Chronicles Revealed

Chapter 6: The Wake

Even before we transferred to our designated chapel, there had been a steady stream of relatives and friends arriving to find out what really happened to our son, to give him their last respects and remembrance. Many of them knew about the incident from the radio, from the social media, by word of mouth.

Despite what they heard and read, all of them could not believe what they described as the tragic loss of our eldest son. They were also unhappy and frustrated to know that he was still in the morgue and maybe brought in to his chapel late in the night already. After talking to us and to relatives and friends they saw in the chapel, they left as they arrived, one after another, to come back in the evening or the following day.

Flowers on easels, wreaths and bouquets were delivered now and then and by nighttime the flowers in different presentations filled the room and those that arrived later had to be placed outside the chapel. All the seats, inside and outside, were occupied, some sat on the stairs across the chapel, when they wheeled the coffin in with my son in it. Just over twenty-four hours earlier, he was in the rain, now he was in a coffin and never to experience rain again. A coward and coldblooded and treacherous person did that to him.

A heavy hush filled the room. Everything suddenly became quiet and still as if angels flew in. All conversations stopped and everyone looked intently as the funeral home's personnel silently and delicately placed the coffin on the bier at the nave of the chapel, straightened its position, arranged and turned on all the funeral lights around it, opened its cap panel for the viewing of my son, and soon left silently as they came in.

In his long-sleeved Barong Tagalog, he looked very dignified and was very nice to view. No one noticed what the people in the morgue did to what he was wearing that fitted very nicely. How could anyone say my son was gone? He was right there with all of us. He was only sleeping and dreaming of beautiful things.

Truly, he looked very neat and cool and good-looking as he lay there in his ultimate bed. No pain, no sadness, no fear in his face. He was resting in perfect peace.

A priest close to my wife's nephew in-law held mass in the chapel for our son every night at eight PM until the last night of the wake. Since our son was still in the morgue, he held the first mass in the house of my wife's eldest brother. Thereafter, he celebrated the mass every night at eight PM in my son's chapel throughout the duration of the wake as well as in the requiem, 9th day, 40th day and first anniversary masses. I hope when our time comes he will also be the one holding masses for me and my wife.

He was in his forties, a good priest as I saw him, and sympathized sincerely even though we did not know him before. A lot of priests are pretentious and may their kind vanish from the face of the earth. His homilies were touching, applied softly to our predicament, did not speak to teach but to heal. Unlike the mercenary kind of priests, the Damasos in expensive watches, shirts and shoes and riding in high-end SUVs, he never asked for payment of any kind nor hinted at it. He was with us all the way in our sorrow and pain. He was, indeed, a very nice and sincere person.

Many we did not know came. Among them was a group of young professionals and businessmen, as they looked to me, came in. They politely introduced themselves to us as our son's elementary and high school classmates and friends all grown up now in size and demeanor and, like their friend, with families of their own already, as some of them disclosed. They got separated in high school as they went to different schools, just seeing one another now and then, the how are you and see you kind of chance meetings. And here they were, together again in the first night of my son's wake.

What a reunion this is, one of them exclaimed.

They came about an hour before they brought my son in and had decided to wait for him when we told them he would be coming in, shortly. They were tightly seated in one of the larger sofas and they seemed to have a great conversation going on about their childish pranks and even mischief they did as a group or individually to annoy the Prefect of Discipline who, to them, shamelessly practiced discrimination and favoritism among the students. He was a veritable sycophantic servant of the Chinese rich.