A POEM FROM HER FILE

AFTER the funeral, I felt completely numb and restless, entirely unsure of what to do with the personal belongings my wife had left behind, mostly in our bedroom.

I could still feel her presence lingering among them. It felt as though she hadn't truly left us after all—as if she were simply still at the hospital, or perhaps recuperating at her family's home in Malate, Manila.

Two weeks after the funeral, I finally forced myself to start sorting through the house and gathering her belongings. Someone once told me that clearing out the items of the deceased is a necessary step to moving on. Yet, doing it this early can be excruciatingly painful. I felt a hot, sharp blur of pain tighten in my throat every time I looked at her things. Holding her personal items and feeling the heavy contrast of her past presence and current absence brought on a wave of malignant grief. I have faced my share of sad experiences in life, but holding the tangible possessions of a loved one so soon after their passing remains one of the most heart-wrenching tasks I have ever endured.

My sister-in-law advised me to wait forty days, or even a full year, before parting with her personal belongings completely. I wondered if waiting would really make the process any slower or less painful. For the time being, I packed away only the things that felt too impractical or painful to leave lying around, refusing to rush into getting rid of every last item that had belonged to her.

Truthfully, my sorting began with her papers and documents just a week after her death. I went into her personal files to gather her birth and marriage certificates, our children's baptismal records, and her old employment files—all necessary paperwork to apply for death benefits at the SSS.  

But the task was far from clinical. Tucked alongside those official documents were old letters, handwritten messages, special photographs she had kept, and personal notes she had jotted down. Browsing through them, my memories arrived in a sudden deluge, and I was utterly overwhelmed. Yet, I told myself I must not allow myself to fall apart; doing so would accomplish nothing.

Deep inside her briefcase, I discovered an original copy of a poem I had written for her barely a month before our first wedding anniversary.

It is only now, in the quiet aftermath of her passing, that I realize I had written just that one solitary poem—and not a single love letter—for her across our fourteen years of marriage. There were times during our life together when she would gently mention that I wasn't as sweet as I used to be. She must have deeply missed receiving the letters or verses I used to write when we were young lovers. SMS and text messaging were entirely unknown animals back then. Defending myself, I would always remind her of the demands of my job and the endless family matters that kept me busy. In reality, it was a classic case of marital familiarity and complacency—a comfortable blindness that left me entirely unaware of the storm to come. How could I have known that her life would be as brutally short as an epigram? Are words ever truly enough?

Going back to that solitary poem from her file, I remembered exactly why I had put those thoughts into words. It was the very first night after our wedding day that she did not sleep beside me. She had attended a church activity overnight with her sister and mother. Unable to sleep in our empty bed, I chose to spend the wee hours scribbling lines for her instead of fretting over her absence.

When she returned and I handed her the page, I read the verses aloud, explaining what each line meant. Tears immediately welled in her eyes. She embraced me tightly, whispering her appreciation and love. I remember smiling and reading the lines to her all over again.

your absence one night(to Rosalie)

it seems eons had gone by
since i made my last one
all thoughts on love, my beloved,

but what are words on a white sheet
when i could sing life sans the storms
and stress, the daydreams
i turned off?

why should tears now flow from the pen
or why should my olympia whine
when I had the bliss of your touch and
tender eyes?

do i really need angst
or halcyon days, or those little pains
to weave verses again,
once hanging in void, now so special
when voiced out in silence deaf
with sighs of love

but tonight, even for the briefest time,
i explore the throb, the deepest
the best that pumped out from
the letter keys when i searched
your eyes on roomy space, a ghost
of touch on steamy breeze

missing your love is burning me

when you finally came to our bed
the next after sundown
all the more i embraced that profound
beat, overflowing, flooding
but no longer on the sheet
in the mechanical feed,
but my own.

loving you more than i feel

and when bliss at its utmost reveals your love
i rather stop the flow of verse, from a void,
than I speak of your love again
in my silence

november 1997

She is gone now. Yet, I must continue to fight and move forward, working to dispel this ugly, persistent grief. But doing so takes an immense amount of mental energy, or a conscious, forced indifference to the pain.

I need something to hold onto. Perhaps it is time to resort to writing verses once again—documenting our beautiful past together, or mapping out my uncharted future without her.

