Personal Works: Essays

When I was young, I wondered why the cemeteries on TV were different from the cemeteries I knew at home. I remember asking my mother why we had rectangular tombs made of cement placed on top of each other and not flat ground where the dead could lie in peace. My mother did not answer the question. Instead, she scolded me for asking such a thing. Mama never entertained any questions relating to death or any topic that she found uncomfortable to explain to an eight-year-old. I did not mind the scolding; I was used to it. However, the thought of having an easier cemetery to visit would come into my mind every Undas.

I did not like visiting the cemetery. It was difficult to climb over every tomb just to be able to reach the one we were visiting. It was also scary to look at the gaps between the tombs. It seemed like the eyes of the dead were looking right back at us, as if saying that we were disrespecting them by stepping on their resting places.

It seems like he’s being buried for the second time around.

I did not like visiting the cemetery until Papa died.

Papa passed away from heat stroke due to his hypertension just three days after my grandmother’s first death anniversary. It was a normal day. We followed our usual routine upon waking up. Papa, alongside my sisters and me, went to buy our breakfast: pandesal. After breakfast, Mama and Papa stayed at our sari-sari store, while my sisters and I played and watched TV. I never thought that such a normal day would be the turning point of my life—our life.

When I realized that I would no longer find Papa’s body sitting in front of the TV, watching his action movies, and that he would instead be in a coffin inside a box of cement, the cemetery didn’t seem so bad after all. I was still not eager to visit the “land of the dead,” but I didn’t have any choice. Papa would never come home again. Yet, visiting him in the cemetery wasn’t as often as I wished it would be.

With Mama getting sick all the time and simultaneously finishing her last year in college, my sister and I being busy with school, and generally having no time to go anywhere else except our house and school, visiting Papa became scarce. We only went to the cemetery during Undas and on death anniversaries.

I tried going there by myself many times, but I was held back by fear. Fear of breaking down in front of his tomb, in front of him. Eventually, visiting him in the cemetery became rare. We moved to Mama’s hometown. My sisters and I transferred to a school kilometers away from our hometown. Then college came. I went much farther away from where Papa was buried and studied in Bicol. I never got to visit him again. He’s always in our hearts, of course. He’s still in our memories, in the photo albums, in Mama’s stories, in my dreams, and in the butterflies that pass by our house every now and then.

But lately, I feel him fading. It seems like he’s being buried for the second time around.

The familiarity of his being is something that I have held on to ever since he died. His scent lingers under my nose every time I try on clothes much larger than my size. His infectious laugh still echoes in the corner of our house every time we joke about losing a father (as a coping mechanism). The swear words he often blurted out when he was angry or extremely emotional sometimes escape my mouth when I imitate him as he was when he was alive. These things make me feel comforted that although he’s dead, he’s still here. However, the familiarity of everything associated with him is fading away. I can’t seem to remember his scent and laugh anymore. He often visited me in my dreams, but that, too, has become rare, almost nonexistent.

Our old house is also something that I associate with my father. I once went to the town where I grew up to visit some friends, and I passed by our old house. That was our house. That’s the house where I was brought when I was a newborn. That’s the house where my sister was born. That’s the house that was always filled with people during the fiesta. That’s the house that I considered home for a long time. That’s the house where I last saw Papa. But now, it’s just another house I pass by. When I came to this strange realization, it frightened me. That’s why I held on to the cemetery. The thought that Papa’s physical but extremely dead body was still somewhere I could visit brought me comfort.

However, Mama visited the cemetery recently and told us that it is difficult to reach Papa’s tomb now.

Many people have died in the past years, especially during the surge of COVID-19. Their tombs, their rectangular tombs made of cement, have been placed on top of others, which means that the old tombs we would walk over to reach Papa are now under new ones. It is difficult to reach him now. His memory is in the farthest corner of my brain, and his physical body can no longer be visited. I want to blame the system for not managing the cemeteries well and for allowing grieving relatives to place their dead loved ones on top of other people’s dead loved ones. But who am I kidding? That’s how things have been even before I was born. Even before Papa was born. Now, Papa has been dead for 10 years, and I am still grieving. And I am afraid that one day, I will stop grieving. This grief is the only thing I have left. Because he’s dead and buried in a place I can’t reach, when I don’t want him buried in the first place. I don’t want him buried in a cemetery or buried in the deepest corner of his daughter’s memories. I want him alive and well. I don’t want the memory of his scent, or the picture of his face, or his body in a tomb. I want him with us.

