There’s a house in Bohol that sits quietly by the side of the road. An old and greying fixture that buses and time pass by; seemingly abandoned as no one lives there anymore.

Once upon a time, it was a house bursting with locals and visiting grandkids. At the centre of it all was a grandmother who turned into a babysitter as soon as summer comes in, bringing with it the heat and the responsibility of looking after several teens and tweens at a time while the parents took advantage of their freedom.

That freedom worked both ways. Without parental supervision and with limited grandparental regulation, I foraged flowers with the local kids and rode on customised motorcycles that could fit six passengers, easy. It wasn’t very safe but it sure was fun.

Those were my endless summers. There were basketball games and childhood crushes. Basketball court discos and tennis matches. Red rice, steamed crabs, and Coke for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Mahjong tiles on shiny wooden floors. Local kids and loud laughter late into the night as there were no cellphones yet and group conversations were held in real life. Some of the funniest anecdotes I heard in my life, I heard it there.

But now… Quiet.

The house is still there but the lights are out.

After our family reunion mass in 2023, someone got the keys and opened the door to Lola’s old house. Walking in was like being ambushed with memories. Everything looked the same, but somehow different.

Amidst the aging wooden walls and capiz shells windows, echoes of summer stories gather and fall to the floor like the dust that settled on furniture frozen in time. Everyone retreated into the parts of themselves where their childhood lay, recalling their own memories and smiling in the privacy of their own endless summers.

While most everyone else liked Lolo’s afternoon chair, the windows with the decorative vents would always be my favourite. I just love the beauty of it. The eyes of the house that gazed out into the world, letting in light from above and shouted messages from below when people couldn’t be bothered climbing the long steep flight of stairs that used to be on the side of the house.

It was nice to be able to show Raven and Jeff the house my cousins and I “summered,” as rich people call it. It wasn’t the fanciest, but it was definitely one of the happiest. Which is why if I ever retire in Philippines, I’d pick Bohol in a heartbeat.

*Raven at 7 years old