The last time I saw my Nanay alive she was about to
die. I knew it the moment I saw her
slumped on her favorite chair, her eyes wide open, glassy and blank. I tried talking to her, encouraging her to
communicate. All I heard were moans,
perhaps she was saying something. Then
tears fell from her eyes. She was saying
goodbye.
I know she’s gone but I can’t seem to do the same.
Ok, Tnx. That was the
last conscious communication I got from Nanay as a response to a text query
whether she wanted photo albums to go with the pictures of her Europe Marian
Pilgrimage, which she asked to be printed at the mall. She said that her adventures would be better
told if she had the pictures to guide her where she went, who she was with, and
what she did.
She arrived a little over a week before that fateful
day. She was extremely exhausted from
the non-stop walking and moving from one pilgrimage site to another, and desperately
missing rice, which she had only twice in the entire three weeks or so that she
was away. But she was very happy and
serene, as if she knew something we did not.
I don’t recall much about how I brought her to the
hospital. I don’t know if I was driving
fast or reckless, all I knew was that I was frantic, hoping against hope that
my effort will result into the opposite of what I knew was the start of a
chapter in my life that I had no interest having.
I spoke the word Nanay countless times, each instance with
the earnestness of a young child searching for the one person in the crowd that
would make everything alright – with merely her presence. She was
there, barely.
It was fast. And it
was slow, so slow that I still see everything happening now as I write because
everything started around this time, with this same cold in the air, with this
same silence. All that is missing is the
shriek from Nanay’s angel – Lyn – who pierced the unbecoming calm, “Kuya, si
Nanay!”
It’s been a year.
Many things have changed, many things have happened – none is ever the
same, yet everything is the same, everything happened without Nanay around.
I know she is gone for good.
But I’m not saying goodbye. She
is always with me, and not a day that passes by that I don’t expect to see her,
by the garden, inside the house, anywhere – just to see her.
So if by chance one day we meet and she asks me if ever I
thought of her, I’d say Everyday Nanay, everyday.
Here are posts about my Nanay which you may have missed:
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