WIDOWER

WEEKS after my wife died at the age of 38 from breast cancer last August 5, I remember going in a daze to the Social Security System office in downtown Manila to file for funeral benefits. I came late and there was already a queue of anxious people waiting for their turn at the counter. A small group made me a part in their curious conversation, two of them widows in their fifties. The men are either retirees filing for pension or younger ones filing for sickness benefits. I didn’t meet in that small group a husband like me who had lost his wife.

That’s where I heard a chorus line of their opinion of me or my present situation: “Batang-bata ka pa para maging biyudo (You’re too young to become a widower).” I try to figure out the meaning of the words batang-bata (very young) and biyudo (widower). Well, it's true about the first word, relative to the widows and the retirees. But I was stung by the second word.

I left the cramped building finding myself shaking off stupor and trying to contemplate on the word biyudo, so clear and factual, as a new category of my civil status.

I belong now to thousands of Filipinos every year who are thrust into the role of a widow—young actress Camille Prats being one of the latest additions—and widower, being forced to learn how to cope on their own after many years of sharing a life with their partners. But a widower and a single father at my age is a very rare circumstance. An American survey reveals that widows outnumber widowers by nearly five to one.

During the wake, a cousin told me that among our relatives, there are widows but never there has been a widower. For her record, I must be the first widower in our enormous clan. An aunt and a grandaunt, both widows residing abroad, called me up in separate occasions to offer comforting words, but they could only tell me as far as what they had gone through as a woman or a mother who had lost their respective partners. They only have hypothesis on how a male homo sapiens would get by when he lost his life's mate. 

While my widowed relatives speak of feeling abandoned or deserted, I felt I have lost a big chunk of me. I saw myself as an incomplete human being and presently incapable of so many things, such as managing the household and caring for my three children. Last month, my primary source of inspiration and comfort had vanished without warning. What's left with me is this horrible fact that I have another 30 or more years left in this world without a partner.

I am on my last semester in law school, and by next month, I will be taking the last final exams for the course. At the time of my wife's death and the ensuing wake, I was scheduled to take the mid-term exams. Missing the exams and having incurred a number of absences more that what is required in most of my subjects made me decide to file a leave of absence, or perhaps to stop law school altogether. Without the encouragement from my classmates, I might not have gone back.

My wife had always been my inspiration. When I failed on my first try at law school, she lifted me up, and supported me even more when I transferred to another school. Without her now, I suddenly lost my direction, as if I was floating in an unchartered sea without my sail. I mourn not only for my spouse who died, but also for the future I had expected to have with her. 

My classmates and some of my friends may see me "acting normal again" but when I am alone the grief frequently returns. No matter how much I tried to regain my life, carry on with normal routines for my children's benefit, and catch up with the lessons, in preparation for the final exams, I am still bothered with numbness and denial. My grief doesn't magically dissipate. I still couldn't concentrate; my focus narrow.

Sometimes I was racked with guilt, and I regretted the lack of or poor decisions I had made. I even blamed my wife’s death on myself. I should not have allowed her to find cure outside of medical intervention. I should have had my way in forcing her to proceed with the surgery at the earlier stage of her illness. I should have done something to dispel her fear with chemotherapy. I should have stopped law school to have more time with her, although she wouldn’t allow that. But I was enfeebled by my lack of financial resources to help her, and blinded by some ambition we had shared. I lacked the ability to rescue her and to be her great protector. 

Fortunately some of my friends and relatives came to me with their empathetic eyes, kind offers of support, and encouraging Facebook postings and text messages, which helped a lot in my desperate condition. Some wanted me to engage myself with active coping and problem-solving strategies like work, a sports activity, or giving my full time with my kids. Some are candid enough to suggest that I have to let go and find a new partner at once. 

But that last advice is something I'm not yet ready to consider. I don't want that the main reason I pursue a new relationship is because I was lonely and missed the affection of my late wife. I don't want to become involved in a relationship before I am emotionally ready to take that step. Or I'm not even sure if I would ever remarry.

