Small Town Vignettes

Jake is a second cousin on my mother's side and although he is two years older than me we are close friends. He is a really nice guy, very good-natured and considerate and to top it all possessed an artistic and sensitive soul.

His passion was for wood carvings of all kinds and his bedroom is awash with them, from small tokens and bric-a-bracs to several large pieces ranging from intricately designed wooden shields and native sword replicas to free standing decorative pieces resembling Grecian columns complete with carved leaves and vines with plump berries.

All were products of his artistic nature and dexterous hands. And on his headboard was a large, rather flat box, carved wood of course, that contained his most treasured possessions, his custom built wood carving tools, knives and chisels.

On the box cover, intricately done in bas relief, was the image of a young woman with flowing black hair, small yet well proportioned nose, round and mischievous eyes and a generously smiling mouth. And on the side of one cheek was the merest hint of a dimple.

Some years ago when I first saw the carving, I immediately ask Jake who she was. "Nobody," he answered. "Just a woman in my dreams." He then laughed self-consciously and we moved on to other things.

Jake's family owned a small plant nursery and orchid farm which did very well and he helped manage the business. He had a talent for growing plants, a "green thumb" as most people would say, but most of his free time was spent in a small shed in the back of his family's ancestral house in the outskirts of my hometown where he would spend hours carving decorative designs on wooden panels for walls and doors but he never sold any of them. A lot of people would have paid dearly for them but he had more than enough money and had no interest in selling his work pieces.

Then four years ago, he finally decided to get married to a girl who was a distant relative. The courtship was a stormy one, with both of the parents of the prospective bride and groom deeply opposed to the union of their offspring who, although could be legally married, had direct blood links to each other.

The wrangling became heated and threatened to split the whole clan apart as there were relatives who also were rooting for Jake and his love and who saw how deeply devoted they were to each other

Then Jake and his bride-to-be settled the matter by eloping. They fled to Cebu, got married before a judge and then stayed for a time with a uncle in Mandaue City where the bride managed to find work in a business office while Jake helped out in his uncle's restaurant.

Tempers among the feuding families eventually cooled down and Jake with his wife finally came home after several months. The two lovebirds settled down in the house by the plant nursery and the orchid farm and eventually had a baby girl a year ago.

Before that and just a month or so after they returned, they had a small church wedding in my hometown which I attended. Jake looked uncomfortable in formal dress and was ill at ease with the ceremonies but the bride was radiant and glowing.

I got my chance to greet them both after the ceremony and managed to steal a dance with the bride during the reception. I looked at her and wondered. It was all there, the flowing black hair, the small but well formed nose, the mischievous eyes, the generous mouth with the dimple in the cheek. And the musical and infectious laughter that tickles and makes the listener laugh also.

Weeks after the wedding, Jake gave me a magnificent wood panel on which he carved, in high relief, a glorious Chinese dragon posed with five claws in the imperial Chinese manner. I was speechless with gratitude for such a treasure. But I would have exchanged it without hesitation for the cover on the wooden box that contained his carving tools.

I have not had the courage to ask my cousin about the image of the woman on the wooden cover. And chances are perhaps I never will.


Cedric: "All these carvings and not a single, full sculpture in the round of a person. Not even a bust of a person."

Jake: "I don't like doing sculpture portraits. I don't have the patience to deal with a live subject and carving from pictures can be difficult at best."

Cedric: "Would you carve a bust of me, if I ask you to?"

Jake (laughing): "I could but it would not do you justice. Besides I have never done a portrait of a person in wood."

Cedric (teasingly): "Never?"

Jake: "Never."