everyday is a torture. every waking day, every goddamned night i asked for numbness...for release. i go through life as if i'm in a haze. i have to drag myself out of bed. i have to force my feet to walk to work. i have to force myself to concentrate in my work. i have to paste this smile, remember to laugh at the right times, remember where i am, force myself to hope, force myself to believe again, pretend everything is alright, pretend to hope everything is going to be alright...i don't know how to stop this farce. i am holding on by the skin of my teeth. one more burden, one more twisted joke and i will snap...

i try not to dwell on it. i try not to think about it. but this huge empty space, this dark silent void screams "you're gone." call me selfish, but i can't let go. i can't let go. how does one let go? how do i let go? how do i go on? this pain is tearing me apart. i'm helpless to stop it.

she's gone. i still can't believe it. what is acceptance? when does it come?

i was sleeping when she died. i woke up that night, about to go to work and i remember looking at my cellphone. i had 9 missed calls and a very full inbox but thought nothing about it, and then i learned from my sister...my world stopped while the rest of the world moved on as if nothing had happened. all i remember saying was "why didn't you wait for me? i was going to go home Mama... i told you i was going to go home... i was going to go home..."

i can't stop crying. i cried in my bath. i cried when i texted kix to tell WF for me. i cried until i could scarcely breathe. i wish i were there in naga. i want to be with you Ma. i want to hold your hand, rub your feet. i just want to hug you and listen to you tell me it's going to be alright. i want to turn back time. i wish i never left.

the house was so suffocating if i stayed there i will be paralyzed with grief. i will be crying all night. so we went out to eat... we ordered shrimps. i had no appetite but i ate them anyway because you loved shrimps...

the next day. jack and i left for naga... the bus couldn't move fast enough. i couldn't sleep. i cannot believe this is not a dream. i am awake so i must not be dreaming all this. i am not in a nightmare so there was never a need to wake up. but i so desperately wanted to wake up from this. i never wanted this to be real.

it all happened too fast. i didn't even get to greet you Happy Mother's Day before they brought you into the icu. you were coughing too hard. you can't breathe. you can't speak. it's that ventilator. why don't they let me speak to you. i promised i won't cry. but the next day you were gone. dead and gone... it's too late for me. i didn't even get to tell you i love you before you died...i wanted to tell you i'm sorry for not being there all the time... sorry for every pain, every disappointment... i'm sorry Ma... i didn't get to hug you again...i didn't get to kiss again... just like that Mama... and you're gone. i can't wash away this guilt...i don't know how to banish this pain. i wallow in it, i can't swim away from it...

when i walked into that funeral parlor, it took all my effort not to sob and tell all those people to go away. i can't believe it's you lying in that coffin, you look like you were just sleeping. i just stared... but i couldn't cry. is that really you in there? i willed my tears away. i don't really know where you are. i don't know how long i stood beside your coffin but i never cried. i had to get away from that place.

i went to this restaurant and ordered the most expensive food i could think of. i wasn't hungry but i made myself eat the cordon bleu and the halohalo. it was cold inside the restaurant and i wanted to be even colder. i forced myself to eat the halohalo. i want the numbness brought on by the cold... and because with coldness comes numbness...and i look forward to numbness. if i'm numb inside maybe it would keep me from thinking, from remembering and maybe it will stop me from feeling.. .

it was 2 in the morning and i am cold, eating halohalo and remembering... my tears fell freely as i ate the cordon bleu... as i ate the halohalo. the waiter placed a glass of water on my table and i just sobbed. i can't stop. i don't care whether all the people stared. because i hurt... everywhere i hurt.

i went home to sleep in your bed. i cried when i stared at the empty bed. i smelled your clothes, your pillows... i hugged them to me... it smells like you Mom. but you're not there. so i cried myself to sleep hugging your clothes and your pillows...and woke up with a splitting headache and a pain that will never go away.

