beth calero writes

sure. i saw someone in the hospital. it was awkward as i only smiled but i don't know if the person noticed it. i should have approached and talked but i kept avoiding that person. we only see each other during wakes and now this one. kakamiss din siyang kausap pero di na dapat. nagpalpitate ata ako.

posted by coolcamote @ 5:53 AM 0 comments

another death and another one

my mom's cousin died of a heart attack last monday. tito nap was 63. he came to the philippines from guam for his annual vacation. i even kidded him over that weekened over something trivial.

his story is much more in color because everyone thought his other brother, the flamboyant papa doy was going ahead of everyone. papa doy was stricken with colon cancer five years ago. he had his operation in new york and eventually padre pio extended a miracle to him. he was healed until late last year.

when i left the apartment to move back a year ago, i noticed that it was more often that his carinderia was closed. his chef died a few months back and he had to take the cudgels. since i was forever broke and moved out, he had to foot his own bill. what was funny is that the bill was still the same despite him living alone. a tv, a ref and it was a high bill.

so, when i saw him for the first time in 2009, he was lying on his chair and was very weak. he said that he was in pain and the area was on the right side, below the tummy. he said it was so much that if he couldn't bear it, he'd end it. i said, end what????? (now, i see a bottle of melatonin. did he think of an overdose?) then he said it must be the same pain that my mom and their aunt felt as both were cancer victims. my mom never said anything but i knew it was painful as she had high tolerance for pain but when she cringed, i couldn't and i refused to imagine it anymore.

then, last monday, i saw papa doy sitting under the big tree and told him that he had much improved color and i wished for his recovery. then, i went to school with a smile hoping that he would indeed get well. when i got to work, i got a text saying it was his older brother who passed away.

W H A T ??????

it was surreal. i don't know why it crossed my mind -- a similar scenario always happens in movies and radio dramas. argh. but this was real life. this was part of my life.

then, this morning, papa doy vomitted blood and had to be rushed to the nearby hospital. is it only in my area where the funeral parlors and city hospital are within a 100 meter radius? i had just came from there and he had some tubes attached on both his arms. he was breathing through an oxygen tank. his bp was so low like 80+/60+. they said he might need blood. if only i didn't have my period, then i could ask if i could qualify. my hypertension is within normal range even if i don't take medication

the doctors didn't know what was wrong with him. so they have this on the chart:
________________________________________________________________________________

i can't write anything. i just got a message that the doctors tried to revive him but it seems futile.

doy santos march 31 1948 - january 15/16 2009

posted by coolcamote @ 4:31 AM 0 comments

bye br. rafe

we knew him then as super mario because he looked like mario in the nintendo game. yet, we knew he really need to be more than super because he had to fill in the shoes of the big one (who went away early this year, weeks before his birthday). we knew him as the one who bravely said that we should leave our comfort zones (literally, i guess, as that was the time when we were pushing for the full airconditioning of velasco and miguel). we knew him as the brother who said, "kayong mga taga-La Salle, mahilig sa signs."

also, i remember that he changed all the benzes to a fleet of white corollas. it seemed that he wanted to put his own stamp among us. so, he was very visible in the community. he knew, then, that his reign will not last as the big one will eventually come back. he had to be the one to take care of the moments of transition. when the big one came back, super mario was reassigned and things went back to how they were, almost... that was more than a decade ago. few people in the community know him now but a lot will be curious --- for they found his body ashore last night. he was swimming with the brothers that afternoon in bataan. he disappeared and they knew that the undertow of the bay had taken, as it always did, another life.

good by super mario. sweet dreams, brother rafe. the big one andrew is starting his call.

posted by coolcamote @ 6:40 PM 0 comments

pop writes 30

august 20, 2006 300am. pop writes 30. he was bedridden for more than a year and was finally alcohol free but alcohol was his only fuel and he lost the zeal to live. he was 69.

finding the poem, the dead is a consolation or it could've been somesort of foreshadowing. so now, i must update my list for august.

okay so we were hip kids, we called our father pop. so we had mom and pop. hehehe.

posted by coolcamote @ 4:07 PM 0 comments

The Dead

simple but it does makes me wonder what happens to the dead. billy collins is my new idol! argh. as usual, i discovered this american poet only now. his poems are highly structured and have images. it's amazing how poets can weave together images that are so trivial into a blanket of truth.

i suppose this is a tribute to all my dead relatives.

listen to The Dead by Billy Collins

posted by coolcamote @ 7:28 PM 0 comments

Forgetfulness by Billy Collins

please cite properly : )

Forgetfulness by Billy Collins

The name of the author is the first to go followed obediently by the title, the plot, the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even heard of, it is as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain, to a little fishing village where there are no phones. Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye and you watched the quadratic equation pack its bag, and even now as you memorize the order of the planets, something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps, the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay. Whatever it is you are struggling to remember, it is not poised on the tip of your tongue, not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen. It has floated away down a dark mythological river whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall, well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those who have forgotten even how to swim and how to ride a bicycle. No wonder you rise in the middle of the night to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war. No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

posted by coolcamote @ 7:23 PM 0 comments

the inevitable

i only have two uncles and an aunt from my mom's side still able to walk, talk and breathe. my father's only brother was accidentally shot in the us 40 years ago (henry was a navyman and news was that he was accidentally shot in a hunting trip. oh, sure, let me trust the us navy)

my mom's second sister succumbed to cancer this morning or night (LA time). so, i decided to make a list of their death months so i could not forget.

february - lolo celestino, eleng (their dad)

march - lola loring (my paternal grandmother)

april - tito baby, anselmo (my mom's second brother though i'm not sure)

may - lola meding, remedios (their mom; whose cold dead body was the first i touched)

june - tita medy, remedios (my mom's second sister)

july - tito bill, guillermo (my mom's eldest bachelor brother)

august - my mom, mercedes (after she died, i never looked into anyone's coffin again.... hmmm... i don't remember if i touched her dead body. i don't think i did or i could've.)

september - lola loleng, my mom's favorite aunt as far as my perception is concerned

october - tito eddy, eduardo (my mom's fourth brother, my funniest uncle and one of my favorites, but i'm not so sure of this month)


oh, and for each month, one of them celebrates a birthday, like my mom was born and had died in august, like my grandmother. see how close their numbers are: mom's bday was the 27th and she died on the 3rd, a quarter after midnight. my grandmother was born on the 2nd and died on the 27th.

funny how we cope with death, taking consolation in numbers and trivia.

posted by coolcamote @ 6:01 PM 0 comments