Death In The Family

My uncle got buried today.  He died on the Saturday I got back in Bangkok.  My mother sent me a text message in the morning, saying Kang Julian has been rushed to the hospital the night before and all his children are being told to come home ( almost all my cousins were working in Manila, two were contract workers in Saudi Arabia ).  Then in the afternoon I was walking in MBK, I got another text message from my mother, saying she and Ate Luring (my aunt, her sister) are planning to leave for the province on Sunday, and that Kang Julian was already dead.  I don't know exactly the cause of death but my mother said he's been sick a long time.  Now that he's dead, and with Ate Fely (meningitis I think) and Ate Viring (breast cancer) gone before him years ago, my mother is now the oldest among the siblings.

I only saw Kang Julian less than 15 times, growing up.  When I last saw him (at Ate Viring's funeral I think) he looked thin and frail, but was still very strong.  My other cousins and I used to joke about how he walked, with his pelvis getting ahead of his whole body, so he walked like a supermodel on a runway.  Some would say he should have been in a wheelchair already at his age.  I remember my mother telling me once that her father (my grandfather) gave Kang Julian an agimat (amulet) for him to get any girl he wants.  He got Ate Urnata, who died some years before him.  I wonder if I can have that amulet (sounds desperate, I know), if there was such a thing.  He was the eldest, and the only boy in the family, not counting my grandfather's sons with other women.  Kang Julian had many children, the normal in our family (which in a way makes me abnormal, being an only child, but that's another blog topic) and some of these cousin of mine I grew up with as a kid: Ate Mila, Kuya Monay, Ate Baby, Ate Boots, Ong-Ong.

I felt so lonely not being there with them in Marinduque for the wake and funeral.  At a minimum, I felt like I should at least be with my mother, who in another perspective, lost her brother.  There would be a wake, where the men and the teens would drink gin and lambanog and the women would hang around the kitchen, talking.  There would be the mass, the procession, the interment, and then a buffet, who I heard once, is funded by contributions from relatives.  I authorized my mother to withdraw the maximum that the ATM I left her would allow for the trip.  You never know what needs to be paid.

I can imagine my cousins crying.  First their mother a few years back, and now their father.  It doesn't matter if they're already married and have a family of their own, or already have jobs outside our province (be it in Manila or in Saudi).  It doesn't matter either one who whether you were really close to the one who died.  It sucks losing a family member.  Then again, far be it from me to question the grand scheme of things.  Borrowing a line from A Tale of Cities, I know Kang Julian went to a "far far better rest than he had ever known".


Goodbye
by The Corrs

I never thought one day you'd be gone
away forever more
No one can say, no one could explain
why you were taken

Oh where are you now?
Could I get there somehow?

It's time to say goodbye
Block out the sun and pack up the sky
Don't let my tears start to make you cry
Each time I try to say my goodbye
Try to stop asking why

Tell me it's true, tell me there's something more
Another time for love
One day I'll know, one day I'll be there
Will you be waiting?

Oh where are you now?
Could I get there somehow?

It's time to say goodbye
Block out the sun and pack up the sky
Don't let my tears start to make you cry
Each time I try to say my goodbye
Try to stop asking why
Try to stop asking why...yeah

Where are you now?
Could I get there somehow?

It's time to say goodbye
Block out the sun and pack up the sky
Don't let my tears start to make you cry
Each time I try to say my goodbye
Try to stop asking why, why
Try to say my goodbye