For the meantime, I prefer to be alone with my thoughts, reflecting on ways to cope with my new situation. I have to rebuild my life “one small block at a time” as some psychologists would readily advise people who are at a grieving mode.

For a start, I have to focus on my children's interest. I have to see how I could help them cope, and let them feel that in spite of our loss, we can revert to our normal lives and move on. I don't know how well they are recovering from the crisis. Dudoy won the gold medal in a spelling contest competed by private schools in our district in Bulacan. Eya maintained her first place position in the top ten for the first grading. N-yel, though moved down in the ranking in his class, became active in a Christian youth organization outside school. These might me good signs, but I must be on my guard especially this coming Christmas season.

And thank goodness for books. I always find reading therapeutic. It really helps me keep my sanity, before and during my wife's illness, and most especially now that I am at my lowest ebb two months after her death. I have bought lots of books, mostly secondhand items from Booksale, and whenever I have a chance, I squeeze on my time reading. I kept myself busy with the printed words, as if I get scared that when I'll run out of books to read, so with my sanity.

And one thing I did is to go back to blogging. I stopped posting on this blog more than a year ago, or around that time when my wife's condition started to go downhill. I revive this blog as a way of detailing my life in my road to recovery. It's a way for me to express my thoughts, no matter how random or trivial they are. I like to write, as much as I like to read. Let me just say that blogging, or writing generally, has also calming effect.

In fact, I already had an exhilarating and giddy relief when I was writing this article for my blog.



Bonding with my kids at EDSA Shangri-la Hotel

A PHOTOGRAPHER’S ART

DURING my wife’s wake, I decided not to take pictures of anything that happened. I don’t want to see images that remind me of the pain of losing my wife, with every moment stuck in my memory box. My sudden indifference to capture every part of this reality is I think understandable. Pictures from the wake would just stall my recovery from the tragic episode of my life.

I remember, however, that during the wake of my sister-in-law’s husband who died in May 2009, I volunteered to take the snapshots from the wake until the funeral. I even made from these pictures and video shots a 20-minute music video (a combination of photos and video clips). I didn’t have any idea on how my sister-in-law (my late wife’s elder sister) felt then when she looked at the pictures or watched the video after I presented them a few days after the funeral. The memories of their grief were hardwired in those episodes that I captured with my Kodak Easyshare digital camera. Would these downloadable memories help the family recover from that most sorrowful event of their lives? I don't think so.

On the third day of my wife’s wake, I brushed aside my resolve not to take any picture. That was when my kumpare and good friend, Ricky Canta, came to the wake and volunteered to take pictures during the funeral. How could I say no?

Ricky is a good friend. He was the photographer for Citylife magazine where I also worked then as assistant editor. My wife was the circulation clerk of said publication. The three of us became close friends. Ricky is tall and mild-mannered but with a good sense of humor. He was in his thirties then, married with three kids. The magazine job was just a part-time for him, as he was principally an event photographer. But in between work, he would stay in the press room until the completion of the magazine. So after a long press work, we would go out to unwind in some bar in Kalookan or Quezon City, as a treat, of course, from our tireless editor Joe Bautista.

As expected, when Rosalie and I got married in 1996 or just a few months after our meeting in the publication, Ricky was our unanimous choice for the official wedding photographer. He didn't charge for his service. He became my kumpare a year after, when he stood as a godparent for my firstborn. And of course, he also covered the baptismal ceremony. Rosalie resigned from the publication six months after the wedding. And when the magazine folded up a year later, Ricky went on his own way, establishing his photography business in Cavite. I’d lost contact with him after that. But thanks to Facebook, we were able to renew our contacts after more than a decade. He learned of Rosalie’s death only from my FB post two days after her death.

Ricky came to the wake barely an hour before midnight. He still couldn’t believe what happened to her. Before he left, he told me that he will take charge of the photography during the funeral. Free of charge. I just said “Yes, and thanks,” but with the condition that he would not take any close-up of my wife in the coffin.

