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.