Candles & fireworks

Today, as we honor our dead, I celebrate life.

Those who celebrate their birthdays today, and don’t exactly like the timing (you know, souls and ghouls?) should, in fact, have a double celebration. To celebrate their birth, and to cherish their life.

A post by my FB friend Paz Munson Weigand puts it succinctly. It goes something like, “Every morning, especially when you’re feeling the blues, place your right hand over your heart. Feel that? That’s called purpose.” Your heart is beating, and it is beating for a reason.

Our Christian faith and Filipino tradition make it a time-honored custom for most of us to troop to cemeteries today and tomorrow (All Souls’ Day). Some families gather around their loved ones’ gravesite, turning the vigil into a celebration of sorts, with picnic lunches and endless storytelling.

The sea of stone crosses and marble slabs in cemeteries reminds us that periods aren’t only for sentences, and that final chapters aren’t only for storybooks. And that expiration dates aren’t only for canned goods.

Perhaps we make merry on Nov. 1 and 2 in denial of the fact that one day, some day, we, too, will be amongst the same sea of marble slabs.

It is the best sermon — that we should live each moment to the fullest, so that we can string those moments into one cherished day, and each cherished day into a garland of happy years. It is a silent wake-up call that life is short, it is finite, and too precious to waste.

So looking at the tombstones on Nov. 1 makes me happy, nay, grateful, that though I cry in pain for the loved ones I have lost — the gift of life is still mine to unravel. My departed loved ones have fulfilled their purpose on earth, and my beating heart tells me I still have the gift of time to go on fulfilling mine.

***

How does one deal with the searing pain of losing a loved one? I lost my second child, a prematurely born daughter, almost 20 years ago. She lived but for a few seconds.  She was just eight ounces big and I remember putting my forefinger on her tiny hand, just to connect with her. The doctors baptized her and when they asked for a name, I said, “Joanna.” I couldn’t bear to let her die in my arms, so I let the doctors put her in a warm bassinet where her tiny heart gave up.

There have been about 175,200 hours in 7,300 days since I lost Joanna and in that time, I must have thought of her a hundred thousand times. I kid thee not.

As Manay Gina de Venecia, who lost her beloved youngest daughter KC to a fire in 2004, told me, the grief over the pain of loss never goes away. The intervals between the tears just get longer and longer till life is as close to normal as it can get. 

I don’t usually go to mediums, but I once was in the same gathering with one and he told me my little girl isn’t at peace yet because she sees that I am still so sad over her death. That I haven’t quite forgiven myself for my failure to bring her into this world. He told me to offer Masses for her on three consecutive Fridays.

I figured I had nothing to lose by following the medium’s advice since I really find solace in hearing Mass. I also started to forgive myself for my shortcomings as an expectant mother and rid myself of the “I should haves” that haunted me.

Maybe it was the Masses, maybe it was the forgiveness, maybe it is the healing power of time. I used to dream of Joanna always as a baby or a little girl. She never grew up in my dreams. She was chained to the past. Recently, I dreamt of a teenaged girl with long black hair who had my features. She really looked like a heavenly body, a happy angel. I know deep in my heart she is my Joanna. She is no longer a baby. She has moved on —  because I have.

***

I grieve for the loss of my beloved father Frank, who was the wind that blew my sails towards the right direction. He taught me by example that dreams are tomorrow’s realities if you worked hard enough for them.

I say a prayer of fond remembrance for my parents-in-law Carlos and Lutgarda Ramirez; grandparents Mary and Nazario Mayor and Igmedio and Jovita Reyes, and other loved ones and friends who had gone ahead.

But as I wipe away the tears with one hand, I put the other over my heart, because it beats. And it beats for a reason.

I will light candles for the departed, and fireworks for the living.