EULOGY FOR MY WIFE

(undelivered)

Good afternoon. On behalf of our family, I thank you all for coming here today to honor the life of a truly remarkable woman. She was my best friend, my lover, and my soulmate. She was my wife, and the devoted mother of my three children. I shall miss her desperately.

Rosalie, the absolute sunshine of my life for over fourteen years, succumbed to Stage 4 breast cancer with liver complications last August 5, 2011. She was only 38 years old.

Someone once told me that losing your partner in marriage is one of life’s most traumatic events. Yet, I would say that losing a mother, for my kids, and losing a beautiful daughter, for my mother-in-law, merits that exact same pain, that exact same trauma. Death, by any definition or reason, is an agonizing hurdle for those left behind. Nothing will ever be the same again. But amidst our sorrow, we are deeply thankful that Rosalie's suffering was brief and her final passing was peaceful.

Last June, my dear wife felt an abdominal pain that persisted for nearly three months and ultimately culminated in the loss of her life. On July 22, upon the urgent advice of her sister and a cousin, she was finally convinced to be admitted to the hospital. I say "convinced"—but perhaps "forced" is more accurate. For days leading up to that moment, she vehemently refused any suggestion from her immediate family to go to a hospital or seek a doctor's care. In spite of her pain, she chose basic medication over clinical intervention. She harbored a deep, paralyzing fear of surgery and medical operations.

You might look from the outside and view it as an imprudent decision. But please understand that my wife was simply caught in a storm of confusion—a profound personal turmoil that began two or three years ago when she was first diagnosed with the dreadful "Big C". It was her conscious choice to keep that diagnosis to herself, and I respected her privacy.

Now, I stand before you and ask a question that I will leave for you to judge: Did my wife choose what was best for her? Did we, her family, fail to guide her and give her what she needed? In truth, did any of us really know what was best for her soul?

Before I go on, I ask that you completely respect the choice my wife made. That was her decision, and her family honored it, at sana ay mauunawaan ninyo rin siya (and I hope you will understand her, too).

Stage 2 cancer is curable, sabi nila. Pero may namamatay din. Marami na rin ang nag-survive sa cancer, sabi nila. Pero karamihan, namamatay din pagkatapos ng maikling gamutan ngunit napakalaking halagang nagastos. May nagsabi na wala ring silbi ang pera kung kanser ang tumama sa katawan—maaaring maubos ang iyong naipon ngunit mamatay ka rin pala. Walang kaibahan ito sa hindi na nagpa-opera at mamatay din, as expected. Maaaring sa operasyon ay madurugtungan ang buhay ng pasyente. Maaaring may total healing. Pero depende pa rin sa kanser, at sa kondisyon ng katawan ng isang tao.

So, how can any of us be entirely sure that if Rosalie had undergone surgery and subjected herself to the chemotherapy treatment she so deeply terrified her, she would have been permanently cured?

Rosalie’s father died of cancer when she was just seventeen years old. Later, one of her close officemates also passed away from breast cancer—a tragedy she constantly reminded me of whenever I begged her to consider an operation. She was terrified that she would suffer the exact same fate: watching our family spend an astronomical amount of money on surgeries and chemo, only to die in the end anyway. Rosalie knew the stakes perfectly; my wife simply refused to gamble with her life this way.

Ganunpaman, tuloy-tuloy ang pagdarasal ng asawa ko; gabi-gabi nagrorosario siya. Early this year, she began a devoted novena to the Shrine of Divine Mercy in Marilao. A close friend had told us stories of people experiencing miraculous healings through prayer there, and she clung to that hope. Up until her final days in the hospital, she held fast to her small rosary and her pamphlet from the Divine Mercy. She kept hoping against hope that she would heal for the sake of her family. What her final prayers were in those last, quiet moments, I will never truly know.

Please understand her. We respected her choices, we guided her step by step, and we prayed for her fiercely. We never left her alone. And we did not cause her death.

Ngayon ko lang napagtanto ang isang katotohanan, na mas malakas ang loob ni Rosalie kaysa ako na asawa niya. Mas matapang ang loob niya, mas malalim ang paniniwala niya sa Diyos. Sa tindi ng hirap na dinanas niya, upang hindi na ako gumastos para sa operasyon, at upang hindi mabawasan ang aming ipantustos sa pag-aaral ng mga bata, ay isang bagay na hindi mawaglit sa isip ko.

If we are to wring any semblance of meaning out of this unthinkable tragedy, it is that life is both incredibly fleeting and profoundly precious. I have been told that in time, the sharp pain I feel will eventually subside, leaving behind only the marvelous memories of our lives together.

