dearly departed

we did our yearly trek to the busy makati south cemetery mid-morning to pay our respects to our dearly departed. being a public cemetery, it was its usual busy self abuzz with people who wants to remember their loved ones. you have to hand it to the filipino and their strong ties with tradition - that despite the 4-day weekend beginning to day, a lot still prefer to go on november 1 to pay their respects. its difficult for us to pay our respects all in a single day since our dearly departed have been laid to rest in different cemeteries - la loma, manila memorial and makati south cemetery. i'll probably swing by manila memorial in the next couple of days instead.

death - the only certain thing in life. i wonder if when the time comes, i will be prepared to come face to face with my maker. to honor the people who have passed on, i'll write what i remember about them here in this space.

evangeline sison. she was mother to my cousins who i never got the chance to meet because she passed away before i was even born. its hard to imagine how difficult it would have been for my cousins growing up without their mother.

carina sison. carina was my cousin who passed away at a very young age. i don't remember exactly but she must have been between 8 to 10 years old. i was very young then - probably just a bit older than her but i remember she got sick back then. one of the things i remember was that after she passed away, her family had to move their door because it was directly aligned to the front gate. people believed the superstition that the doors should not go straight to the gate because this somehow invited death.

dad. mom's father we fondly called "dad" and my uncle, aunts and mom tells me that dad took care of me growing up. its been such a long time since he passed away that its hard to remember now. what i remember was that he used to pick us up at our house during all saint's day so we can pay our respects to our loved ones at manila memorial. dad suffered from cirhossis of the liver - i remember how painful it was for him back when he was in the hospital. when i got the call at home that dad passed away, there were sampaguita flowers scattered near the telephone which was a bit unusual. maybe it was just coincidence.

mang. after dad passed away, mang (mom's mother) gave us ten great years of family reunions. she was the tie that bound everyone together. mang was in the hospital for a bit and i was there in the ICU when she breathed her last. i don't know how my mom and her brothers made the decision for a DNR (do not resuscitate) - how hard it must have been to make that choice for someone you love so much. i miss grandma.

lolo. we called daddy's father "lolo" which was tagalog for "grandfather." lolo was a very nice and generous man. i remember growing up in mandaluyong that we'd always run up to him and ask for some change and he'd readily give us whatever he could spare. we were not that close to our relatives on the father side but lolo was the one we liked a lot. lolo passed away ahead of "mang" but what i remember from his passing is the funeral preparations - seeing lolo taken from his house, driving around manila making arrangements out of his memorial plan, and seeing him at the morgue. lolo was well loved and everyone of his relatives that i met had only great words to say about him.

abet. abet isn't a relative. we didn't even grow up together and i didn't even know him not until he was an intern for the big blue. he rode with me to the office most of the two years that i've known him and we got to talk about a lot of things. abet was funny and serious in balance and i could never get rid of him -- kasi nga sabay kami pumapasok at umuuwi. i don't know until now exactly what he died of - all i know is that abet went ahead at a very young age of 25. we were all heartbroken when he passed away but the pain of his loss felt easier to bear as the days went by.

writing this made me realize how great a childhood i had, having the privilege of growing up with my grandparents. i hope wherever they are right now that they are happy and at peace. i hope abet is at peace. i really believe in my heart they are in a better place - and one day for sure, i will see them again.