Eighteen

Chapter 38

I held her urn in my arms. Up until now, I could not believe that it did not feel like years ago when I embraced Mom inside my arms. She was frail then but warm. At ngayon . . . hindi ko man lang maisip na siya ito.

Apat na taon. Katatapos ko lang ng pag-aaral ko rito. Pagtapos na pagtapos ko, nagdesisyon ako na respetuhin ang pagkawala ni Mommy at sa wakas ay bisitahin siya. All that, bearing the belief that I could finally manage to face one of them at a time. But at the sight of her . . . The sight of something, not someone, I had broken down and constantly did for three months.

During those months, I had only been hugging the urn close to my body most of the time. It was cold and hard. Malayo ito sa naramdmaan ko noong huli ko siyang nayakap. Iniisip ko na lang na kahit papaano, nararamdaman niya ang presensya ko. I was comforting myself with supernatural beliefs, and it helped with my situation somehow.

In how I envisioned things, it was Mom hugging me tight and lovingly. I slept in her arms as she told me stories about her past. I had preferred to hear her stories than to listen to tales. Because she was my mom, and everything about her back then, I wanted to know all of it, leaving nothing to wonder about.

I wondered, if it was true that souls cannot travel up to their resting place when they have unresolved matters down here on earth, had my mother—her soul, that is—left this world? Because I was still here, hollow and bleak, wanting to have a taste of 13 years ago.

If I could change things back then, I would this time around. During those moments that I only silently listened to their arguments from the crack beneath my door, I would have opened it and walked out of my room, so they could see me. They would know that I had been there all along. And I would not have been a mouse, scared of voicing out my fears. I would tell them how much I could not lose my family. Maybe if I had things would not have been this messy.

After all, I had been just a kid . . . and I was even now.

Wala akong kinausap ni-isa kahit na sa tingin ko ay pinag-aalala ko sila lahat. Ang tanging pumuno sa utak ko hanggang sa hindi ko na kinaya ay si Mommy. Mommy and Kuya. It pained me so much that I was so near to giving it up myself. I already could not handle one loss; to see my brother's tomb would likely be the end of me because Mom's had made me gasp for air when all I could feel was salt choking the life out of me.

Sabi nila, malala na raw ako. I was a little close to being sent to a sanatorium, but for the sake of not deciding ahead of me lest I felt like everyone was teaming over me, they let me be. I embraced pain like I had been born with it, when in fact, I had never met any pain such as the loss of two people—the other one remained unknown to my eyes.

Ilang buwan na ganoon ako. Hindi ako nakakain nang maayos kaya mas naging prominente ang bakat ng buto ko sa ilalim ng nagnipis kong balat. Ilang beses na ring pabalik-balik si Daddy rito sa mga nakaraang taon.

"I brought your favorite," Dad said as he walked in the room and sank down in the space on the bed. It was a mango float in his hand.

Napangiti ako nang tipid, pero totoo iyon. It made me happy whenever he came to visit. He never missed a month flying from the Philippines to London only to check on me. It had been helping me push a foot further from the place I stagnated myself in.

He never commented on the way I looked. His hand would always caress my cheek lovingly as I could see the cloud of tears brim his eyes, but it would only be up to that point. Hinding-hindi niya pinakita na nahihirapan din siya sa harap ko.

It was in the fifth month when I had realized I had to finally overcome the truth. I could not live in a constant state of depression. Life that was always on the brim on breaking down was not living. And I knew well more than anyone that Mom had always wanted me to live life to the fullest.