the story of funerals and wakes from the unaborted child

i thought i knew everything about myself already and then another surprise came along.

last thursday i went to the wake of the wife of my father's officemate at Loyola. she died of ovarian cancer-- may God rest her soul.

i hate going to funerals and wakes. it's creepy and it makes me really sad whenever i am faced with the reality of how short life could be. Bea said i have a dark side and i used to think that i wasn't afraid of Death because it happens to everyone. to me too, eventually. but last thursday was different. i realized that i don't like it. i didn't want to go to the wake because i was dead scared and the smell of the room at wakes-- all those flowers and the stiff air just makes me want to run out of the chapel. but the other day i had no choice. "i'm wearing pink!", i reasoned to my father (we didn't plan on going that day but we did). i thought it was also rude to go to a wake in bright colors because you're supposed to be grieving. my father didn't take my half-excuse and insisted that i went with them inside. so there i was in the freezing chapel and we were entertained by the brother of the deceased who animatedly told stories of her sister, among others. the children of the woman who died were very hospitable too and it was a relief that there wasn't stiff air afterall. just very cold temperature that made my teeth chatter. i had a hard time clenching my teeth from chattering and i grabbed my mother's shoulder for me to hug the whole time.

this officemate of his was assigned to Japan too and his children even finished college there. so when my father talked about the time he and my mother lived in Kobe and that my sister was born there, they went into talking about the medical practice during that time. apparently, it wasn't too good. my mother gave birth to my sister by C-section without anesthesia. she said she could even wiggle her toes and feel the doctor slicing her stomach! and then my mother talked about the time when she was pregnant with me. she and my father went to a check-up and because during that time there was a law imposing the ban against bearing children less than two years apart, the doctor thought they would undergo abortion. my parents were surprised, of course. the doctor was already ready to inject. good thing my father knew Japanese then so he said he'd take my mother back to Manila because there was no way they were going to get an abortion.

so yeah, i was surprised. like OH-SHIT-I-WAS-GOING-BE-ABORTED kind of surprised. that was some story, alright. i'm already twenty-one and i didn't know that i came so close to not being here.

when we left the chapel i thought it wasn't so bad afterall. but i didn't look inside the coffin nor did i go anywhere near it. i just sat there and paid my respects. i'm sorry, i haven't gathered that much courage yet. i thought i was tough but i'm not. death still scares me. but i'm glad she's resting now because apparently, the 6 months she went through was exhausting mentally, emotionally, and physically-- something no one should go through on the way to Heaven.