Immigrants often long for food and produce they cannot procure in their adopted homes. When recreating the dishes of the Philippines, our Motherland, the scarcity of one ingredient can throw that recipe off.

Calamansi is one such ingredient.

Added to a sawsawan of patis and calamansi, the simplest of ulams like inihaw na isda – now purchased from the Footscray Market, rather than from the fishermen by the shores of Wawa Orion – could bring my Papa back to a simplicity of a life once lived. A life he still craves for. Still longs for. Still misses. Despite living many decades away from the Philippine seas.

Now, when I add calamansi to my dipping sauces, it honours Papa’s simple probisyano life, and meals shared together as a family when Mama was still alive. Four decades since their arrival to Australia, and a decade since Mama’s passing, I look at my Papa with his wrinkles and sunspots, and think of the calamansi rind weathered through the seasons. His armour. A symbol of his perseverance, sacrifice, and hard work. A protective barrier that warded off elements seeking to do him harm and hinder his migrant prospects to take root, to bloom, and bear fruit in his new island home. A tough exterior that I rarely sought to understand – from my childhood years to my early adult years – too scared, too ambivalent, too busy to want to know him more.

But now, without Mama by his side, and surrounded by the curiosity of my young children, questions are asked of their Lolo. Questions peppered by broken Tagalog, a joyous blend of their ancestral language and a language borrowed from their parents’ assimilation, Papa’s apos happily peel back the layers. Questions posed in Taglish with their mixed Aussie-American accents, they playfully speak over each other to ask Lolo questions. I sit. I listen. I laugh. I cry. Tasting the notes of a life well-lived. One that explores the sweetness of a new life, the hurt from salt added to visible and invisible wounds, the bitter edges of regret and disappointments, and the sourness of deep loss. These stories help me to get to the core of Papa’s existence. Stories that explore life, love, and the memories made as a son, a brother, a husband, a father, and now a Lolo. My Papa’s Filipino-Australian lived experience. Simple, yet nuanced. Just like a well seasoned calamansi sawsawan.