The Cross of the Kakawati

By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo

 

ON March 20, I will be travelling at dawn to Puso ng Carmelo, to attend the 7:00 a.m. mass officiated by Bishop Soc Villegas for the first death anniversary of a good friend, Teresita de Venecia. It did not seem like it was a year ago, as I feel her presence every now and then, laughing her heart out, and telling funny stories with gestures from her lips that protrude in and out, side to side, and in ending mostly in long, rounded “OOOO”s.

I am sure it will be a happy and playful occasion, as happy as her wake. That is how Tess wants it, and that’s what she is going to get.

I can still remember her wake. She seemed to be among the tall grasses falling on top of the elevation where the urn was placed, registering another objection, not once, but at least three times.

I was told by her sister, Emma, that during Lola Pacita’s wake, Tess would put the cross at the center, as she believed that no one goes to the Father except through Jesus. Emma would argue that God the Father should be at the center since she is a supporter of the belief that you can pray to God the Father directly and He should be at the center. So when Tess was around the cross was transferred to the center, and God the Father would be on the side. As soon she leaves, Emma brings back God the Father to the center and puts the cross on the side. I am sure Lola Pacita, the consummate teacher, wanted to rise from her coffin to clarify both belief systems, but her soul had other priorities: she wanted to be in the garden, her real garden, not the one surrounding the altar that was built for her.

Tess made precise instructions (and I thought she relinquished control!). First, she would be directly brought to Puso ng Carmelo to be interred near her husband, Jun. Bombi, her son, apologized to her, that her wish to be brought directly to Puso cannot be fulfilled, because it is not just about her, but it is also about the living who need the grapple with the reality of her passing. The second instruction is to put the cross at the Center. Emma alternated putting the cross and God the Father together. And then Emma ruled, God the Father is at the Center, and there is nothing that Tess can do about it now. That’s when the tall grasses that lined the altar started to fall over on top of the urn. Tess was going to put the cross at the center, but she is no longer the Tess with the corporal body, but now part of the wind. She can only blow so far. And she has blown the tall grasses not once, but at least three times. Emma was muttering, “What’s the matter with you, God the Father and God the Son, both are part of the same Trinity!” I felt a strong wind pushing through, and strongly sensed that Tess was walking out of her own wake, and asking me to go instead for a devil’s food cake at Chocolate Kiss. “Rufo, let’s go!”. I hear that familiar command once more, and saw her driver rush to open the door of the van, “Let’s go, let’s have that cake and eat it too!”

We ate a lot. We laughed a lot. There was a joy to life that tickled our bones. During our travels, I would sing on top of my voice. She would sing inside her mind, except once or twice, when she sang the full version of “Kakawati”, a song she learned as a child, from her mother, or teacher. The kakawati fascinated her, “That is our local cherry blossoms,” she told me, “It has the fragrance of innocence.” She says this with reverence, knowing the source of its beauty, and she smiles, touching the cross on her breast.

I wondered about the crosses she wore. At times they were small, at times they were bigger. Unable to contain my curiosity I once asked her if the size of the cross she wore at any given time is equivalent to the weight of her guilt, or the gravity of temptation, or the enormity of her problems. She vowed, in becoming a lay member of Puso ng Carmelo, to live a life of “absolute chastity, absolute obedience, absolute poverty!” when it was enough to profess “chastity, obedience and poverty” without the difficult challenge of the “absolutes”. The road was not easy, but she struggled to keep her word. To Tess, surrender is a word she did not yield to, and she only yielded if she perceives that the surrender feelers were from Jesus Christ.

Tess, in all her experience and sophistication, remained much like her favourite flower, a fragrance of innocence, playing in the cool breeze of the morning, dancing with the sun’s laughter.

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

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