forced bleeding

i'm posting an article a friend asked me to do for reasons still unknown to me. anyway, this was a topic i have never really wrote about much or even thought about.

anyway, here it goes... (i'm hungry...)

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It didn’t rain that night when the news hit us. No melodramatic music wafted in the air. There was no sudden outburst of tears or screams of anguish. The world didn’t stop nor even slowed down. No theatrics, this was real life.

I answered the phone not believing what was being said or how to react and unsure of how to break the news. I didn’t rush home from our sari-sari store to tell what happened. I walked slowly. Met my sister halfway and since our cordless phone had a speaker base, I didn’t have to say a word. They heard the call, they knew.

That afternoon, our mom was rushed to East Ave. Medical Center because of another asthma attack. We were all used to this. She usually stayed just overnight and was okay after just to return the following week. But that night, in the middle of another attack, her heart failed. That night I answered the phone to my father telling me that she was gone.

I went back to the store oblivious of everything. I didn’t know how long I just sat there staring at nothing. I didn’t even realize I was crying. I closed up, went home, locked myself in my room not bothering to turn on the lights, huddled in a corner and wept. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I didn’t want to see them crying, I didn’t want them to see me. I can’t make sense of anything. The cries grew louder from somewhere in the house. Someone was knocking on my door but I can’t make myself move. I just wanted to be left alone. I wanted to laugh at how stupid I must’ve looked. I wanted to just be swallowed up by the darkness. I want to shout. I want to just sleep it off and somehow wake up as if it was all but a dream. Unfortunately, it was not.

The next few days were a blur. People came and went expressing their apologies: friends, neighbors, onlookers… Relatives camped at our house. Furniture was rearranged to make way for the coffin. Card tables were set up, coffee was made and served and we stayed around to entertain guests smiling, pretending to be okay and recovering. I wanted to laugh at the charade. I wanted to get out of there. I just wanted everything to be over with and retreat to the solace of my room.

I never looked inside the coffin. I dismissed it completely. Even until after the funeral, I didn’t really want to admit to myself that she was gone. Reality hurts.

After the funeral, when everything seems to be back in order except for the invisible hole ominous at home, we sorted through her things and gave away most. I rediscovered old report cards, class pictures, her old photos and letters, and knick knacks I never even remembered. It was like rediscovering me through her eyes. It was like rediscovering her! I realized just how much I didn’t know about her as a person. It was amazing and sad at the same time.

But the world goes on, though nothing would ever be the same again, you trudge on.

I still keep expecting to see her every morning around the house before going off to school, or to hear her voice calling when I go home even if it’s just to scold me for something. Her nebulizer, ever ready in sudden attacks, stands quiet in a corner while I remember countless of times when I wake up in the middle of the night to its restless whirr. Home feels so empty.

Days dragged on and we all jumped back to the routine. Months pass. My father got himself a new wife. Christmas came without its usual warmth and happiness only a flood of memories when we reluctantly help her prepare food and fuss around the kitchen. That year, we just watched TV, ate little then went to sleep. New Year was as bleak. I finished school. I didn’t care to attend my own graduation if not only I thought that she would have liked me to and would have been proud. I went alone. I found a job. Nothing felt as it should.

It has been more than a year now since she has passed away and I still feel her absence in the walls of our house. In the middle of the night or at the most unexpected moments I remember her. I imagine hearing what she would say on what I’m doing with my life. I wonder if she would be proud of who or what I seem to be now. I imagine unsolicited advises she would have given us on things no one else seems to notice but her. I remember her when I come home from work. She used to leave food for me at the table each time I come home late, now I just go straight to my room. I used to sit through the marathon of telenovelas she used to follow; now I don’t even watch much TV. I remember Sundays when she would haul us off to church, now I can’t even remember when I was last inside one. I remember her everyday.

Now, I have a one year old nephew who I wished grew up knowing what a great person her grandma was. I go through everyday hoping she would be proud of what kind of person I have become. It still hurts that she’s not around anymore. It’s amazing how much we seem to realize what we’ve had when we lose it. But life continues and the world goes on its interminable spin. Nothing is the same, but that’s the beauty of life. Things happen. Things change. In the midst of it all, we get hurt. We cry. We lose something then find ourselves: stronger, better and moving on.

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though i seemed to have moved on to nowhere, grew to nothing and became better at degenerating... i miss her.