that next day from the funeral parlor, they brought you to lola's house. i didn't want to go there so early. i am selfish in my grief. i don't want to see lola crying because i'm trying to maintain a very thin hold on my sanity. so i traveled there late. i rode in uncle pepe's battered van. i screamed into the night and scared some of my cousins on the way... i think i lost it then.

oh why does everything move so fast when you want it to slow down?

the priest tried to say comforting words at your funeral. that you're finally in a better place without pain. that eventually all this hurt will go away. but i clenched my teeth and wondered when will eventually come?

before they lowered you into your grave, i touched your arm one more time. it doesn't feel like it used to. i wished so hard i could hug you Ma. i wanted to kiss you. i want you tell me it's going to be alright... that it's all going to be alright again...

i watched that white coffin that holds your body while the sepulturero's covered it. i sobbed as the certainty of never seeing you again, of never touching you, of never talking to you finally descended on me. i listened as lola sobbed with tj and rick at her side, as papa cried and held on to me and jack. why does it have to happen to you Ma? why does it have to be you?

as i packed each of your clothes, i smelled each of them before i place them in the box. cried over the your favorite shirt. cried over the clothes you wore on my graduation. i'm never going to see you in them again. i remembered the time when you were wearing each one of them. putting them away is the most painful thing next to watching you being lowered into that grave. the reality of never seeing you wear them again, is so heartbreaking i don't know how i managed to finish packing when all i want to do is just lie there and hug those clothes and just drown in your memories.

sorting through all the pictures, looking at you alive and smiling, recalling each and every happy and sad scene while i try not to think about the future where there will be no you. my heart just breaks... and i don't know how it will ever be whole again.

and now i'm back here at work. looking at this copy of your death certificate that i'm suppose to bring to HR. it says in small barely legible handwriting the cause of your death: breast cancer stage IV with spinal cord compression. signed by your doctor. time of death: 4:35 pm. and i remember again that i was still asleep at the time you passed away...and that we never met, not even in my dreams.

i have tried to put it off for several days...but myke has finally beaten me to it. he had someone bring it to HR. so now you must really be gone.

yesterday was your wedding anniversary and i remember our last conversation. you asked me if i will be going home. i told you i might if i could take a leave. but now you're gone and papa spent it alone. i did not go home early because if i'm at home all i do is think of you. i tried not to think of the occasion last night because i don't want to cry again. my pillow is already saturated with tears of grief.

i don't understand how the sun can continue to come up on the same place everyday when everything is not the same in our life anymore. there used to be 5 us, now we're only 4.

all the kind words, the letters, those self help books cannot wash away this grief. every "kumusta ka na?" is just a painful reminder that you're not here anymore. i have no positive reply and thus i have stopped answering that question. no matter how much they tell me you're in a better place, that you're OK now...and i know that you must be... but it still doesn't diminish this pain. it just doesn't cut ice from where i sit. all i know is you're gone and i miss you so much... and that it hurts so damned much... and that no one and nothing will make me feel better about it.


....unless they can turn back the time.


i have tried to write several times. i have tried to write this down on paper but each stroke, each drop of ink i bleed. so i typed it instead and washed the keyboard with my tears...
so there...it's done...


this entry is finished... but i'm still not ready to say my final goodbye Mom...

she's gone

december 05, 1950 - may14, 2007

requiescat in pace mama...

i love you Mama

happy mother's day

her arms and her hands are covered with bruises. bruises made by the needles that pierced her skin - for the dextrose, for the blood transfusion, for the blood samples.

these are the hands that raised me, cared for me, embraced me, nourished me, loved me...the hands that comforted when when i was down, wiped my tears, held my hand, nursed me frm my illness..

and today you will be spending mother's day at the icu. i cannot bear to listen how your tears fell as they attached the ventilator, as they placed those tubes in your mouth, how hungry you are but you cannot eat, the pain that doesn't seem to end...

i'm sorry i cannot go home today mama. it's this stupid elections. buses are darn crowded. please don't go yet. please...stay a little longer.




