“Do not forget Karina”
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
LAST week I wrote about the day our youngest sibling Karina died on November 1, 1963, lifting largely from the letter that our father, Ermin Sr. wrote five days after she died.
Below is a continuation of my father’s grief on November 6, a day before Karina’s 12th birthday.
“TO MY DAUGHTER, KARINA GARCIA
ON HER TWELFTH BIRTHDAY
November 6, 1963
“We are all here for the big day tomorrow. In a little more than a couple of hours, it will be Thursday, November 7—your twelfth birthday anniversary. It is now ten minutes past nine, and as I write this in my office, I am alone—with you, I fervently hope, like the few moments that evening, you breezed into this room tired but happy from the Christ The King
procession on October 27.
“Your brother is back from Baguio, where he had gone for his classes. He has brought gorgeous roses and other flowers as beautiful for you and for the altars before which you used to pray with that twinkle in your eyes. And there are still more flowers from friends and people who love and admire you, even from the infinite distance that separates you from us all.
“I have in my office that portion of the calendar on which a few weeks back you drew a circle around the “7” of November, with the gay and loud reminder scrawled overhead, “DO NOT FORGET KARINA.” I notice that with those words, you did not bring attention only to your birthday, but more meaningfully, to remember you on the day.
“It was as if you knew you won’t be around when your birthday came. But if you only knew, my darling, that forgetting you, wherever you’d be, is like forgetting to breathe and to think at all, you would agree with me that there really was no need for the reminder, priceless and cherished though it is now.
“Early in the morning, the family will hold communion with you and all the other saints through the Holy Eucharist during one of several Masses to be said for you during the day, Masses here and elsewhere offered by your schoolmates, by your friends, our friends, by the family and other relatives.
“Later in the morning, we shall bring to your classmates the refreshments you had planned to give them yourself on your birthday. It will be as you and we had planned. There will be the usual kind thoughts and loving regard for you. But there won’t be the mischievous smile, the witty banter, the laughing eyes, not the dulcet voice—because Somebody Up There, it has turned out, has had plans quite at variance with ours.
“Your sudden departure from our midst cannot make us forget either November 7 or Karina. Long after the ink with which you scrawled that filial reminder will have faded with the tears of the years, the memory of you will yet be as lustrous as the beauty of your soul. Long after these eyes, now squeezed dry of tears, will have closed in sheer exhaustion through the years, long after this grief-laden heart will have ceased to beat, multitudes—not the rest of the family alone—will be singing hymns to your memory.
“How can we forget you, darling? In life you gave us our most blissful moments; just as in death you gave us the most poignant hours. Forget you, Karina? We would just as soon forget life itself.
“There are indications that although you took leave of us with split-second suddenness, it looks as if all the time you had some pre-arranged covenant with the Almighty Father, the Father of us all. By your departure, you seared our hearts beyond repair. But as in our limited and slow comprehension, it dawned on us that it was as you had craved it and as He had willed it, I ask myself why I weep. And I realize that possibly my sight had been blurred by the tears of self-pity that I helplessly shed. I realize that, in my selfishness, I weep for myself—for the loss of the joys that you caused and the magnificent delight that you were to me, for the parental stupidity and neglect that allowed the circumstances that brought about your departure.
“In our prideful happiness over you, we did our best to make you happy, but we must admit our best is but an infinitesimal drop in the eternity of bliss that is now your well-deserved reward, and which you quietly, unceasingly sought. You came to us an angel and after lighting up our lives with twelve years of unblighted happiness, you were recalled to receive your infinite reward for a job well done.
“As we bow our heads and pour our grateful hearts to Him who loaned you to us, we thank you, Karina, for enriching our lives and giving us the sublime example of your life.”
Amen, Papa.
* * * *
UNFAIR TO COUNCILOR CELIA. You have to hand it to the 7 epaLiFes at the Dagupan sanggunian to come up with illogical, completely unvetted situations, from their irrational moves blocking the city’s annual and supplemental budgets, to breaking established protocols in the legislature claiming the existence of unheard-of legal terminology like “qualified majority”.
And each time the uniformed barkada committed a serious blunder, many wondered who it was that advised them to act and sound ignorant of the law and rules.
Then, when the day of filing of certificates of candidacy for the 2025 elections came, I thought the barkada would finally show some political astuteness and maturity, I was wrong again.
The decision to field Councilor Celia Chua-Lim is, at the very least, cruel and inconsiderate of the barkada. That’s what I feel for her.
Why did they choose to make Councilor Celia as their candidate for mayor, not her son, ex-Mayor Brian Lim, the obvious plotter behind all the shenanigans who’s itching to stage a comeback? Why not Councilor Red Erfe-Mejia, the obvious ringleader, or Dada Reyna-Macalanda or Alfie Fernandez?
Why make her appear accountable for all the barkada’s official mischiefs that bordered on criminal lines? It is not like her to be an obstructionist to deprive Dagupeños of government services due them, not one to prompt them to commit plagiarism, not one to violate local government laws and rules. Her only fault was she agreed to support each move to obstruct the city government’s programs.
Making her the mayoral candidate is most unfair to her, leaving it to her to explain and justify all the villainous, reprehensible, and illegal acts of the barkada! It was clearly done to save all three epaLiFes ( Red, Alfie and Dada) the humiliation that would hound them in this generation.
But since she accepted the face-saving assignment for the three, she will have no one to blame but herself once she finds herself helpless, defenseless, and humiliated as she tries vainly to cover up for all that they did to the city.
Councilor Celia doesn’t deserve this.
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