandma to Demi’s mustache that encircles her upper lip. The word “no” never exists between us. She already knows I’m the woman who takes her mother away from her whenever I’m visiting. She’s also jealous every time she sees her mom kissing and hugging me.
Finally it was May 7, Demi’s natal day. Mama Mai declared it “Demi’s Liberty Day,” because we were running on Filipino time (late as usual) and couldn’t attend to her. She tugged at Amal who was tying buntings to trees while Madu was watching over baby pizzas. Aldrin and I hurriedly covered wrought iron furniture with beige cushions. Mai was segregating prizes and cupcakes, pink forks, spoons and knives, meticulously matching them with napkins, Demi grabbing them. In time balloons were inflated by Aldrin with the disposable helium tanks ordered from the Internet. If you can order brides online, and party favors from Carole Middleton, there’s really no excuse for not celebrating what children look forward to.
Since we had been working feverishly from eight in the morning, we were exhausted by 11 and had to recharge around a wide wooden table located in our favorite homey spot, the kitchen. “Put the small tables in the center of four chairs on the paved paths... Have the clown perform on the grassy knoll... Assemble the slide on the left side of the terrace…” We were all so busy figuring out the arrangement of the party venue, forgetting Demi whom we had corralled in the high chair. Delightfully left alone, she poured her drinking water into her bowl. The result was soggy rice and wilting bacon. We ignored her manners even as she brought her bowl to her mouth to drink the water from it. Her pajamas — you guessed it — were pink with dots of Japanese rice. Restless and squirming in her high chair in protest, we freed her and — zoom! — she sped swiftly away in a zigzag pattern because she couldn’t make up her mind where to go. I suspended her on a canvas swing under a beautiful vine with purple and white flowers cascading downwards. It was a perfect sight but I didn’t know how to handle a camera to capture the moment. Gabby, mother of my son-in-law Andrea, arrived and liberated Demi from the swing. It was her turn to watch Demi with her admirable patience. Demi carried the garden hose with her small, unsteady hands to attach the hose to the faucet. Certainly she couldn’t, but she knew how to turn on the faucet and shrieked “Acqua! Acqua!” attracting Andrea’s two huge black giant schnauzers that weigh 180 and 200 pounds each. They knew what Demi meant — “Gushing water” — and they galloped towards Demi. She leaned on Ralph while she plucked away twigs stuck in Lauren’s disheveled hair. Demi’s hair was pretty much like Lauren’s, with dried flowers entangled in it.
It was fiesta time in Villa dela Tre Esperanze, 2:30 p.m. It was almost party time. A scrub for Demi, a shampoo and a swift blow dry and an off-white lace and cotton long dress with a matching hairband, a soft pink (again) linen sweater.
Demi’s punctual guests of eight mammas and papàs arrived with their 15 handsome children. I heard hellos and ciaos echoing through the three flights of stairs. Unsurprisingly, Maimai’s friends are women who have gravitated towards each other since they first met being foreigners married to Florentines. There’s Yasmin from Austria, Patricia from France, Michaela from Germany, Kate from America, and finally, three Italian women, Gaia, Benedetta and Eleonora. We always presume our children will marry someone from our own “tribes” while God must be laughing as he jumbles up his creations interlocking persons of various nationalities in mixed marriages.
The cookies, pizzas, cupcakes and the birthday cake millefoglie with frutti di bosco were all perfectly arranged. Demi had already blown out the candles while the children had sung “Tanti auguri a te…” (Happy birthday to you) and listened to it for three days from a toy rubber birthday cake. At 7 p.m. with the sun still high up, every decoration was in disarray as the party was coming to an end. The once-shy children now removed their shoes and socks while the younger ones ran to their mamas to be carried. I glanced at the dining table’s mess. We had worried so much about the chairs’ positions, the placement of the food, the heat, but Mai said “Italians love the sun because it only shines brightly a few months a year.” In fact everyone sat comfortably under the sun. In Manila we would have hidden in an air-conditioned living room and would have eaten pancit, cotton candy, ice cream, barbecue, sweet spaghetti, lechon, rice, adobo and hamburgers and tire ourselves out from chewing. Here it was like a tea party!
The independent Demi by then was hungry, munching on cupcakes. She was the first to reach out for a mascarpone cream and chocolate pastry at 4 p.m. and the last to eat at 7:30 p.m. We had forgotten to give her a proper lunch! As I lovingly stared at robust Demi, it suddenly struck me that this little creation is a member of our Tarsila, a most loving Filipina-Italian companion to Mai in faraway Firenze.