In Threes...
Posted by over_the_EdGE at 01:34 PM on November 5, 2005.
This has not been a very good sem break. First, and the most shallow reason, is the lack of funds. Other things like a run-in with the traffic enforcers and the muddy cemeteries sprinkled this week long holiday with less than jovial spirits. However, as this entry will discuss, it has really been a memorable All Souls break for me.
They say bad things come in threes. This applies to accidents and deaths. Last Sunday, as Aids and I attended the wake of Christian's dad, this superstition came to mind. It was the unnerving premonition that two more people would die and that I would attend both wakes.
Buried in my head was the fear that my grandfather would be one of them. Earlier that day we had visited my grandfather for the first time in a month or so. I was gravely disheartened to see him emaciated. Apparently, he hadn't been eating enough because of phlegm. I did my best to stay with him for the whole of our short visit. Talking with him is always a problem, it only got worse and time went by. It was hard enough to understand what he was saying when you could hear him, but lately all you could hear was the air wheezing out of him. It broke my heart over and over again as our conversations were reduced to "Ano po yon, Lolo?" and "Hindi ko po maintindihan." It did not help that both my uncle and my cousins were always noisy.
The following day, October 31, we spent the afternoon together in the cemetery by my grandmother's grave. Once again, that odd foreboding of tragedy lingered over me, but unwilling to have my spirits dampened, I ignored it. What I did do, which I have always sworn to do, was to always make sure that the last thing I told him before we part ways is to tell him that I love him. I did this with my paternal grandmother almost ten years ago, my maternal grandmother (his wife) four years ago.
November 2, my aunt, who's actually my mom's cousin suddenly fell into a coma. The family was grief-stricken because she has very healthy and lively the previous day. When the news reached us that morning, I had initially feared that it was my grandfather. When I found out it wasn't, a small guilty brief sense of relief came over me, but that was quickly snatched away by the realization that this was most probably the second wake I would be attending this week.
November 3, that night my mom informed me that her cousin was going to be taken off life support. I wasn't that affected, we weren't close, but I did not sleep soundly that night.
Yesterday, November 4, a hurried knock rapped me out of my sleep. My mom said that my grandfather had a difficult time breathing and was rushed to the emergency room. I initially hesitated because I had other things to do, but the felling in my gut that has been brewing all week long had grown stronger. By the time we arrived at MCU, they were pumping oxygen into him as they tried to keep his heartrate up. At the foot of the bed I saw the defibrillator which they had used earlier and I was glued to the monitors that showed erratic green readings.
I planted myself in one of the chairs and focused on work I hadn't finished. They had him X-rayed and an hour or so after we arrived, he was brought to the ICU.
I don't recall the passage of time. What seemed to be half an hour was already a few hours. Outside the ICU, I stayed with my lolo's "taga-alaga" and read CS Lewis' Mere Christianity. My mom suddenly called me into the room, knowing what was in store but at the same time uncertain, I entered a room I had never hoped to enter again.
I couldn't what was happening exactly nor do I recall it accurately in spite of it being only yesterday. That heartmeter, the ECG or whatever, which I had seen countless times in movies and TV shows was there, barely undulating as they shocked my grandfather's chest repeatedly with the defibrillator. I put my arm around my mother and asked what was obvious.
Showing remarkable strength but nonetheless teary-eyed, my mother said that his fingers had gone black. The doctor, whom none of us knew, casually said that he was gone. Despite being resigned to the inevitable, my mother asked them to try once more. The nurses did what they could, but that was it. In the midst of all this, my uncle was still noisily chatting with the daughter of another patient.
The three of us gathered around my grandfather and for the last time I held his hand. They weren't black anymore. While his heart didn't beat anymore, mom asked if he was still breathing - there was some movement. The doctor trivially dismissed it as some post-mortem spasm and I gazed back at my grandfather, Abundio C. Villar, with his jaw wide-open like a silent gasp for nothing. He was 87 years old.
At least the last thing I said to him was that I loved him.
Never live with regrets.
They say bad things come in threes. This applies to accidents and deaths. Last Sunday, as Aids and I attended the wake of Christian's dad, this superstition came to mind. It was the unnerving premonition that two more people would die and that I would attend both wakes.
Buried in my head was the fear that my grandfather would be one of them. Earlier that day we had visited my grandfather for the first time in a month or so. I was gravely disheartened to see him emaciated. Apparently, he hadn't been eating enough because of phlegm. I did my best to stay with him for the whole of our short visit. Talking with him is always a problem, it only got worse and time went by. It was hard enough to understand what he was saying when you could hear him, but lately all you could hear was the air wheezing out of him. It broke my heart over and over again as our conversations were reduced to "Ano po yon, Lolo?" and "Hindi ko po maintindihan." It did not help that both my uncle and my cousins were always noisy.
The following day, October 31, we spent the afternoon together in the cemetery by my grandmother's grave. Once again, that odd foreboding of tragedy lingered over me, but unwilling to have my spirits dampened, I ignored it. What I did do, which I have always sworn to do, was to always make sure that the last thing I told him before we part ways is to tell him that I love him. I did this with my paternal grandmother almost ten years ago, my maternal grandmother (his wife) four years ago.
November 2, my aunt, who's actually my mom's cousin suddenly fell into a coma. The family was grief-stricken because she has very healthy and lively the previous day. When the news reached us that morning, I had initially feared that it was my grandfather. When I found out it wasn't, a small guilty brief sense of relief came over me, but that was quickly snatched away by the realization that this was most probably the second wake I would be attending this week.
November 3, that night my mom informed me that her cousin was going to be taken off life support. I wasn't that affected, we weren't close, but I did not sleep soundly that night.
Yesterday, November 4, a hurried knock rapped me out of my sleep. My mom said that my grandfather had a difficult time breathing and was rushed to the emergency room. I initially hesitated because I had other things to do, but the felling in my gut that has been brewing all week long had grown stronger. By the time we arrived at MCU, they were pumping oxygen into him as they tried to keep his heartrate up. At the foot of the bed I saw the defibrillator which they had used earlier and I was glued to the monitors that showed erratic green readings.
I planted myself in one of the chairs and focused on work I hadn't finished. They had him X-rayed and an hour or so after we arrived, he was brought to the ICU.
I don't recall the passage of time. What seemed to be half an hour was already a few hours. Outside the ICU, I stayed with my lolo's "taga-alaga" and read CS Lewis' Mere Christianity. My mom suddenly called me into the room, knowing what was in store but at the same time uncertain, I entered a room I had never hoped to enter again.
I couldn't what was happening exactly nor do I recall it accurately in spite of it being only yesterday. That heartmeter, the ECG or whatever, which I had seen countless times in movies and TV shows was there, barely undulating as they shocked my grandfather's chest repeatedly with the defibrillator. I put my arm around my mother and asked what was obvious.
Showing remarkable strength but nonetheless teary-eyed, my mother said that his fingers had gone black. The doctor, whom none of us knew, casually said that he was gone. Despite being resigned to the inevitable, my mother asked them to try once more. The nurses did what they could, but that was it. In the midst of all this, my uncle was still noisily chatting with the daughter of another patient.
The three of us gathered around my grandfather and for the last time I held his hand. They weren't black anymore. While his heart didn't beat anymore, mom asked if he was still breathing - there was some movement. The doctor trivially dismissed it as some post-mortem spasm and I gazed back at my grandfather, Abundio C. Villar, with his jaw wide-open like a silent gasp for nothing. He was 87 years old.
At least the last thing I said to him was that I loved him.
Never live with regrets.