When Loss Precedes Value

When we hold things dear and possess those that we need or want we most absolutely desire to keep them for our lifetime. But not all of those we want to stay will remain with us. Many will just pass us by, be these things material or metaphysical.

I remember having this rag doll with blonde braids when I was a child. I used to hold her in my arms when I sleep and I have a picture of her on top of all the other toys in my four-story toy cabinet. Her pink polka dot blush made her look more like a clown than a pretty doll that she was. I remember how precious she was to me because we took her to Cebu when we moved in with my parents. I'd never want to leave her in Davao where I knew she would be lonely. I don’t know where she is now, perhaps thrown to the dungeons for the prince’s rescuing.

I remember my yayas from Davao, who had been so loyal to my Grandma and who loved me so much they became my Godmothers at my baptism. They flew in with me to Cebu just to take care of me and look after me as I grow. Eventually, one of them had to return to their homeland Bohol since my parents could no longer afford two house helpers at the same time. My Ninang Pining now rears a lovely miracle daughter in Bohol while my Ninang Sol rests in peace with the Almighty after a small foot accident took her life. I wish I could have just told her how much I loved her before she lost her breath, unfortunately I was miles away. God bless her soul.

Being pampered so much by my Grandma kind of made my life here a bit difficult to adjust to because if life is uncomplicated as it was in Davao, here in Cebu it is almost the total opposite. We do not live in luxury and all that wealth but my Nanay (what I call my Grandma) was just as hardworking as hell, selling food stuff in her kitchenette right at the ground floor of her two-storey house while attending to some hectares of land in the middle of nowhere in Cotabato harvesting some amount of money from the tenants who tilled and plowed the land. Amazing how some widows could make use of their time wisely to feed their children and find means to help them live a better life.

In the end, life has had the best of my Nanay, as she had the last few years of her existence in somewhat agony. The strife she’d had with my mother escalated in the early 1990’s that seem to have etched a lot of resentments in both their hearts. Though they eventually reconciled and my Nanay lived with us for the remaining of the decade, her body had succumbed to heart failure and other complications that rendered her immobile, lifeless in bed.

I recall how that happened in September of 1998, when she was busy preparing for something (might have been my birthday I guess) when she received word from NZ where my mother was seeking opportunities and was a few days short of going back to the Philippines, that she was not in the best condition. It broke her heart and triggered a stroke that sent her straight to ICU. The incident rendered half of her body paralyzed that she wasn’t even able to speak since then. Seven long agonizing months for her were full of daily prayers and weekly anointments, turning her over to ensure the bedsores don’t worsen, bedpans as urinals connected to a catheter attached to her urethra, regular feedings thru an oral tube just to sustain the bodily needs for fluids and solids to keep her alive. Each day we took turns in caring for her but each day we became hopeless she will recuperate. While she tried with all her might to gulp down as much food and liquid as she can, only a few morsels would do for her and that was enough improvement for us. Little did we know those would be her lasts few intakes.

Her body gave up shortly before my sister’s birthday on summer of 1999. I just graduated from high school and was about to turn another chapter of my life without her. I knew she only meant well for us guarding me in particular as my chaperon in junior and senior high and making sure her grandchildren get the best of their needs. I thought at that time I had the most authoritarian Nanay in the world but the realization of her love for me and my siblings only came to mind when she was gone. I never appreciated her strictness until I lost her. I lost the opportunity to tell her how much she was loved and still is loved to this day. I think I may have whispered to her ear at some point when she was lying lifelessly in bed but I can only hope and pray she heard it somehow.