Ricky had a total of 682 shots during the funeral, taken from the early morning before the necrological mass up to the parting of the guests in the cemetery. It’s a helluva lots of pictures—sad, poignant images—now stored in a DVD-R.

According to American author Eudora Welty, a good snapshot stops a moment from running away. They stay, and in these particular snapshots from Ricky, the emotion lingers. But at a second look, these shots are work of an artist. The shots are full expression of what he felt about his subject. They are drawn on an inspiration, rattled only by a grief of his own, as I caught him with tears while focusing on his angles.

Here are just a few of his shots. I might put the title “Grief” on top of the sample, because that's what is all about. I rather forget this little pang of unease that evoke those painful memories. The reality is beside the point now; the images were all that mattered.

A POEM FROM HER FILE

AFTER the funeral, I seem pretty numb and restless and not sure what to do with the personal things that my wife had left, mostly in our bedroom. I can still feel her presence with them, and as if she has not left us after all, that right now she is still in the hospital, or recuperating in their family house in Malate, Manila.

Two weeks after the funeral, I started sorting out the house and gathering all her belongings. Clearing out belongings of the dead, someone says, is a way of trying to move on. But clearing away belongings can be more painful this very early. Just now I feel a hot blur of pain in my throat when I look at her things. Holding her personal things again and feeling her presence—or absence—brings me to malignant grief. I have had some sad experiences in my life so far, but this one of holding the things of a loved just after her death, is one of the most heart wrenching and saddest for me.

My wife’s sister told me that I have to wait for 40 days, or a year, after her death before parting her personal belongings totally. Would that make things slow and painless on my part? Right now I had to pack away things but only those I think would be too impractical to leave around. But I’m not in a hurry to make a move to get rid of every last item that had belonged to my wife.

Actually, I began sorting out her papers, or documents, that exclusively belong to her a week after her death. I went into her personal files and gathered records of her birth and marriage, our kid’s baptismal certificates, and other important employment records that I could use for my application for death benefits in SSS and for other purposes.

But then it’s not all that easy. Other than those documents, there are letters, messages, special photos that she kept, and some of her personal notes that I had browsed. Memories came in a deluge, and I was overwhelmed with grief. Yet I must not allow myself to fall apart because to do so would only accomplish nothing.

From her brief case I saw an original copy of a poem that I had written for her barely a month before our first anniversary. It’s only now that I realize I had written just one poem, and not even a single love letter, for her in our 14 years of marriage. There were times she spoke about me not being as sweet as before; she must have missed receiving letters, or poems, that she used to while we were still young lovers and in the early years of our marriage. SMS or text messaging was an unknown animal then. Defending myself, I would remind her of my kind of job, and those family matters that keep me busy all the time; or perhaps as between us, a familiarity and complacency that made me unaware of any storm to come. How could I’ve known that her life is as short as an epigram? Are words not really enough then?

Going back to the solitary poem from her file, I remember why I put into words my thoughts for her. It was the very first night after our wedding day that she did not sleep beside me. She attended a church activity somewhere with her sister and mother that night and they had to stay overnight. I couldn’t sleep, so instead of fretting about her absence until the wee hours, I scribbled lines for her.

When I handed her the poem, I even read it for her and explained what it means, tears welled in her eyes. She embraced me while expressing her appreciation and love to me.

So I had to read the lines again… for her.

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's gone now. Yet I had to fight and continue moving on, to dispel this ugly grief—but all these things take a great deal of energy or conscious indifference to pain.

I need something to hold on. Perhaps I must resort to writing verses again, about our past together or my 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 remarkable woman. She was my best friend, my lover and soul mate. She was my wife, and the mother of my three children. I shall truly miss her.

Rosalie, the sunshine of my life for over 14 years, succumbed to breast cancer (stage 4) with liver complication last August 5, 2011. She was only 38.

