God spring cleaning?

I don’t like to think or to know that my friends and relatives have died. Death for me has such finality. I like to think or imagine that they have just crossed over.

I looked up from my cellphone into the distance. When I was very small we lived in Pasay. I loved orange popsicles. I sucked and licked until they got sort of flat and pointy and then bit off the tip. “Tweetums, can I taste your popsicle?” Tita Hilda, my mother’s youngest sister, asked. She was still single then. My mother and she were lounging and chatting on the bed. I handed her my popsicle whose tip was just starting to get flat and pointy. She bit off the tip. I cried. They didn’t understand how hard I worked to get the tip to the state I loved to bite.

 I think I was the flower girl at her wedding. She and Tito Ben Aldaba, the man she married, had a fondness for me when I was little, actually even when I was big, and more recently even after I have grown old. I remember lying on her bed and looking at the sky. My goodness, the clouds were moving! “Look, Tita, the sky is moving!” I remember saying excitedly to her. “No, she said, it’s the earth, our globe that’s turning around.”

 When I was a teenager she taught me how to embroider on her sewing machine. We bought fabric that had a butterfly print. She taught me to put tulle behind and embroider the wings with a tight zigzag; then to cut them out and sew them by hand on a dress I had. When we were newly married she taught my cousin Didit and me to go to the wet market.

 And now this text from her oldest daughter. Sad news. “Mom passed away peacefully this afternoon. Multi-organ failure. At least she’s now free from pain and suffering.” Hilda Cruz Aldaba, my mother’s youngest sister, a gift to all of us, was gone. Her passing marks the end of the generation before ours. All of them are gone now. We are in the pre-departure area, I told a few of my cousins. One of us will be next.

 “Should we have a memorial service for her?” one of them asked. “Let me think about it,” I said. But two nights later I had a dream about her and Tito Ben looking young and full of laughter. They told me to get a more interesting job than the one I had in the dream. They looked very happy. I called my cousin and said, “I don’t think we need a memorial service. They are already very happy together once more.”

 Then I got another text sent on the cellphone of a sweet, old friend I have had for many, many years: “Our beloved Inday Espejo peacefully joined our Creator on March 30.” I saw us, much younger, laughing and teasing at the office, playing silly word games, making fun of each other, during those wonderful days at Avellana & Associates. We were a bunch of very good friends, most of whom have crossed over. I saw her at Cesar Concio’s house during our annual celebration of Totoy Avellana’s birthday.  Now, three days after my aunt, Inday is gone too. I don’t think I will go to her wake but I will pray for her from my tiny prayer nook.

 I don’t like to think or to know that my friends and relatives have died. Death for me has such finality. I like to think or imagine that they have just crossed over, gone to another place ahead of me. Maybe they will prepare things so that when I come they will be there to meet me. There will be much joking and laughter once again. The old wonderful times will return. That’s why I never want to go to the services for people who are dear to me.

 If that’s not enough, the very next day I got a text that told me that Bert Reyes, husband of Fely, father of one of my people at Coca-Cola, Lorie Reyes, had also passed away. Just as I was reading the text his burial Mass was happening. No more chance of my catching up. I would text Fely but her number got lost with my phone. Once Lorie, who is much younger than me, got dizzy at the office and had to be rushed to the hospital. I called up Fely, identified myself as Lorie’s co-mom, and advised her of the situation. Later Fely became my writing student. She became a good friend. Fely and Bert were among the nicest people I knew.

 Okay, God, I pray every morning. You have taken three people who were close to me. Is this your idea of spring cleaning? You took them all towards the end of the first quarter of this year. I will miss them all. When You took them You opened the door to memories that are now flooding my heart. Be kind to them, please. They were the loveliest people.

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