This is the story that I have been told:
Once upon a time, an unwanted baby boy was placed at the doorstep of three sisters who lived in the biggest house in town. The sisters, who were rich and unmarried, together raised the baby, who was to be my grandfather, and loved him deeply and gave him nearly everything he wanted.
The day finally came that the boy, who had become a man, told his three mothers that he had fallen in love with a village girl. The sisters became terribly distraught. But not as distraught as when they discovered, later, that their beloved son had left and eloped with the girl.
My grandfather went on to become the town’s school principal in the Philippines in the 1930s. His three mothers continued to love him from afar, and he was never disinherited. He married the girl, had two children with her, and after she died, he married his wife’s sister, with whom he had five more children.
The end, when it came, is a tale that haunts my father and his siblings even today. World War 2 had broken out, and the Japanese were invading the Philippine island where my grandfather lived. The town had been abuzz with rumours that the Japanese soldiers were getting closer. They heard that the soldiers were killing every male Filipino, young or old, in their path.
Many people had already fled, but my father decided that he and his family could stay at home one more night. It was the wrong decision.
The Japanese arrived at midnight. Glistening bayonets poked through the windows, preventing escape, and several Japanese soldiers broke in through the front door. My father, who was five years old, hid with the pots and pans under the stove. My grandfather climbed and hid among wooden beams under the roof. As the soldiers were finally leaving, the group leader, who at that point had seen only the wife and daughters, suddenly spun around and looked up into the ceiling.
And so, in the end, my grandfather was taken away and was never heard from again. Whenever we go back to that town, in that island, we always visit the bridge, where they say hundreds of Filipino men were beheaded by the Japanese. My father, who has now far outlived his own father, still believes that it is the scene of the crime. From the bridge, we always look down into flowing water.
Here he is, in this photo, holding one of my aunts.