Someone had told me that losing your partner in marriage is one of life’s most traumatic events. Though I would say, losing a mother, for my kids, and a beautiful daughter, for my mother-in-law, would merit the same pain, the same trauma. But again, I would say, death by any reason or definition is very difficult for the bereaved. Nothing will be the same again. But we are thankful that Rosalie's suffering was brief and her passing peaceful.

Last June this year my dear wife Rosalie felt an abdominal pain which lasted for almost three months and culminated in the loss of her life. On July 22, upon the advice of her sister and a cousin, she was convinced to be admitted in the hospital. I said “convinced” or I might say “forced,” because days before that, she vehemently refused any suggestion from her immediate family to go the hospital and be treated by doctors. In spite of the bearable pain, she chose to be given medication instead. She had that fear of surgery, of doctors operating on her. You might say it’s an imprudent decision, but please understand that my wife was just being confused, a personal turmoil that had started two or three years ago, where she was first diagnosed of the dreadful "big C." It was her choice to keep it to herself, and I had respected that.

And this I would like to ask you, and it’s for you to judge: did my wife choose the best thing for her? Did we, her family, fail to guide her and give what’s best for her? But did anyone of you know very well what’s best for her?

Before I go on, please respect whatever decision my wife had made. That was her decision and her family respected that, at sana ay mauunawaan ninyo rin siya. 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 you be sure na kung nagpaopera si Rosalie, at sumailalim sa kinatatakutan niyang chemotherapy treatment ay gagaling siya ng tuluyan?

Rosalie's father died of cancer when she was 17 years old. One of her officemates died also of cancer (breast cancer), na lagi niyang pinapaalala sa akin tuwing iminumungkahi ko ang operasyon. Baka daw makatulad niya rin ito na namatay pagkatapos gumastos ng napakalaki sa operasyon at chemoteraphy. Alam po lahat ni Rosalie ang mga ito; yun lang po ang asawa ko ay ayaw sumugal sa buhay.

Ganunpaman, tuloy-tuloy ang pagdarasal ng asawa ko; gabi-gabi nagrorosario siya. Early this year, she started doing a novena to the Shrine of Divine Mercy in Marilao. May kaibigan kaming nagsabi na may mga gumaling na sa pagnonobena rito. At iyon nga po ang ginawa niya. Hanggang sa huling mga araw niya sa ospital, tangan-tangan niya ang kanyang maliit na rosaryo at ang pampleto mula sa Divine Mercy. Umaasa siya na siya ay gumaling para sa pamilya niya. At kung ano man ang naging panalangin niya hanggang sa huling sandali ay hindi ko na po alam.

Please understand her. We respected her decision, we guided her, and we prayed for her. We did not leave 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 make any sense out of this tragedy, it is that life is both fleeting and precious. I have also been told that in time, the pain that I feel would subside and that I would only possess the marvelous memories of our lives together.

It all started in Rex Printing Co., in Quezon City where I worked as a proofreader. Siya naman ay nahuling pumasok as a circulation clerk ng Publications Department. Ipinakilala siya sa akin ng kanyang kaibigan na si Leah Bartolome na kaklase niya sa PSBA.

But prior to our meeting, or before my final interview at Rex, nagdasal ako noon sa Sto. Domingo Church, malapit kasi doon ang opisina ng Rex, na kung matanggap ako sa work, sana makilala ko rin dito ang mapapangasawa ko. Ang unang babae na nakita ko pagkalabas ko ng Church ay si Leah. I don’t know kung bakit nakangiti yun sa akin. Yun pala, after a year, siya lang pala ang maging daan para makilala ko ang aking future wife.

Nagustuhan ko si Rosalie dahil kahit sabihing mukhang suplada, may nakita akong kahinhinan at kabaitan sa kanya. Pilit man minsan ang kanyang mga ngiti ay namumutawi naman ang katamisan kung siya ay kakausapin. Rosalie had a smile that would light up a room. She quickly became the center of my universe. I was truly in love with her.

