I wasn’t active these past few days because of one thing- death.
It’s hard when a person you’ve been with dies out of the blue but maybe I expected this to happen. She was weak, she was dying and she can’t move perhaps what happened was a fitting end to her suffering.

Nanay

We used to call her and I was trying to reminisce the days that have spent with her. A part of my life was together with her in our house in Kamuning near E. Rodrigues, this was a dark part of my life where we fled from our house in Project 4.(Sorry I don’t want to go to specifics)

She was already paralyzed back then because of a major heart attack that happened years ago. She can’t still talk during that time and knowing me I would usually play with her. I remember how mischievous I was, always making “loko” by telling her that “The Abu Sayaf is about to raid the house” then I would kid her about spiders, that they were crawling on her feet. She was a good grandmother who despite her inabilities had the urge and the heart to go on. Probabaly she is with Carol Wytolja right now making ginataan for them and all the other people in the other world, hopefully.

Such memories are still alive but she is gone. The funeral was like bittersweet symphony it was sad and lonesome but at least it bonded most of my “angkan” together something, which hasn’t happened for a year. And I believe that her suffering was already too great. She wasn't able to talk, nor even walk but what grieves me the most is that she smiled before she died and maybe this was a sign that despite her suffering she loved her life and it's just heartbreaking that she had to leave. But death came for her that day and we can stop him. I just wished that someone she loved was there by her side during her last minutes and seconds in earth but there was no one but her helper, its sad but I know my mother, my titos and titas didn't want that scenario to happen.

Death really is something scary. I wouldn’t act like I am not afraid of it because in reality I am, just like any bloke in the streets. During this whole burial phase I was in places I didn’t want t go near too- the funeral house, funeraria paz and the cemetery in Crame. I guess I am allergic to death and I don’t want to go near anything that tries to remind me of it.

I realized now that handle death and sadness much differently from other people. While others cry themselves to desperation I would just suppress the memories of that person until the time of mourning ends. I just don’t want people seeing me cry, I don’t want them to see my weakness. Because in reality I mourn the same as them but I just conceal it in different layers of myself turning this sorrow into something different, - into laughter, silence or just any other emotion which could conceal the fact that I am hurt as well.

Death is shit but it’s as necessary as shit.

5/5/5

It's 555 today and I had a can of 555 sardines, weird.