It is uncanny how relatives can meet decades after their deaths, albeit, in some other form.

Both Remedios and Maria are likely enjoying paradise now but here in the realm of the living, they exist through our memories of them. Like most families in these parts, we are nurtured and guided by the lives that our forebears lived.

Their stories later became the legacies that the generations after them built upon.

Remedios’ and Maria’s beauty – the inner beauty that no one can ever erase, their sacrifices for their children and their family, and the struggles they faced, translated into a number of happy moments. This photo is among my favourites. The wine named after Maria is now in the heritage village named after Remedios.

Sitio Remedios was built with painstaking care. It is an ode to a mother who did her best and oh, her best was quite grand! It can be seen in Sitio. It can be seen in Pinto in Antipolo. It can be seen through the countless patients that her son, Dr. Joven Cuanang treated, and through the kindness and humility of Remedios’ other children, and the successes they shared with their own children.

Maria will always be remembered not because of the wine named after her but through various stories about her that have been told and retold by her son, my dad. And while those who will inherit the wine brand won’t remember my Lola the way that I do, they will, at least, know her story and the reasons why we are the way we are.

These two women struck a friendship in the 1930s when Mariano Cuanang married Remedios Racpan. Mariano’s and Maria’s roots can be traced back to the brothers Martin Asuncion Cuanang and Basilio Asuncion Cuanang. They had ten other siblings: Anacleta, Gregoria, Celestino, Pedro, Julian, Nicolas, Adriano, Lino, Leocadio, and Genaro.

According to my cousin Manong Erwin, who now holds the title of family historian, records of the Cuanangs go as far back as the 1850s when Kuan Huang decided to become a Catholic.

Kuan Huang’s family now spans at least 7 generations and I cannot help but think that his experiences, his fears, his bravery, and his story led us to this very moment and to thousands of other moments that defined the Cuanangs as human beings. Life lessons, after all, are written in our DNA, with the experiences of our ancestors awakened once they are needed.

Kuan Huang must be with family now and may very well be in the company of Lola Remedios, Lola Maria, and all the ones we have lost. The road is still long, grandpa Huang. Shine a light on our path.