Mourning till Night

“The dawn is breaking, a light shining through…”

I woke up one morning to an eerie silence. The sun’s rays shone differently that day. As they passed through my window, they changed color from a glowing yellow to a mellow and silent orange. It seemed peaceful, but it felt otherwise. As I opened my door, a chilling breeze immediately and suddenly met me. As I stood there, just outside my door and beside a staircase, I tried to listen to what was going on downstairs. I couldn’t. I went down the stairs, letting my feet slam and making my slippers clap with every step. I reached the living room and as soon as I did, I turned the TV on and put myself comfortably on the couch. The same orange sunlight filled the living room and a small, white butterfly flew by and landed beside the TV. Minutes passed and I finally saw someone. It was the maid, and I figured, it should be relieving to finally hear someone’s voice in this strange and silent morning. It then turned out that the first words that I would hear that morning were to tell me that my closest grandaunt had just died.

It was lola Miliang, who I’d spent most of my childhood with. The same grandaunt that had never forgotten to give me hugs whenever we met. The same grandaunt that never got too tired to talk and spend time with me. And yet, the minute I had learned of her death, I didn’t feel any sadness, loneliness or grief. I just sat there, silent, waiting for a TV show to start. I felt nothing. And later that day, I’d question myself, “Do I really care? … Do I want to care?” I tried to dig deep inside me, and I thought to answer myself, “No. I don’t.”

“I worry I won’t see your face light up again…”

So months passed by, and I continued on with my life. I didn’t feel changed in any way and I didn’t think I was, but one day came when my mom, my sisters and I were having a discussion. Somehow, the topic flew from “best places we’ve ever been to” to lola Miliang, and so we began talking about her. Words just flew by and soon enough my mom would tell us how our family was very close to lola, how much she especially loved me, and how she felt extremely sad when we moved out of the old house, the place where she’d lived. “Malungkot na malungkot yung lola mo noon. Pinipilit pa niya kami ng daddy mo na doon ka nalang tumira.” Somehow, that hurt me, and I swear I wanted to cry, but I held myself together, not showing my mom and my sisters what I felt inside. It was awful, how I felt, and it only got worse when my mom told us how lola kept the pillow I slept on when we lived in our old home. She really cared. I felt completely terrible and it got harder and harder to keep myself from crying. I stayed silent through the whole talk, ‘cause I knew everything in me was shaking, and keeping silent was the only thing holding off the tears from falling out of my eyes. Later that night, I locked myself in my room, and just let myself think and feel. And I realized, “That thing that I was looking for when she died, that thing I tried to find deep inside me, it’s here and it’s real.” This time, I knew I cared, even if I didn’t want to.

Then came this one morning, months after that family talk. I woke up in a bus with different kinds of people. There were old men and women, people in their twenties, and kids my age. I wasn’t sure how I got there, but it didn’t seem to matter. Nothing did. We stopped over a few places: a gas station, a park and a basketball court. And throughout the journey it seemed like a cloud was following us. Everything always seemed surrounded by a fluffy, white glow. The whole trip was long, and I wasn’t sure where we were going. After a few stops and a long drive, we reached a gate, and somehow, I knew that we’ve arrived to our destination. People started getting out of the bus, and when I did, I saw people waiting, some meeting and hugging those from the bus. I watched as the people meet their friends, or whatever those other people meant to them. And as I scanned the crowd, I saw her. Lola Miliang, in her floral dress, with a comb secured on her head, smiling at me. It felt like nothing I’ve ever felt before. I approached her and we hugged. I had finally said goodbye. This didn’t last long, though. Soon, everything blurred and became nothing.

“Don’t stop here. I lost my place. I’m close behind.”

I woke up and realized the whole “trip” was a dream. It was all a dream. I put my face to my hands and realize that tears were falling out of my eyes. That thing that came to me months before, it was back and it was stronger than ever. I couldn’t go back to sleep. I just lay there, in the dark, thinking. Then I thought, that thing I tried to find and came months after, I didn’t find it then because I was looking in too deep. I tried so hard to make myself care that I’d forgotten that I didn’t need to, because I already did. And that certain thing I wanted to find, it was her. It was lola. She was a part of me, and I’ve only realized then.

Thinking of that, it was like everything had fallen to its place. The day she died, I felt passive because somehow, I knew she lived somewhere inside me. It didn’t feel like she was dead. But reality hit me like a jumbo jet, and the thought of her made me cry because I knew that I’ve never had a chance to say goodbye or show her how much she’d mean to me. Then, in a feeling of satisfaction, I felt that my dream had fulfilled that. I really felt like I had finally said goodbye.

This whole experience gave me a new look on death and loss. I found that, in these things, we find out how people really mean to us. These give us a deeper understanding of the people we care about, and through that, death and loss of those you really care about give us a deeper understanding of ourselves. It hurts us so much to lose someone because people around us, especially those we care and love, build up who we are. So, now as we find those we have lost, or as we fail to do so in this world we live in, we should look to ourselves, realize that they will never really die, that they really do live in us, and say that…

“Out of the doubt that fills my mind, I somehow find, you and I… collide.”

*quotes are lyrics from Howie Day’s Collide
**this happened a long time ago. haha.

~ by leozacarias on March 16, 2008.