When you’re gone

Why do we cry when someone dies? What do we mourn? The loss of a loved one? A life in general? Who do we grieve for? The dead person, who might be a family member, or a friend? Or do we grieve for ourselves, because we were left behind?

When I was eight, my uncle died of complications of asthma. He was 28 years old. During the wake, I cried probably because I saw that everyone was crying. He was too young, everybody was saying. I know now that I cried because I understood that it meant I was never going to see him again, this uncle who gave me the nicest gifts and who took me regularly to the neighborhood ice cream parlor. I was crushed by this loss.

When I was 22 another uncle died. My family was more devastated by this loss, I think, because it happened when everyone was already comfortable with their lives. Nobody saw it coming. I was sad, but didn’t cry as much as I did 14 years ago. I’m not sure why. I probably learned to suppress a lot of things in the time that passed that I seemed so calm when everyone was visibly distressed. But I was sad. I mean, I grew up with him. He was my god-father. I was more sad, I remember, for the family he left behind, his wife who was totally dependent on him, and their adopted son, who was just 5 years old then.

Having someone die on you is extremely difficult, but living after this death is a more daunting task. A death in the family can either bring a family closer or wrench them apart.

In the last 5 years both of my grandmothers passed away. My father, grandfather, and uncles took this hard, but they seemed to recover with the resiliency of trees that braved a typhoon–a few leaves and branches short, but still standing. I like to think that they’re like this because of the tough lives that they have faced.

On my maternal side, however, the story is different. My mother and her siblings took her death equally hard. And in the 3 years since her death, I’ve seen how their relationship have been frayed and torn by squabbles that mirrored the most melodramatic telenovelas that can be seen on television today. These squabbles have happened before, but now, without my grandmother to mediate and judge, these conflicts have become protracted. My mother, being the eldest, is most affected but she can only do so much. Makes me glad I’m an only child, to tell the truth.

When someone dies, we are fond of saying that s/he died before her/his time. I think this statement is erroneous. I mean, who knows when our time is up anyway? Does this mean that only old people deserve to die? Death doesn’t work this way. I doubt if anybody knows at all. Neither age nor accomplishment is the measure of a full life. What is a person decides that another person’s time is up? What if the person decides his own time is up? What if the decision to die or remain alive depends on a prognosis? Murder, suicide, and disease probably operate on the same randomness and chaos that our lives tread on.

I am writing this punch-drunk, after a late night spent with friends old and new. They have so generously provided me with a glimpse of their beating hearts and their throbbing pains. I wish I have their courage to expose their grief to my scrutiny, to my clinically-detached words and reactions. But I realize I don’t.

And so to make up for this cowardice, I feebly offer these words.