After our first meeting, napanaginipan ko isang gabi na ipinakilala ako sa father niya. Pumasok kami sa kuarto ng father niya na noon ay bumabangon mula sa pagkahiga sa isang steel double deck. I didn’t know that his father was already dead that time. Kaya noong nagpunta ako sa house nila, kahawig nga ng lalaki na nasa frame sa dingding nila ang lalaking napanaginipan ko. At meron din pala silang double deck na bakal (na ngayon ay nasa bahay namin sa Marilao). Later ko lang nalaman, ka-birthday ko pala ang tatay niya, at hindi lang siya, kundi ang dalawa pang kapatid niya ay parehong ipinanganak ng September 21. It’s very weird, but I know something had been planned for me that time.

So kahit noong sinagot niya ako, parang lubos ko na siyang kakilala. Kung ano ang pagkakilala ko sa kanya, iyon pa rin siya hanggang kami ay mag-asawa. Wala siyang itinagong ugali. No pretensions whatsoever, ‘ika nga.

Rosalie and I had a life full of ups and downs like any other couple, but we did our best to please each other. We enjoyed being at home with our kids. We enjoyed jazz together. We are both avid listeners of Josh Groban and Michael Buble. Just having a simple or uncomplicated family in an uncomplicated marriage was our ardent desire.

Family was Rosalie’s heart and soul. The most important people in her life 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. Kahit mayroon na siyang karamdaman, sinasamahan pa rin niya si Roseya sa kanyang ballet school and lately sa gymnastics last summer. Kahit sa Pasig pa yun, go lang siya nang go para sa anak naming babae.

And, of course, another important person is her mother. Dahil pumanaw na maaga ang kanyang ama, lahat ng pagmamahal ay gusto niyang ibigay kay Nanay. Ito ang isang dahilan kung bakit noong nagsisimula pa lang kaming bumuo ng isang pamilya ay di ko mayaya na doon kami tumira sa Ilokos. Ayaw niyang iwanan si Nanay.

I can say with absolute confidence that Rosalie is not gone: She is everywhere, and she is with us right now. She’s with her children every hour of the day now. She’s still part of our prayers and she’s with us as we make our dreams fulfilled.

Rosalie is gone but her love, hope and devotion to her family remains and the simplest way my children and I can repay her back is to keep that flame of love, devotion and her hope for the family eternally burning in our hearts.

This afternoon, I ask all of you to feel the joy and beauty of Rosalie’s boundless spirit as we celebrate her truly amazing life. So on behalf of my sons Nathaniel and Neyo Martin, my daughter Roseya, and my mother-in-law, I thank you all for coming, and pray that you keep her in your heart always.

And we know too, that without doubt, she will be welcomed where she belongs now, in the Kingdom of Heaven.
_______
I wrote this a night before the interment on the 13th of August. But I wasn't able to read this during the necrological mass held at Malate Catholic Church. I was already overwhelmed with grief as soon as the mass ended. I backed out when my brother asked me to go up the podium and read what I had prepared. I just stood beside her coffin, and bid goodbye to my wife in the same altar where we exchanged vows almost 15 years ago.

42 BOOKS IN A YEAR

LAST year I’ve read 42 books, the most for any year since I have started reading pocketbooks when I was in grade school. And at the end of the year I still have 58 books in my shelf waiting to be read; almost all of which I bought from book stores and sidewalk shops that sell secondhand books. So far I’ve read four books last January, and this month I’m on my sixth book. And with this rate, I might finish reading all the books in my waiting list for this year.

Why the sudden surge of number of books read? My previous personal best was 17 books which I tallied in 2004 (I have been making a list of what I read since high school). I wasn’t really serious when I joined the Shelfari group, which dares members to read 50 books a year; I just wanted to try to measure up among the most voracious readers in the group, and to challenge myself as well. I almost made the cut last year. But with my target of 4 or 5 books a month, which I was able to achieve in the last two months, I think I am on track to finish more than 50 books for the year.

And I have been as voracious as I was in '04, in spite of my tight schedule of my workload in the office, my law studies, and freelance writing. And whenever I have a chance I squeeze on my time hunting for secondhand books. As if I got scared that I'll run out of good books to read!

