Remedios T. Romualdez - Final Days

Final Days

Because of rising tensions at the house, Remedios vacated the home entirely, with her then five children in tow, Estrella Cinco, some tampipis and a big aparador (Marcelo Cumpas has since been let go because there was no money to pay him. He took a job at the American Bazaar Ice Cream Parlor nearby and tried to finish school at night). They first stayed at the vacation home of Norberto and Beatriz in Mandaluyong. Afterwards, they rented single room apartments to be closer to the emporiums of Escolta and the nuns (The Looban Convent exists even today. It is located along United Nations Avenue in Manila). This lasted months.

With the help of Ricardo Trinidad who at that time married a "wet market" vendor in Muñoz market, a repentant Vicente Orestes knocked on her door and asked for her return. He urgently needed help. Doña Tidad died in 1933. His older brother Nonoy was touring Bacolod and Miguel was busy with his enterprises. Both were preoccupied with their growing families. What little help they could offer could not compare if Meding would return and put the house in order again.

When Remedios returned to the house on General Solano street, the house was on lis pendens. She had to pay huge mortgage payments for the house to be back in the good graces of the bank creditor. The house was a big mess--- similar to the day when she first entered it that morning of her wedding. She tried her best to clean, mend the curtains, ordered bolts of fabric so she can sew and make the sheets, scrubbed the floors, sort the chipped china, everything. She paid for the electricity and the water. The roof was leaking so she asked Marcelo to buy rubber cement to cover th holes. When that did not work she went to the hardware and ordered galvanized sheets or "yero" / "hierro", a novelty at that time and therefore a tad more expensive. Her stepchildren were silent but could no longer interfere. The threat of Poverty stripped their Pride away.

Meding chose to live in the now empty garage to avoid further fights with her husband's children. On the heavy and large old table at the center of the garage was where her youngest, nicknamed "Conchita", conceived. This garage was also from where the young Imelda or "Meldy" would come out to ascend the staircase to the front door and ask for her allowance from her dear papa.

In her last two years Meding was always "afar", always caught looking else where. She was living day by day only for her children. She no longer cared for anything else, even the Romualdez name so held highly by those around her.

In her last act of defiance, Meding summoned a taxicab as soon as she felt labor pains, without anyone knowing. Days later, her husband's daughters by Juanita found her in the charity ward of the Philippine General Hospital. Vicente Orestes was enraged. His youngest daughter's birth certificate would read "charity ward" in it forever and he felt he was slighted. (The said birth certificate was then changed in the later years during the Marcos presidency.)