Cat not included. Thank you, Ku:)January 16, 2009
January 5, 2009
Random Thoughts, Grasping at Straws
I've always thought that people who have to deal with the death of a loved one only has to deal with the loss. When someone who has been a parent to you, or a lover, or a close friend suddenly passes away, then you struggle to fill the void. I've always assumed the straightforward solution was to look for something to fill that void, accept the absence, and move on. No one that close to me has died before, so I couldn't have under-estimated the matter more.
It's especially confusing because I have not had my father for 25 years. Logically speaking, there is no void to fill because he wasn't there. I wish only the brain has to process this, because then it's that simple, no big deal, and I can go on with my life like nothing happened. Because if I include feelings (and I'm a terribly emotional person), then everything goes haywire. Because if I should be so honest about what I feel, then I've lost my father twice over and it's too much loss to go through at once and there's no filling up that emptiness forever.
So I hid behind numbness and shut the feelings out. It's easier that way.
--------
I now understand that grief doesn't come to you in a big wave and after the crash, is gone forever. It manifests itself in bits and pieces, often uninvited, often when you least want it to. Sometimes, it reasons with you and you can converse with it and you begin to understand why it must come. Sometimes it taunts you and you can either be angry or you can smile resignedly and let it be your friend. Sometimes it is unkind, sometimes you realize that it is generous in the wisdom it brings.
Growing up, it seemed to me there was very little evidence that he loved me. I knew that he could not get along with my mother and knowing both of their temperaments, I understood the reasons why he left. They were self-serving reasons, but I understood just the same. Nowadays it seems that all I can do is to understand, to be able to cope.
But it seemed unfair that because he fell out of love with my mother, he chose not to love me as well. Other husbands have left their wives, but have chosen to try to do what they can to soften the blow on the children. There was nothing subtle about my father's choice to be absent from our lives.
After a person dies, the ones he or she left behind ruminate about the life that once was. Me, I don't have a lot to go by. A three-year old's memory can only hold so much. But the people I talked to during the funeral, relatives and friends, filled me in. Like that New Year's eve when he and my brother were blasting firecrackers in our front lawn. Somehow I found my way to the pile of firecrackers unsupervised and picked up a whistlebomb and held the wick to a lighted candle nearby, imitating the adults. My brother told me how Papa quickly ran to me as they heard that familiar whistling sound go and knocked the firecracker away before it blew my right hand into pieces. He said he was rocking me back and forth protectively to make sure I wasn't scared.
Or how he'd listen to Bombo Radyo when I was a Mass Comm intern and ask the neighbors to tune in as well and proudly announce that that was his daughter reading the news. Or how he'd look forward to every end of the school year when he'd go on stage to put on me all the medals I earned and how he looked for a good barong to wear to my grade school graduation. He was proud to be the valedictorian's father.
During the wake, a former colleague of his told me how he once confided that he was just waiting for my brother to come home from Dubai and then he'd brave the shame and ask to be allowed to come home to us. My brother was to arrive December 30. Papa died December 21. Did he want to make up for all the time we lost? Could he have wanted to finally be my father?
The other day, I visited his hometown. I passed by the area where he lived, the market where he must have bought the food he cooked daily, the tiny streets where he rode his trusty bicycle. I listened to my uncle reminisce how he used to take care of his orchids and fishes, and how every Friday they'd gather to have a few laughs and drinks. I learned he loved the sea and how he'd spent a whole afternoon mamasol for that night's supper and how he must have been a fisherman in another lifetime.
These evenings past, my mother would regale me with stories about how handsome he was as a young man, and how many girls came to her sobbing when they learned he was already married. She told me how he used to hold me as an infant and say lovingly, "day, maski asa nga angle ka tan-awn, gwapa gyud ka kaayo... tan-awa ang ilong, katalinis sa ilong, 'sus!"
I want to listen to these stories over and over again. I want to understand.
I want to understand.
Leia o post completo...
I now understand that grief doesn't come to you in a big wave and after the crash, is gone forever. It manifests itself in bits and pieces, often uninvited, often when you least want it to. Sometimes, it reasons with you and you can converse with it and you begin to understand why it must come. Sometimes it taunts you and you can either be angry or you can smile resignedly and let it be your friend. Sometimes it is unkind, sometimes you realize that it is generous in the wisdom it brings.
--------
Growing up, it seemed to me there was very little evidence that he loved me. I knew that he could not get along with my mother and knowing both of their temperaments, I understood the reasons why he left. They were self-serving reasons, but I understood just the same. Nowadays it seems that all I can do is to understand, to be able to cope.
But it seemed unfair that because he fell out of love with my mother, he chose not to love me as well. Other husbands have left their wives, but have chosen to try to do what they can to soften the blow on the children. There was nothing subtle about my father's choice to be absent from our lives.
After a person dies, the ones he or she left behind ruminate about the life that once was. Me, I don't have a lot to go by. A three-year old's memory can only hold so much. But the people I talked to during the funeral, relatives and friends, filled me in. Like that New Year's eve when he and my brother were blasting firecrackers in our front lawn. Somehow I found my way to the pile of firecrackers unsupervised and picked up a whistlebomb and held the wick to a lighted candle nearby, imitating the adults. My brother told me how Papa quickly ran to me as they heard that familiar whistling sound go and knocked the firecracker away before it blew my right hand into pieces. He said he was rocking me back and forth protectively to make sure I wasn't scared.
Or how he'd listen to Bombo Radyo when I was a Mass Comm intern and ask the neighbors to tune in as well and proudly announce that that was his daughter reading the news. Or how he'd look forward to every end of the school year when he'd go on stage to put on me all the medals I earned and how he looked for a good barong to wear to my grade school graduation. He was proud to be the valedictorian's father.
During the wake, a former colleague of his told me how he once confided that he was just waiting for my brother to come home from Dubai and then he'd brave the shame and ask to be allowed to come home to us. My brother was to arrive December 30. Papa died December 21. Did he want to make up for all the time we lost? Could he have wanted to finally be my father?
-------
The other day, I visited his hometown. I passed by the area where he lived, the market where he must have bought the food he cooked daily, the tiny streets where he rode his trusty bicycle. I listened to my uncle reminisce how he used to take care of his orchids and fishes, and how every Friday they'd gather to have a few laughs and drinks. I learned he loved the sea and how he'd spent a whole afternoon mamasol for that night's supper and how he must have been a fisherman in another lifetime.
These evenings past, my mother would regale me with stories about how handsome he was as a young man, and how many girls came to her sobbing when they learned he was already married. She told me how he used to hold me as an infant and say lovingly, "day, maski asa nga angle ka tan-awn, gwapa gyud ka kaayo... tan-awa ang ilong, katalinis sa ilong, 'sus!"
I want to listen to these stories over and over again. I want to understand.
I want to understand.
