The day Karina died

By Ermin Garcia Jr.

 

ON November 1, 1963, our youngest sister, Karina died – she drowned at the then Blue Beach in Dagupan City. She was turning 12 on November 7.  Her death had a deep impact on my father. Allow me to honor their memory by reposting here an excerpt of a letter written by my father, Ermin Sr. to her on the occasion of her 12^th birthday, six days after her death.

“Remember the day in September that your mother caught you at the telephone saying in verses you yourself spun that “THE BEST DAY TO DIE WOULD BE ON THE FIRST DAY OF NOVEMBER, BECAUSE IT IS FIRST FRIDAY AND ALSO ALL SAINTS’ DAY AND THE NEXT DAY IS THE FIRST SATURDAY?” And in my pocket all these days is a piece you dictated over the telephone a day before your departure, and which was written down by a bosom friend and classmate. And I quote what you had dictated:

“THE DAY WHEN I DIED”

IT WAS NOVEMBER FIRST WHEN I WAS SUFFERING WITH ACHES. TWELVE O’CLOCK STRUCK AND NO WORD CAME OUT FROM MY MOUTH. I FELL NTO THE HANDS OF MY MOTHER WHO WAS WATCHING ME FOR THE WHOLE NIGHT WITHOUT ANY SLEEP. SHE KNOWS I AM DEAD AND SHE CALLED FOR MY SISTERS AND BROTHER…

“MY SCHOOL WAS INNOCENT ABOUT MY DEATH UNTIL THE PHONE RANG AND ANNOUNCED MY DEATH. I KNOW IT WAS A BIG SHOCK FOR THEM.”

It was twelve o’clock of November first—the First Friday and All Saints’ Day—when I jumped out from my car in company with two doctors and two loyal co-workers in the office to rush to your succor at the beach. And you had just expired then. That this day I remain sane after those frenzied moments and hours of shocked lunacy, I attribute to your kind prayers for me.

And as you had predicted, your school (the Sisters) did not know of your death until their phone rang and your sisters and your brother tumbled through their tears the announcement of your death. And I am certain it was a shock to them. You see, it was a shock to me too.

This evening on the arrival of your loving brother from Baguio, he handed to me a letter from his Father class adviser at the St. Louis University.

The coincidence of similarity between his letter and the piece you dictated over the phone on the eve of your departure is poignantly but significantly striking. The letter said, “…She went on All Saints’ Day—heaven was open and she took the best occasion to enter. Please look with faith upon your grief because from heaven she will be able to send more graces than ever….”

Although for reasons of your own you kept it back from me, you repeatedly had expressed your dream to be a writer. Now that joyous wish will always remain a dream, for me as well as for you. And this adds to my anguish because I know you would have done great credit to a discredit profession. I felt it in the icy printer’s ink that passes for blood in my hardened veins that with your spunk and intellectual endowments, you would be a great newspaperwoman.

Yes, all that is gone. But, if it is a consolation to you as it is to me, you have become something more important. You are and will always be the Muse of him whom you singled out in your scrapbook as “my favorite and greatest columnist.” I will never measure up to even near-greatness only, but I want you to know that I shall always try to be worthy of you as a writer, my beloved Muse.

The day before you left, you, a freshman, triumphed over others more advanced than you in years by winning the first place in the declamation contest in the entire high school department of the Blessed Imelda’s Academy. While it pains me now to realize that I was not able to do anything to help you in your preparations, the fact somehow fills me with pride for then the honor and the glory was all yours and yours alone.

“CURFEW MUST NOT RING TONIGHT”— that was your prize-winning piece. They say—since I was not there just as I was not there either at the beach in your hour of your greatest need,—that you were terrific, you were calm and gaily nonchalant. It was a memorable farewell performance, because curfew rang for me the next day. Dusk has fallen over my life, and there’s no telling when it will lift again. And if and when it does, it will only be because I will have seen through the haze a glimmer, however faint, of the perpetual light that I pray to God must shine on you.

In a few more minutes it will be midnight, and it will be November 7, the cherished date you came to us twelve years ago exactly to the day. On behalf of the disconsolate of your own flesh and blood, my heart sings out to you the fondest “HAPPY BIRTHDAY.”

But before I turn in for the night, in another vain effort to meet you once again if only in dreams, allow me to scrawl our own reminder: ON NOVEMBER 7 OR EVER, DON’T FORGET US, KARINA.

Good night, my lovely Princess cherished deathless Muse, Heaven’s sweet Angel. May you and your prayers keep watch over us. “

(This and articles written by the late Fr. Arsenio Jesena, SJ about KARINA and ERMIN can be read at https://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewshortstory.asp?AuthorID=4907)

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WHAT RULES FOR TRICYCLE? The DILG memorandum on resumption of road-clearing beginning November 16 has one particular reminder to mayors and police chiefs: their continued failure to enforce the law on tricycles traversing the highways. 

While some towns have since installed signage informing tricycle drivers about rules on the highways, not one town has given the serious enforcement a thought.  

I see it as the failure on the part of mayors and police chiefs to be accountable to the law.  

I continue to do a lot of driving on our highways and I’ve never seen a barangay unit or police patrol unit pull over tricycles and slow-moving motorcycles from the center of highways. I always had to blare away with my horn to get them to move to the side. 

I wonder if the police chiefs have been sanctioned by PNP provincial director Rederico Maranan for failing in this mission, a direct order from DILG Sec. Año. Perhaps not, because the police chiefs remain indifferent…  or clueless.

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PNP LADIES AS FRONTLINERS. Something happened truly impressive about Dagupan PNP last Thursday.

Suddenly there were two policewomen manning the checkpoint at the Dagupan-San Fabian boundary: smartly flagging down vehicles, standing erect, in full crisp uniforms (with caps on), and courteously asking drivers of their identities, purpose of trip. Their image command respect for law, not intimidation. Wow! That deserves a snappy salute!!

They certainly lifted the image of our cops. P/Col. Maranan should consider adapting to this strategy in the province. Most policemen at control points just look shabby- hands on their hips or inside their pockets, strutting around like they were pulled out from nowhere to do a menial job.

Let’s have more trained policewomen as frontliners!

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