Death

By Virginia J. Pasalo

SOME people I love have passed away. Some people I love are at the throes of death at this very moment. So in a way, i have accepted this fact. I am not questioning it. I will die someday, in God’s own time.

Each death diminishes, but it also adds strength and encourages meaningful living. When my father was alive, i postponed having conversations about his life, a life I know very little about, from the way he saw it. Who would have known that he would die? He was as strong as my brothers, even with his chronic asthma. In short, I missed the opportunity to listen to his interesting past, which I only get glimpses of, from the different accounts that I hear from others.

I am afraid of ghosts, spirits that my father used to scare my wits away, to make me behave. Because of this, every time I take a night trip from Manila to Pozorrubio, he would be waiting for me, on a bench, under a huge narra tree, with a bamboo cane, which he also divined to ward away bad spirits. He would sit there, with the fireflies hovering over the trees, and the moonlight on his shiny head.

When he died in 2012, I embraced this tree, and spoke of my sorrow, and I was comforted and assured of my father’s love. I felt the warmth of this tree, speaking to every cell in my body, in the language of my childhood, and I felt, at the same time, the comfort of all the ghosts and spirits he used to scare me with. Even the old highway, on whose shoulders my aunt and I picked sampaguitas at dawn, reached out, reminding me to come home, every now and then.

I came home last year, and found the narra tree missing, with a fresh stump, telling me a hurried story, in silence. It has accepted its fate, it is saying goodbye, and i laid my hands on the stump, still moist, and said a prayer, for the anguish, and the anger that was starting to eat my heart.

ANGGAPO KA LA MANAYA

Akin naliknak lay petang na agew, petang na ulok , tan petang na laman?

Nanenengneng ko la natan su mabanbanday ya pansesebeg na san-asawan

manpapanis na taiý aso ed beneg na kawayan ed dalan

 

Aanapen ko iramay masalti’n ugugaw

ya unkakalab, mankakalawit na bunga na kamantiles tan bunga na mangga,

Aanapen ko iramay mamarikit ya mandudokdok na duyaw ya rosas na narra

tan ambalangan rosas na arum niran kiew

Anggapo la ra.

 

Anonotan ko, anggapo ka met la manaya

binetang da laý salim, tan tinartar daraý limam

tan imbantak da ka’d beneg na luganan

ya maples ya bimmati-batik, ed dalan na paka-abigan

nen saman ni.

 

Translation: You are no longer there

 

Why do i feel the heat of the sun

the heat on my head, and the heat in my body?

Now i see the disgusting fight between

spouses sweeping dog shit behind the bamboo trees

from the road

 

I am trying to look for the children cavorting,

climbing and reaching for the fruits

of the camachile trees, and the mango trees

I am trying to look for those girls picking yellow flowers

of the narra trees, and red flowers of the fire trees

They are no longer there.

 

I realized, you are no longer there, too.

They hacked away your foot and chopped your hands,

and threw you at the back of an empty truck

and sped away, in the highway of progress,

sometime ago

(For your comments and reactions, please email to: punch.sunday@gmail.com)

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