Our story began at Rex Printing Company in Quezon City, where I worked as a proofreader. Siya naman ay nahuling pumasok as a circulation clerk ng Publications Department. She was introduced to me by her friend, Leah Bartolome, who was her classmate at the PSBA. Prior to our meeting, right before my final job interview at Rex, I had paused to pray inside Sto. Domingo Church because it sat so close to the office. I prayed that if I were accepted for the job, I might also meet the woman who would become my wife there.

The very first woman I saw upon stepping out of the church doors was Leah. I didn't know why she smiled at me so warmly in that passing moment. A year later, she became the exact bridge that allowed me to meet my future wife. I fell for Rosalie because even though she carried herself with a slightly reserved, unapproachable air, I sensed an deep-seated modesty and kindness in her. Even when her smiles were hesitant, an undeniable sweetness poured out the moment you spoke with her. Rosalie had a smile that could light up an entire room. She quickly became the absolute center of my universe. I was truly, deeply in love with her.

The night after our first meeting, I dreamed that I was being introduced to her father. In the dream, we stepped into his bedroom, and he sat up to greet me from a steel double-deck bunk bed. I had no idea at the time that her father had already passed away years prior. When I finally visited her family home, the face of the man inside the framed portrait on their wall was identical to the man from my dream. And remarkably, they owned that exact same steel bunk bed—which stands in our home in Marilao today.

Later on, I discovered that I shared the exact same birthday as her late father, September 21. Not only him, but two of Rosalie’s siblings were also born on that exact same day. It felt incredibly surreal, but it gave me a comforting assurance that our paths had been intentionally mapped out by destiny. So, when she finally said yes to me, it felt as though I had already known her for a lifetime. The woman I fell in love with then was the exact same woman she remained throughout our marriage. Wala siyang itinagong ugali. No pretensions whatsoever, ika nga.

Rosalie and I shared a life full of natural ups and downs, but we always did our absolute best to please one another. We enjoyed the quiet sanctuary of being home with our kids. We shared a passion for jazz, and we were both avid listeners of Josh Groban and Michael Bublé. Simply building a simple, uncomplicated family within an uncomplicated marriage was our ultimate desire.

Family was Rosalie’s heart and soul. The most important people in her world were our children: Nathaniel, Neyo Martin, and Roseya. All out siya sa mga studies nila, that even during her last days, noong namamalagi na siya sa family house nila sa Malate ay gumagawa pa rin siya ng reviewer para kay Roseya. Even as her health deteriorated, she continued to accompany Roseya to her ballet school and, just this past summer, to her gymnastics classes. Even though the training facility was all the way in Pasig, go lang siya nang go for the sake of our daughter.

And, of course, another anchor in her life was her mother. Because her father had passed away so early, Rosalie wanted to pour all her love and protection into Nanay. That was the primary reason why, when we were first starting our family, I could never convince her to relocate with me to my hometown in Ilocos. She simply refused to leave her mother alone.

I can say with absolute confidence today that Rosalie is not truly gone: she is everywhere, and she is standing with us right now. She watches over her children every hour of the day. She remains a central pillar of our daily prayers, and she walks beside us as we work to fulfill our shared dreams. Rosalie has left this earth, but her love, hope, and unwavering devotion to her family remain intact. The simplest way my children and I can repay her is to ensure that the flame of her love and her dreams for our family stays eternally burning in our hearts.

This afternoon, I ask all of you to feel the joy and boundary-breaking beauty of Rosalie’s spirit as we celebrate her amazing life. On behalf of my sons, Nathaniel and Neyo Martin, my daughter, Roseya, and my mother-in-law, I thank you all for coming, and I pray that you keep her memory close to your hearts always. We know, without a shadow of a doubt, that she is being welcomed exactly where she belongs now: in the Kingdom of Heaven.

_______
I wrote a draft of this eulogy late into the night before her interment on August 13. However, I was never able to bring myself to read it during the necrological Mass held at Malate Catholic Church. The moment the Mass concluded, I was completely paralyzed by a paroxysm of grief. When my brother gestured for me to go up to the podium and read what I had prepared, I backed out entirely. Instead, I simply stood silently beside her coffin, bidding a quiet goodbye to my wife at the very same altar where we had exchanged our wedding vows almost fifteen years before.