Feelings
Left behind
By Emmanuelle
We are not supposed to bury our children. They are supposed to bury us. In our old age. When our sun had risen for a last dawning; when our dusk had dipped the final farewell. The tears our children shed for us will be for the our now-forever absence; for our seemingly evermore presence before, here-there-and-everywhere. For us, old folks, death is rest. Richly deserved, long-due and very much expected. When the curtain falls for us, we bow out gracefully, although some of us stubbornly hold on to life for more encores!
We wish to live to a hundred, but a lot of systemic disorders make sure we don’t: cardiovascular, circulatory, pulmonary, allergies, etc. The dreaded cancer. Hepatitis, H-fever, HIV, meningo+, SARS – wild bacteria and unruly virus gone wilder, more unruly. Also, deaths due to unknown causes – undiagnosed, untreated, unexplained. Accidents – unbidden, unexpected. These, too – the mean toughies with guns and knives.
We are born, we strive to live to our fullest, we die. For each life, a cycle that completes itself. Or else, without dying, we join the immortals. Our ancient, tottering selves will crowd-out poor mother earth – bumping blindly into each other, wearing patience thin with our deafened ears – sino ka nga ba? (Who are you?), ano, pakiulit? (What, come again?)
But when children die without having even begun to live! Then, the parents’ tears are not only for the presence of a gnawing absence – of a voice echoing but only from the past, of laughter ringing but only in the mind, of a face smiling but only as caught in frames. The parents’ tears are mostly for a child’s life unfulfilled – cut too short, too quick, too cruelly. A dream ending when and where it was just beginning; a song stilled when it was just trilling for the high notes; a jump frozen when legs were just raring for a big leap.
So very young. So very dead. So very dear; so very gone.
When INA (Inang Naulila ng Anak) Foundation was launched by Mrs. Gina de Venecia at their residence in Bonuan Binloc, Dagupan City last Saturday, I am sure it was not mainly to distribute PhilHealth cards to grieving mothers to help defray hospital expenses incurred during the struggle to save the children’s lives – when hope was not yet hopeless, when breath was not yet breathless, when life was not yet declared lifeless. I am sure it was not largely to inform them of the availability of livelihood training and assistance to help start anew the grieving family’s interrupted lives – for to start anew is near-impossible to do; what the family does is to pick up where they were left off, and to start counting the young ones one child less.
I am sure INA was launched to make us aware that a group of grieving mothers have bonded together, and have bound themselves TO BE ON CALL AND AVAILABLE to those who find themselves, too, left behind. TO BE THERE at the most vulnerable moments when their psycho-social presence matters most – when all vestiges of life become suspended in numbing time and space. For who better to say “I know how you feel?” and really mean the words – in their hearts and in the most minute fibers of their being – than those who really knew how it felt?
Oh, and I am sure I wondered then – when will the grieving fathers bind themselves, too, to an ANA (Amang Naulila ng Anak)? For though boys do not really cry, grown-up men do. Much worse, most men cry in tearless silence, their chests full of corked-in mourning. One does not dam a river; one lets it flow. Until it sobs to a trickle. Then, and only then, real healing begins.
That day, I was there for a friend grieving for her child. Simply, to be there for her. I do not take notes or tapes; I take in feelings. I couldn’t see very well, but I felt the choke in her throat, the tears in her voice as she gave testimony to her grief. As I felt the same from the other mothers left behind.
That day, I am sure the children, who have left for beyond, also saw their mothers, heard their voices, and felt their sorrows, their love. They perched up on high fluffy clouds, peering down, with angels looking over their shoulders. And I am sure, if only they could, these children would have whispered to their mothers the following words:
“Ina, I have just gone ahead. To where I can pray for you, from where I can watch over you. To where I can sit at His feet that I may ask Him to turn His face to where you are, that He may watch over you, too. Together, He and I shall wait, and I shall pray – very, very hard – that it may be the longest wait.”
Meanwhile, let the angels weep.
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