I read any chance I get, and anywhere! I bring with me whatever book I am reading wherever I go, just in case I have a few minutes to wait for a ride, or my turn to pay in a grocery counter. Why not, a few minutes of waiting, is a few less minutes of boredom.

I can usually read even with distractions around. It depends on how good the book is! I read on my commute to work each day (about an hour each way). At work when I get bored, and sometimes on my lunch breaks, I would read a book. For the rest of the day especially before my class schedule I read my textbooks, assigned cases (photocopied from SCRA), and other law-related materials.

When I get home from work and definitely before bedtime, I devour more pages of the novel I am currently reading. And my favorite place to read is in bed with a comfortable pillow.

I remember one weekend during my college years, I practically did not rise from bed until lunchtime just to finish a John Grisham book. And some years earlier, while I was in high school in Narvacan, I would bring a book with me whenever I led my cow to graze in the pasture. I stayed under a tree or beside tall grasses while watching over my cow. But during those days, I only had a limited number of books to read. Most of the books were borrowed from someone else. I never owned a single book. I was only able to buy my first pocketbook ever, the classic Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, when I was l already working in my first job in Quezon City.

Now with my renewed interest (or addiction, according to my wife) in reading pocketbooks, I can now read classic and popular books that I never had a chance to read during my younger years. There are free sites for downloading e-books but I still prefer reading them on paperbacks. My extra pay from my freelance job had helped me shore up my budget for books. I believe that in my years of reading, my brain has become more robust and energized, as I began to appreciate life around me more than I used to. I’ve never been a social person, rightly now as a working student. How could I miss hanging out with friends or going to a party when I could ensconce myself anytime I want in any corner conducive to reading? A Sunday, of course, is a family day, and partly freelance-work day and partly reading day.

I consider these books out of the 42 which I read last year as the ones that gave me the mostest benefits of entertainment, wisdom and all: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Journey by James A. Michener, The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis, Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy, The Cider House Rules by John Irving, and East of Eden by John Steinbeck.

And more to come in my waiting list.

STAYING HOME

CHRISTMAS season, particularly the holiday break, is by far the most joyous time of the year. Having an extended time off work and just taking things easy at home with my family make it more blissful for me.

From the 23rd to the 29th of December, I enjoyed hanging out at our own little house in Marilao, Bulacan than somewhere else. I wouldn't even get dressed. It was my day to relax and read and do housekeeping without time pressures.

First on my list was to organize my school and personal files on my work/study area and those in my desktop by saving my files on CDs as backup. Next was to deal with clutter and dirt all over the house. It’s amazing how much clutter can accumulate when you’re not paying attention to it.

I sorted through unused clothes, books and magazines, decorations, and kitchen wares. And while inspecting shelves, closets and kitchen racks, I discovered swarm of termites burrowing on a closet where my kids’ old school books and some of my school files are stacked. The termites must have found the books delicious that they crunched almost all of them and nibbled on some of my files. The rest of my files and other parts of the house would have been gobbled down had I failed to detect the silent insect invasion for a couple of months more.

My wife helped me in decluttering and keeping our home guest-ready. We had visitors on the 24th, mostly my in-laws from Malate, Manila. With additional work to deal with, like wrapping gifts and planning and actually preparing for the noche buena, keeping a clean home for the holiday can be a real challenge to her. She had to redo the decors on the Christmas tree and walls, and had to change the curtains and sofa covers.

Staying home also means helping with the laundry and sharing with cooking chores. But this time, as if in an extended family weekend, I do most of the cooking. Of course, I enjoyed most of it, especially when I see my kids anticipating my mostly Ilocano recipes that I served on the table.

And during my free time (no household chores to do), I see to it that my kids are entertained every second of the day, otherwise, you would hear from them “I’m bored” or “When are we going out?” I let them watch DVD movies with me and my wife. They were happy watching old movies and some cartoons.

