Friday, June 6, 2008

far too many goodbyes

Friday, June 6, 2008
yet again...
... and then yet again, in this part of the circle of life... I find myself reeling from the news as a read the message, never imagining that something like this would happen again and again and again in such short time. I have written this before and I am writing this again. Somehow, it doesn't hurt as much but still a bigger hole is there. An emptiness.

The first this happened was a year ago, and the days that followed once in a while I'd expect my uncle just walk-in the door and ask to borrow one of our books. I know he's gone but then somehow in those early days, I'd still imagine him walking in the gate. The blow it took to my grandma so hard that in the months that followed her health deteriorated. She didn't tell us. She'd just wake up early in the morning and go on with her panata... her routine... then one night, she woke up shouting "matay akon" (I'm dying). We rushed her to the hospital and the following days we discovered that her heart was failing... she's had pneumonia and the worse was that she wouldn't eat... Lola Masa was in and out of the hospital then, I was in back and forth between Manila and Baguio, between studying for the boards and being a caretaker... On the last day of September, she was at home just being discharged from the hospital, I just arrived home, taking a break from review. She was weak for the past days and hated the fact that she had to be dependent on others. She went into arrest a few minutes after I arrived, a few minutes after I said hello... She had to be placed in a respirator to buy time to say goodbye. They've said that at last she smiled, when I said hello, her last smile.

Past the first Christmas and New Year without my uncle and lola, a new routine, a new tradition was being established. I went back to manila to start my residency and furthered too my interest in photography. Just before the first year anniversary of my uncle, I receive yet again another message, Lolo Selo just died... mind reeling, heart pounding... last year was a series of deaths from my mother's side... and now, would it start from my father's side? would it? I hoped it doesn't. I took a controversial leave from my work. It was that time that people told me how proud he was when he read my name among the board passers. Very early in the morning, he went aorund Pangasinan announcing the news. He even arrived at our house waking up the then asleep and unaware household. The phrase I remember most when I was introduced at his wake, "Ay, alam mo ba, nagpamigay sya ng balut nung pumasa ka, tuwang-tuwa at inikot ang barangay hawak ang newspaper". A late time to say thank you. But thank you still.

And now, I think I would have a hard time to take a leave again, but I'll try.

... there's far too many goodbyes... a hello would be nice.

1 replies:

INKBLOTS said...

My condolences!

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