MY sister had a dream. As she walked out of her bedroom, she saw my mother sitting in the dining room. Her shock at seeing my mother rendered her speechless. You see, even in her dream, she knew my mother had already passed.
My mother looked at her and said, “You wanted me to come back, right? Well, I’m here. I’ll be here for the next two days.”
My sister said she probably dreamt about Mama because she wanted to see her so much that she often wanted to believe that everything had just been a dream—that she’d wake up and find my mother in the house, as always.
I guess I am not alone. I often try to fool myself into thinking that it was all just a bad dream too. That perhaps, I imagined it all. That perhaps, my mother will suddenly appear to me one of these days, alive and well.
I know this is futile, not to mention mad. But we all do crazy things when we love.
My mother told me that when her brother, Isidro, died, she was shocked upon arrival in her hometown in Mindanao 24 hours later to find that he had not yet been embalmed. She asked her brother, Jose, why. And he replied, “There is this shaman who tells me he can bring him back to life.”
My mother was stunned to hear her usually sensible brother believing in such nonsense. She later told me that love made her brother lose his mind temporarily. He was so heartbroken by the death of his brother that for a moment there, he was willing to believe in anything to bring him back to life.
Love drives us a little crazy, my mother told me.
I still fantasize that my mother will walk out of her bedroom and join us in the dining room. I know it will never happen. But let me be. I grieve. Still. But you will never understand if you have never lost a piece of your heart.
I do not grieve because I am sad. I grieve because I love.
Grief is not the process of trying to get over the pain of loss. It is the process of trying to start over despite the pain of loss. It is accepting that life will continue in a different way than before but that it will.
Some memories will be more bittersweet than others. Some regrets will linger longer than others. But I console myself with the thought that if such regrets allow me to love better from hereon then I will have found my redemption.
I’m noisily typing away on my desk. I feel a tap on my shoulder. I turn around. It’s my mother. She looks at me and says, “I know you did your best. I know you love me. Stop punishing yourself. I forgive you. Go and be happy. Do not worry about me. I’m having the time of my life here with all these bigwigs who just joined me.”
Is it asking too much, Ma, for you to appear in my dream tonight and have you say all these words to me? I guess so. But let me be, Ma. Love is driving me a little crazy tonight. But that’s okay. You told me so yourself.