I feel like all my blog posts lately have all been under the category of “updates” , meaning, I would blog about events when it’s been over for months. Hay. I wonder when I would actually have the time to blog about something when it is actually happening or just happened.
Anyway, one of my latest blog posts was about my grandmother being in sick. Despite all , the care given to her , she passed away last July 15,2011. I already got a call from my mom the night before. Just as we were about to open the gate to the house, she called me and said that we should go to my tita’s house (where she was staying), because in her words “nanghihina na si Mamang”. Apparently earlier that night, they couldn’t wake her up, couldn’t find any pulse. When Yash and I got there , she was somehow better, although she was still unconscious. My cousins were taking turns talking to her, when I got there, I just told her that I loved her over and over again. I wanted to sing to her, but I didn’t know what to sing. When my sister got there, she started singing “Ikaw” to Mamang and she suddenly opened her eyes and asked for food. We went home at around 1 am already, so I decided to not go to work anymore because I was exhausted. I was talking to our HR manager when she informed me that my dad just called Papa to tell him that Mamang had died. That was around 8:30 am. I cried and just hugged Yash, but at the same time, I felt peace, I knew she was in a better place now. We got to the house at around 11 am, her body was still there.Most of the family left to prepare for her wake, I went to her side, parted her hair and kissed her head. Then I went with my mom to Divisoria because she wanted to buy something for Mamang to wear.
In her interment 4 days later, Papa Ray said that she simply changed her address. We were all singing “Hawak Kamay” during this time because while she was still bedridden, she wanted someone holding her hand all the time and my cousins and aunts and uncles would all take turns just holding her hands. It doesn’t hurt so much now. There’s still a twinge in my chest whenever I realize that she’s gone and I won’t be able to see her anymore. But I have all these memories of her in my head, and I revisit them every time I miss her. Like the time she taught me how to use chopsticks, or on her 80th birthday 5 years ago when the whole family arranged this surprise party for her, and she looked so beautiful and so happy in her dress, or last New Year’s Eve when, for the first time in the years that we’ve been meeting as a clan, we all decided to have our pictures taken with her as a family. Part of me knew that this would be the last New Year we would have with her. Don’t ask me why, I just knew. But as we were taking pictures, and it was time for the “wacky” shots, she was the most game out every one, and our pictures turned amazing.
During the last night of her wake, instead of mourning her death, we celebrated her life. True, not all members of the family could stand up and talk about her, most of us were just crying, but it was the good kind of cry. And the next day, when we buried her, the tears subsided, the grief had somehow quieted, and when we all went back to our tita’s place, we were all smiling and happy again, knowing wherever she was, she was now happy.