But I guess all things will come to an end one way or another. His life. My curiosity about cemeteries. Probably my grief, too. Maybe Papa is buried somewhere far from my grasp. Maybe I need to let him go. Maybe that’s why he’s fading. He needs me to move on and not cry whenever I watch a TikTok about fathers. Maybe I need to stop making dark jokes about his death as a coping mechanism. But for now, I will hold on to this grief until it passes by. I am his daughter, and I am a piece of him. Maybe my sisters and I are the last pieces of him still alive. Maybe this is the mindset that I need to have. That as long as I’m alive, he is not entirely buried.

There’s not much to say when the origin of sin is placed on the first woman. No sound of defense was made when she was blamed for the transgression that occurred. The forbidden fruit was forbidden without reason, and even if there was one, no amount of explanation would have made sense to minds that could not discern between good and evil without completing the very act that was prohibited. There’s not much to say and nothing to be done, for since the beginning of time, a woman has not had the discretion to know what lies ahead of her because, as the believers have said, it is all part of His plan, and we are in the dark of His blinding light.

Let there be light, and let there be darkness. Allow both things to exist accordingly, and make yourself appreciate the beauty of the overlooked. Conjure a taste so sweet that it covers the original bitterness. Nothing on earth is as valuable as itself. Let your sight perceive the beauty of tiny objects and mundane activities. Nothing is unworthy of attention—the leaves, the dust, the half-emptied cup. In the grand scheme of things, the tiniest bit is as significant as the largest, for everything has its purpose, and everything matters.

Fire was made. Fire was discovered. Fire was given. There are many tales of the origin of heat, but the thing that I find most vital in these stories is that fire was received and sustained. Fire was used, and fire was made useful. Fire shone and brought warmth, and fire dwindled and brought pain. Fire was many things, and it is oftentimes found within—in the hearth of a home or in the heart of a person. Fire is meant to reveal humanity’s flesh, for we are meant to burn. I would like to believe that as we first beheld fire, it touched our skin and peeled back our layers to unveil the colors of the flames that are inherently there in our bodies.

An illness requires a cure or an antidote to counter the poison. But what I have is neither an illness nor a poison. What I have is not a tangible thing that can be removed or dissected. It is a matter of my being, sewn into my very heart, glued into my very soul. Many believe themselves to be experts on a phenomenon that is widely known to be a source of everyone’s foolishness. How foolish and depressing it is to see individuals presenting themselves as healers of a disease that does not exist, creating conflicts that should not even be present in the first place. It is my hope to find a cure for them—to help their impaired eyes see the flaws in the way they perceive individuals who share my woes. Be that as it may, awareness itself is my flaw, for I am certain that just as doctors and scientists cannot conjure a medicine in only a fortnight, it is also impossible to make nonbelievers accept the reality that there is no cure for someone like me.

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. I cleaned the boots of the fallen. I sat with the exiled. I cared for the people you told me needed forgiveness and forgave them against your judgment.

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. I questioned your light, for I was blinded. I asked myself that if it was meant to bring me guidance, why must it hurt to look at.

I lived my life begging for your mercy. Praying for forgiveness. Wishing that I were porcelain-clean before I stepped onto your holy grounds. But why must I keep on crawling?

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. After the ten Hail Marys and ten Our Fathers, instead of a guilt-free heart, I am filled with emptiness. Do you relish the sight of my suffering? Do you find entertainment in the fact that I purposefully walk on spikes to please you? Is this what it means to be a subject of an all-knowing, all-loving God?

Forgive me, Father, for I will sin. I wish for my knees to not be bruised after they have rested on the cathedral floor for hours. I wish for my heart to stop aching after I have to endure the trials placed before me without warning. I wish for my eyes to stop pouring, hoping for my pain to drown me. I wish to feel. I wish to not feel.

To live isn’t the same as living. As long as I stay believing, as long as I continue confessing, as long as I keep on praying, nothing of my will will be done.

I am sorry, Father, for all my sins.

Can love exist in the middle of a catastrophe? I often ask myself, uncertain whether love can truly persist if the end of the world were to come. I found the answer as I looked at my sister’s sleeping face while scrolling on my laptop and seeing the world in havoc.

The next day, I will learn of another heinous thing humankind has done, and afterwards, as if nothing happened, I will laugh with my friends—a cacophony of happy pigeons on an electrical wire.

The truth is simple—I will continue to love and be loved amidst the destruction of this realm. Love will not just exist, but it will endure. It will be present in the ugliest of places. And as for me, I will exist for it. I will keep on spreading it like a disease with no cure.

For what am I if I don’t love? What am I if I’m not loved? What is the world without love?