Patron Saints of Nothing: Like a Fog Summary & Analysis

Balikbayan boxes are a Filipino ritual of sorts—Filipinos either mail them to family overseas or bring them back home after traveling. In this case, Jay’s lack of knowledge about the boxes again points to his disconnection from Filipino culture. Yet the fact that he is bringing the boxes at all—boxes that one brings home after traveling—attests to the fact that the Philippines still is a home for him, a legacy that can’t be taken from him. Earlier in the novel, Jay closed the box holding Jun’s letters “like a coffin,” but now that he believes Jun’s murder is unsolved, Jay has “exhumed” the letters. Solving Jun’s murder gives Jay a purpose, but it also allows him to repress his grief.

The meaning of this dream isn’t too difficult to parse: Jay has quite literally “lost” Jun, and his dream reflects that reality. But interestingly, this dream also seems related to Jun’s final letter and to Jun’s dropping out of school. In that letter, Jun described his annoyance with his shallow classmates. In the dream, Jay is laughing at those students with Jun, despite the fact that Jay worried, after learning of Jun’s death, that he was just as shallow as those classmates. This dream seems to reflect Jay’s guilt.