I gave my kids extended time for play which I wouldn’t normally do during school days. I allowed them to play with their playmates in the street, especially in the afternoon. My two boys played basketball in the plaza near our place every morning. My six-year-old girl was content playing with her new Barbie doll and her cash register toy. I allowed them to swim with their cousins in the club house pool on Christmas day, and we flew kites on the next day.

My kids thought that the holidays were just fine, even with my cancellation of any plans of a holiday getaway. Good enough, even while they were home, they got what they requested from Santa, and had received the gifts and even cash sent to them by their godparents and relatives.

I told them that going to Star City during this time is out of the question, because with the monstrous crowd at its peak season they might not get their money’s worth as they had to endure long queues for their favorite theme park rides.

Going to the mall is also out of the plan. I would not willingly drag my kids during holiday madness through wandering mall traffic, and multitudes of shoppers darting and dashing between clumps of regular stalls and those mini tiangges! How I hate long queues for security checks at narrow entrances and those Christmas carols playing non-stop! I don’t think I could endure long lines on counters and even on restroom. And best of all, I intentionally blocked the temptation of spending too much by shunning shopping malls during this season.

Surprisingly, though, we all found out that we gained so much fun even without going outside our home during the holiday break. Call me shallow, but being with my family for seven straight days at home was a rare and exhilarating experience. I wouldn’t exchange that for any material gift for this season.

REMEMBERING OUR DEAD

DEATH is a natural cycle. It is normal as there is birth, baptismal, wedding, rejoicing or celebration; as regular as the night reigning supreme over the sun’s realm but only for half of the day. This is not a big surprise, since no one lives forever. Everyone who comes to this world has to leave. All of us will die.

But yet death can be so heart-wrenchingly shattering, especially when it happens in the family. It isn’t anything anyone wants to think about, yet it is part of our life. This is the bitter awakening of what we are fated for, what we should be living for. It’s a realization that when death knocks at our door, in spite of the fullness of life, we must give in, as a sleepy man must not, as it is useless, to resist sleep after a tiring day.

And to remember our relatives and loved ones who are dead, we light a candle for them, offer flowers and prayers at their grave. We now love them in their absence as we did in their presence. We mourn for losing them, but we can smile with the thought that there was rejoicing in heaven for having them now.

My own first experience of death came when I was about six. It was my first memory of a close relative leaving us. Minutes before his tragic death, I saw Uncle Erning enter the house that night just to inform my parents that he was going home to the barrio after closing their stall at the market. My mother invited him to stay and have his dinner but he declined. He said my cousins Edwin and Danny who were in the tricycle, were in a hurry to go home. But minutes after he left, he got into an accident that caused him his life. A van collided with his tricycle as they negotiated a junction just a kilometer away from our house. My two cousins were spared. I remember my Aunt Colling the next morning screaming, kicking and shaking, and wailing to high heavens “Why?” I felt sad that this was happening. My uncle was so alive when I saw him that night. This was unfair. I knew how hurt my aunt was.

But prior to Uncle Erning’s death, our own family had suffered two deaths. A brother and a sister both died when they were born (our youngest, my mother’s 10th child, was also stillbirth when she came out years later). When I was a boy, their graves were the ones we visited in the cemetery. I remember them only how they died, but not how they looked as I never had the chance to look at their faces or to hold them.

I was in elementary school when another death came in our family. And I was a witness how it came about. When my lolo sa tuhod, my maternal grandmother’s father, breathed his last on his death bed, I was with some of my cousins, aunts and an uncle who was especially summoned to Apong Casio’s side. I saw my uncle’s hand clasped with that of my great-grandfather, as the latter started to jerk, gasped and then he went off. There was a symphony of wailing around the house. The wake was held in our house, and it was more of a reunion than anything else because of multitude of relatives, most of whom my parents had not seen for years, some of them from Hawaii, to attend the wake.

