Bye La

My lola was 92 when she passed away last Wednesday. She was my father's mother and was my last living grandparent.  Although her death was something we have seen coming, it was, in no way, any less sad. Anyone who had experienced loss would know that the death of a loved one is something you cannot truly prepare for, you could realize that life is short and time breezes past your fingers and you make everyday count but still when you get there, when you get to the hour of finality , it will sting like an inconvenient truth, feeding like a nightmare you badly want to wake up from.

Witnessing a grandparent die reminded me that my own parents were once children, small, scared and needy, and I might have never realized that, had Lola lived forever.  I guess it's easy to forget that parents were once kids - that they have a back story as children -  especially when they seem so certain and mature and clever all the time. The thought alone that my no nonsense father whom everyone is scared of is feeling less complete with tears in his eyes because Lola is no longer around makes me want to cry. It's heartbreaking and scary and amazing how there are some parts of you that you will never want to outgrow despite time, or age or position. Papa, behind his fatherly physique, has never stopped being a son.

It's a wonder how some of life's greatest lessons only reveal themselves in puzzles, role reversals and  funerals.

Funerals for me have gone from strange to familiar in the past 5 months. My lola's death is the 5th in the family this year (and we haven't even reached mid year yet). You would think that we'd be somehow desensitized by the news of death but no and I don't think it will ever work that way at least not towards a family member.  There's not much difference in experiencing a single death or a series of death - you cry just the same. I wish I could better explain why this is so but it escapes me right now (actually, for days that I have kept this post a draft).

It has been a week since Lola died but we're still having her wake. We are not waiting for anyone abroad to come visit, and we don't need the extra days but it's my father's wish to keep Lola that long. I have a theory that long funerals delay the grief that you immediately feel when someone died.  Since we are still able to see Lola, we feel less loss, and having the whole family gathered around her, made us less lonely. There were nights when we were laughing over silly card games, even Papa was laughing with us, friends will come over and we will exchange stories unrelated to lola,  if not for the coffin and for people wearing black, some nights would have seemed more like a reunion than a funeral.  I guess because it is not humanly possible to keep crying continuously, we resort to some sort of diversion. But I think everyone knows that it's tomorrow, the day we will bury her that will return us all to focus. Lola's gone and we won't see her again, at least not in this lifetime.

Papa's said the reason why he wanted to keep Lola for as long as possible is because after the burial, he will only be able to see her in old photos and that's that. His reason was so simple but it covered everything.

~*~*~*~

All these, the words that I've written are more about us than about Lola. I remember a grade school teacher once said that when someone dies, we cry more for ourselves than for the one who died. If we won't think about ourselves and our loss and how we will miss her, we'd be crying for happiness because now, Lola's finally in a better place - - - somewhere she had always wanted to be. and somehow whenever this thought comes up, I feel lighter.

Bye La, you will always be remembered.