Balikbayan Part Six: Rainbow Reyes
“Rainbow Reyes” was originally part of the Balikbayan series, a collection of short stories from my childhood, which eventually inspired the full-length play of the same title. Self-published in 2017 after a trip to the Philippines, I refrained from editing this piece because I wanted to keep the thoughts and feelings I had as a 23-year old to remain as they were— without judgement and censure from the person I am today. I wanted to share these stories again, because as I was re-reading them, they felt like prologues to the inevitable journey I find myself in now.
Tito [ti-to]
noun
Uncle
I’ve always had a tendency to play my life out in my head like it was a movie. I fantasized about slow dancing with a handsome high school sweetheart at prom instead of my best friend (which was still special). I thought getting dropped off at college would be more monumental than standing in front of my residence hall and feeling a panic attack coming as my mom drove off on our minivan. I dreamed of living the high life in New York City instead of losing 20lbs in the first three months trying to save money on groceries. Despite a lifelong obsession, my life, unfortunately, isn’t a movie and that’s why I had one of my biggest life moments in a near-empty KFC somewhere in Metro Manila.
I sat on a low plastic, chair and watched my mom at the counter ordering food with my aunt and cousin, the low hum of the AC unit next to me filling the tense silence. It was two days before we returned to the U.S. from our trip and we were meeting up with family from my dad’s side. Growing up, my dad wasn’t part of my life and I was familiar with only my mother’s family. Around high school, one of my father’s sisters reached out to my brother and I to reconnect. It’s been difficult staying in touch with them, but I’ve made it a point to meet up with them whenever I go home. This was only the second time I’ve spoken with them in person. When they joined me back at the table, I couldn’t get myself to ask the one question that’s been irking me since we met up at the hotel, so instead, I listened to my mom and my aunt as they caught up. It was weird to think that at some point, my mom had shared a life with her, with my dad and his side of the family. Deciding to stay quiet, I kept my eyes low, focused on the table, where my mom’s arms rested. From my peripheral, I caught my mom’s left thumb twisting a ring— no longer a wedding band— on her ring finger. Before the motion could completely hypnotize me, my aunt looked at me and asked me what I had been up to.
I talked about graduating college and moving to New York as she nodded along. Before a lull in the conversation could happen, I asked the one question that had been bugging me all night.
“Can you tell me about Tito Nante?” I asked.
I first heard about my Tito Nante when my dad’s family first reached out to me. Around that time, my mom handed me her iPhone in the middle of dinner.
“Look at this,” she offered, “that’s your Tito Nante.”
On screen, was a man belting out a show tune on a dark stage, the rattling of his vibrato filling my ears. She reached over, tapped her phone, and tilted it back towards me. I was looking at a picture of a man who had a striking resemblance to my dad (at least from the pictures I had seen of him). My mom had opened up my uncle’s Facebook page and I started scrolling through his photos. After a few minutes, I noticed the name on his account and couldn’t help but smile. “Rainbow Reyes” was at the very top of his page and despite never having met him, this small change to his profile name gave me everything I needed to know about him. Rainbow: he was bright, effervescent, and definitely showy. Little did I know the next words to come out of my mom’s mouth would make me smile even more.
“He’s also a performer.”
At this point, I had already committed to pursuing acting in college, but to my knowledge no one in my family had pursued a career in performance. My mom’s side of the family is primarily made up of people who work in the medical field; doctors and nurses. And those who aren’t are office workers. We all enjoy singing karaoke often, but they would never consider singing or acting for a living. Despite my family’s history, I’ve never thought of going to medical school. Even though I didn’t realize I wanted to be an actor until high school, I always knew being a doctor or a nurse wasn’t an option for me. To this day, I’m met with a bit of skepticism whenever I talk about my aspirations. I’ve always felt that I was out of place in a sense, like I didn’t belong. Seeing him on that tiny screen, I just knew we’d get along. If we ever met, I had a feeling he would understand me.
My aunt was taken aback, but then gave me a small smile. She then continued to tell me about my uncle. He went to college, but not for performance. He ended up dropping out, but fell into performing when he joined a choir. He eventually became a teacher and mentor at International Academy of Film and Television in Cebu.
“We saw some of your pictures on Facebook,” my aunt told me, “we saw the one of you dressed up as a soldier.” She was referring to pictures of me in a college production of Mountain Language by Harold Pinter where I played a guard. “Your Tito Nante played a soldier once too. That’s all I could think about.”
Unfortunately, I never got the chance to meet him. Tito Nante battled lung cancer and passed away in 2013, only months after my mom showed me that video of him. Even though I wasn’t in touch with him, I remember thinking that the news felt sudden. I asked my aunt if she felt the same way. She told me that he didn’t want to worry them and that even they were unaware of illness until it got severe enough that they had to rush to his bedside. I wanted to ask more questions, but I could tell that it was getting too much for her, so I sat back and treasured everything she told me. Hearing about him almost felt like I got to meet him. Almost.