But the saddest part was when my maternal grandfather died in 1990 due to a lingering illness. I received the news while I was in the boarding house near the university where I was a college freshman. My brother Romel and I were both stunned. Apong Angel was very close to all his grandchildren, as he was the very reason why we always had reunions during Christmas and some family celebrations. He was the venerable patriarch, enforcer of discipline, a referee in some fights with my siblings and cousins, but a storyteller par excellence. My brother and I hurriedly went to the barrio that afternoon and we were able to see our grandfather still on his death bed, as the coffin had yet to arrive.

I will never forget the two weeks that followed. The gloom hung like a cloud over everything, and whenever I think of that time, the gloom comes back to me (as when I was writing this blog, I felt a lump in my throat). My mother, aunts and uncles, my mother’s siblings, and my cousins were inconsolable, but everyone stuck to one another in grief. It’s all for our beloved apong lakay (grandfather).

Apong Ansang, my paternal grandmother, died when I was already married and working in Manila. She was bedridden for the longest time as she was already sick and old when I visited her during summer, in one of my rare vacations in my hometown in Ilocos. She was staying in an uncle’s house just a block away from ours. She found difficulty recognizing me. And when she got my name right, she requested for a pasayan (prawn) for her dinner, at least, as she told me, before death could overtake her. I told father about it but he replied that my grandmother was only acting out just to be pitied. In short, I must not be bothered about it. I know father was not close to her mother because when she got a second family after grandfather died, my father and his siblings when they were young were left with the care of their spinster aunt and a very stern grandfather. That perhaps started the estrangement, or aloofness, even when death beckons her mother.

A month after I went back to Manila, Apong Ansang passed away. I went to her wake with a heavy heart, not just for the loss, but for the prawns that I was not able to buy for her.

The death of my maternal grandmother, Apong Lumen in 2003, brought the same gloom as when Apong Angel, her husband, died 12 years earlier. Only that the whole Escobar clan had matured then, and we knew that death is inevitable for her advance age. And everyone accepted the fact that her death made way for my mother and her siblings to settle whatever differences and misunderstanding they had before, and for them to account for the estate.

But there’s one scene during the funeral that I will never forget. Milton, my eldest brother and one having the distinction as the unang apo (first grandson), was very silent during the wake and the funeral mass after that. After the mass, as it was the tradition, all of us relatives, went near the coffin for our final respect and for pictorials. Milton maintained his stoic stance unlike most of us who are either sobbing and moaning and gasping for breath. When it was time to close the coffin , my brother asked the procession to stop for a brief moment. He went near the coffin, embraced it, and it was only then that I heard his most mournful cry to date.

There were other deaths in the family, most of them close relatives, but rarely did I attend the wake or funeral. But I couldn’t cry as I did when I was young. Death would just come and go. And for this year, my mother’s cousin who was living in Hawaii died of stroke, and my paternal granduncle died of old age.

But the death early this year of my sister-in-law’s husband due to heatstroke was one of my saddest times. It was so sudden. Only a month earlier, Kuya Rudy was in our house to celebrate with his granddaughter who, with her mother, lived with us in Bulacan in the duration of the young girl’s daycare education. Our family had a good time with him in SM Marilao for my children’s recognition day. He had been very helpful in times of our need, like when we needed a repairman for our electrical connections in the house, or a helping hand during a handaan (party) for some important occasion.

But with his funeral, I didn’t cry for him, because I know he’s in a very peaceful place now. My stifled cry went for those he left behind. His wife, who was now left alone to tend for the family. A daughter and a daughter-in-law who were both pregnant that time, their unborn no longer have the opportunity to see their grandfather alive.

It was Kuya Rudy’s grave, along with my father-in-law’s, in South Cemetery in Makati that my wife, my three kids and I visited yesterday, a day earlier than the usual time for the observance of All Soul’s day. Only a year ago, in this same cemetery, Kuya Rudy was with us, so full of life, while the whole family lit candles for our dead. Now he’s on the other side, and the thought of it made me really sad.

But the melancholy will not last forever, I’m pretty sure. And our natural course is to live and then wait for our own time to depart this life. Why not, if we the living live deeply enough, then we have no fear of death.