"My mother protected me from the world and my father threatened me with it." - Quentin Crisp

...good news ...and...bad news...

i forgot to mention my mom has a new wheelchair. whoopee! no thanks to me but thanks to mrs. milla. i don't know how she heard but so very very very grateful to her considering how my siblings and i have considered getting mom one. that's one less thing off our list.

i haven't seen my mom for a month now. the doctor said we should bring her to the hospital if her hemoglobin count does not improve this may. she's going to get a blood transfusion. my brother is the donor. i don't know what my blood type is. i hate blood.

speaking of which, i might and might not go under the knife. i've yet to get a mammogram. found two lumps. it's small. i was told i need a referral from our health care provider. i've been putting this off for some time. i just don't feel like dealing with it...yet.

after what my entire family went through with my mom, i don't feel like putting them through another roller coaster. it might just be nothing. i haven't told my parents about the second lump yet. no one knows except my sister and my cousin. but that may changed after this. news like this travel like fire. hopefully none of them goes online and reads this anytime soon. but my family is now predisposed to have a collective a panic attack at news like this. since both sides have terrible histories of this disease, i have to deal with it...soon.


and


i will...maybe on monday



In heaven all the interesting people are missing.
- Friedrich Nietzsche

another scorching 36 degrees C outside. i sometimes sleep at the office because it's too hot in that box i live in. it feels like a sauna bath. 8 in the morning and already the heat is unbearable. imagine the temperature at 12 noon. the water from the faucet is lukewarm. so much for a cold baths. i can't wait for the rain. my temper is precariously short during the summer. must be the heat and all this humidity. i don't feel like making nice.

somebody once told me that for a mild-looking little thing, i pack too much angst. well, appearances can be deceiving.

for someone who claims to avoid violence, my pen spit fireballs. let me tell you, not all first impressions are accurate.

and

...yeah sometimes i scare me too.



The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.


-Robert Frost

ingrata

i'm sorry. i could not dredge up any sympathies. i could not even make myself pretend i care. when i heard it's something like my mom's, i just didn't care. i had too many things in my mind. too many dead people that preoccupied my time. too many living people still wasting my time. you must all be going through what we went through a year ago. BTDTFT. the world doesn't stop but i don't think you need me to tell you that. life goes on no matter how badly you wished it to stop. it didn't stop for me. it doesn't stop for anybody. it won't stop for you. best to get the truth out. tears will not cure anything. wishing it away will not make it go away. this is your reality. it would have to be dealt with. maybe not now, but sooner than later...you will. because time is ticking and time is something you don't have.

i'm sorry. i don't care. i have so much hate. so much angst. pent up anger. not for you. but don't turn to me for sympathies, because there isn't any here for you or for anybody. i don't mean to be cold. i don't mean to be sarcastic. i just don't want you to waste your time or mine. what made me like this? Death... it takes away the masks, the niceties... so that there is nothing left to hide behind. i have always complained that it's not fair. i have always been told that it never was. now we're on the same boat. i know you wished you were somewhere else. so does everyone else here on this boat. so maybe God has wicked sense of humor...and we're the butt of his joke.

If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster. - I saac Asimov

missed opportunities

i think i am falling out of routine.


i used to complain i was starting to have one when i begun to notice how we often seem to cross paths at paseo. early in the morning just as the sun is gearing up and starting to get hot. you - walking to wherever your office is (probably somewhere in ayala). i - on my way home. sometimes we'd cross paths in front of 711, or the old prudential bank which is now BPI, or in front of veteran's, or AIM. i seem to see you all over that place. heck i was starting to get used to it. we never spoke. not even a single word. we only passed each other by. but when i see you walking towards me, tall amid the rushing crowd, wearing your usual black shirt and jeans, your bulky mailbag that probably has your laptop; sometimes i smile. maybe i was the only one who noticed. you - you never seem to notice me at all.


now



i dread going home...
we rarely cross paths anymore.
one of us
must be falling out
of routine.







Nothing occurs at random, but everything for a reason and by necessity".
-Leucippus