Death is something mysteriously fearful and uncertain. i always thought i am excused in experiencing this. When my lola died, she was almost 90 so we kinda expected it. I mean, two of three months before that, I was asking the Lord to take her already since she was always walking and walking around San Juan just visiting old friends (Old friends who were not there anymore - anyway, she gets to speak with their children who are retired or almost retired so they are at home) and looking for laing leaves. I whispered a sincere prayer that day, as I was looking at her old and gray and a little bent, slightly stumbling from side to side. In a mystical and almost saintly voice, that was way back - "What is she still doing here, Lord? If there is something more she needs to pay , like an unrepented sin that keeps her from being with you (Purgatory thing - for us Catholics, don't worry not everybody is perfect), let me just be the one to pay for it. Balato mo na lang sa akin, Lord. (Just give me the punishment...)"
In less than three months (I think about 1 1/2 months) after that, she succumbed to death. She just became weak and very sleepy and all. Her last breath, my Tita Edeng told me (this person died some years after), was just like a deep breath - as if she was sleeping. And then, she gave her spirit. Just a week before that, she was exclaiming to all those around me, after being able to recognize me - she was already weak at that time: "This is my favorite grandson, whom I love very very much" - she was hugging me and all. Until now, twelve years hence, I am still teary-eyed every time I recount those things.
When we went there, we were complete. Mother was there. Jomari was trying to carry Wawa (that's how we call her) and he was saying to me, "She's heavy, George", meaning that she is close to death, something that Jomari and I were theorizing on, based on the stories we heard and read about dying people.
I can remember him urging wawa to get up, saying Wawa, timpla ka naman ng kape. Please make us some coffee. And Wawa would move a bit, as if she wants to make that one last coffee before she goes. That was the last time we saw her alive. For after we left that house, at around 1 in the morning, there were knocks on the gate. I knew. We knew, all of us. We rose to a single person. No one was sleeping pala. We knew she was dead. "And I thought she was immortal", was what I told them that night.
In two months, the punishment came, by the way. And it was hellish, if you know what I mean. I never went to the hospital or anything. Later, I realized that I should've. I could've died then. I also realized, reading way later about my symptoms back then, that what I had wasn't German Measles, as the diagnosis of our family doctor maintained. She never went to our house anyway and was diagnosing through the phone, with my mother. It was closer to Dengue Fever I realized later. My mouth was filled with sores of all sorts, due because of the extreme temperature (I was doing a consistent 39 and 40) for six days.
I just stayed at home, with my father who attended to me. He was my nurse back then. He was not that good though. He would sleep off while I needed water and all. I forgive him. He is a father for J-sake. Anyways, my mother usually comes home for lunch. She works at Aquinas pa then. And she walks lang to our house. She would go home, grab a few bite and check on me, give me medicine, and go back to office in time for 1 o-clock. I think she did this going home thing for years in Aquinas. Especially during days when we are sick and all.
I already typed the words "When my father died" but pressed the back space several times. I am not ready to recount that one just yet. Perhaps later this year. I just felt the need to write about this. This morning, the clock hanging on the wall fell down and broke into pieces just as I was leaving the house. I am not pessimistic or superstitious and all, today being the 13th of January, a Friday. It's just that everyday of our life, we are struggling to survive for one more day. It's a curse or something, that a new day brings to us a new beginning. But it also brings us a day closer to our death. Death comes to all. And I sure hope it comes to me in about 65 years pa, so that I will be a hundred years old, but I know it's not for me to dictate on the length of time. Anyway, it's not how long... that's how the song goes isn't it?
Death has always been something automatically acceptable only to the person dying. Well, I should like to think that way. Else, dying and living will be unbearable. Tears are only for those who are left behind, that was a favorite line from my mother. I do not know where she got it. Perhaps, from Emilie Loring, her favorite writer.
My motto now? The one I had for twenty two years now (I think I was in first year high when I formulated this) - Live, love, be happy, then die. I think it is infinitely better than the "Eat, drink, be merry for tomorrow we die". I was reading the history of the Greek and Roman civilizations that time, when I wrote to my notebook those words. Live, love, be happy, then die. Live well, love much, try hard to be happy on earth, then, be ready to leave everything. Everything - money, family, love, earthly joys, your guitar, the laptop and the ipod. Everything. Even the web.
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