Deathbed

After lighting the last candle and firmly placing it on the grassy edges of Mama's tombstone, I sighed a sigh that knows no meaning. Not of tiredness for sure. I stared at her name and felt a sudden pang of inexplicable loss and melancholy. On the second day of undas, the air of exhaustion and joyous relief can be felt among the families getting ready to depart from their departed.

I remembered Abigail Breslin's character in No Reservations when she said that she's afraid she's going to forget her mother who died in a car crash. I must have heard this line before in some other movie and while I may not fully understand such apprehension, I admire the young girl's longing. In this noisy world, one can easily drift in wave of inanities.

Days before Mama died, she called me to lay beside her. She started telling me things that were a blur to me back then. When she talked about responsibility, obligation and other familial ties, I didn't know what it meant. I never thought she was going to die though I was aware that her cancer was deadly. I was listening to her but I was only looking at her sad, tired face. I cried but I didn't know for what. If that happened now, I'd be terrified. I'd tell Mama to stop saying such foolish things. The next day she was already seeing things. Figures clad in black and wanting to take her away. We called a priest the following day but she only spoke of nice things and that she already being called by figures clad in white.

She passed away in peace. In the deathbed, where she used to tell me that I be a good man, a good son, a caring, responsible brother. Ma, I hope you look down at me pleased that I'm trying my best to do what you told me to.