IT WAS OGDEN NASH IN ?FAMILY COURT? WHO said that one would be in less danger from the wiles of the stranger if one?s own kith and kin were more fun to be with.

This ?Nashism? does not hold true for Luz Felix Mendoza ? family to her is a happy circle of relatives worth her time, money and attention. This Filipino American believes there is much fun and excitement in gathering all branches of family even if it means paying through her nose to be with them.

So in spite of recession looming in America and world markets in a tailspin, she?s determined to come home this Christmas to be with family. And family to her would be the Europas, Mendozas, and Sipins of Nueva Vizcaya, Ilocos Sur and Abra.

For someone who?s been in the States for the past 35 years, Luz believes in looking back and getting in touch with the people she left behind. ?I was only 23 years old when I left the Philippines,? she says. ?It was very heartbreaking leaving everything behind. I remember crying as I waved goodbye to my parents and siblings.?

As the eldest, she had dreams and aspirations for a good life for herself and her family; leaving for America was the principal means of achieving the fulfillment of all she aspired for.

Pathos and drama

Luz has a story full of pathos and drama. She left knowing that when her plane landed in San Francisco, she would get married to a Filipino working with the US Navy. It was not against her wishes but that was what life turned out to be. ?As a young girl, I never dreamed of getting married early,? she reminisces.

?I wanted to travel and see the world. I wanted to learn to speak foreign languages and experience a lot of things. I wanted to earn and save so I could build my own home and build a big house for my poor parents who labored hard to send me to school. I wanted to get married at 30, not at 23 when the world was just starting to unfold before my eyes. Belatedly I learned that life does not exactly pass through our charted pathways.?

Life without her man

Luz talks about her loneliness in the land of milk and honey. ?My husband left me with his parents in San Francisco as he had to go to Lockheed in Memphis Tennessee for his training as a jet mechanic in the Navy. I just met his parents and we didn?t know each other from Adam, and here I was living with them in a strange land. Fortunately, I had aunts and cousins in San Francisco, who were kind enough to visit me and take me around this American city.?

After San Francisco, her next home was in San Diego, California. She and her husband stayed in an apartment close to the Navy base but she still felt very lonely. ?My husband was always at sea hence I was left alone most of the time. I managed a home without a husband. I had to quickly learn how to drive and cook and I remember getting lost most of the time. The food I cooked in those early years was always tasteless, and burned.?

During those lonely times, she would remember her simple life in Lamut, Ifugao where her parents, although poor, doted on her and treated her like a princess. In her mind?s eye she would see herself merrily picking red watermelons and riding on the back of her grandparents? carabao. She came from a family of farmers; there were green fields to roam and trees to climb. She remembers the lovely view of surrounding mountains but most of all would reminisce on the affection and love of family and relatives she left behind.

In America, she would first have a miscarriage. She later gave birth to two of her three children alone; her navyman husband was at sea working. ?I recall crying a lot of times every time I remember my pampered life back home. In America I had to do all the housework. When my husband would be home I would wake up very early to cook breakfast for him and then rush to work. I would then rush home again after work to prepare dinner for him,? she says.

Having a divorce

?It took me 10 long years to adjust to life in America.? Ironically, when this time came, her marriage was near its end. After San Diego, Luz and her husband bought a home in Chula Vista, California, where she had a well-paying job as a laboratory technician. This was in 1978. Six years later, she and her husband divorced.

With unfulfilled dreams, she applied and was accepted in US Airways and worked in its international ticketing office. In 1996, she was accepted by United Airlines as flight attendant but had to give it up as they required her to make Chicago her home base and that would mean not being able to be with her young children.

Busy as she was, her thoughts were connected back home to the Philippines. ?Even if I was far away and had my own family in America, I always thought about my family in Lamut, Ifugao. I wanted them to experience the American dream. It was also a promise I made to my father?that I would do the best I can to bring them to America.? And bring them there was what she did.

Second marriage

Luz describes her life as a many-splendored thing in spite of the shadows that dominated it. She would marry again?another dramatic turn in her life as she would marry her childhood sweetheart who would die on her. ?The rainbow is beautiful because it comes after the rain,? she muses. The rains are part of the poetry of her life as they have made her stronger and grew her heart bigger for the more generous, more encompassing love for fellowmen.

Luz is now involved in a lot of charity work and particularly remembers going with evangelists of the Billy Graham ministries to impoverished villages of Africa, assisting medical missions and distributing gifts in shoeboxes. She narrates how she empathized with the pain and hunger of children there, at one point driving her to "operatic" tears. With her pretty looks and emotional highs and lows, she reminds one of Pilar Pilapil.

America has transformed this once small town girl into a tall dusky beauty who now exudes a lot of self -confidence. Luz shifted gears midstream and is now organizing big tours, conferences and pilgrimages. This woman has lived a million lives?she has seen things a ?woman ain?t supposed to see,? but at bottom still yearns for her childhood hearth and home.

She?s coming home soon.