Cajucom: No statute of limitations

“AT TIMES panic creeps in — that fear that there might be no point in all these, that unless I have the capacity to breathe for two, I cannot save her.”(in Ramblings in Melancholy, Sun*Star Baguio, September 11, 2008)

It’s been seven years since Mama breathed her last, after 25 days of hospital confinement. It was probably the most difficult time of my life, watching her fight till the very end. She was prepared to go – she has been for quite some time – and she had lived a full life that blessed mine, as well as other people around her.

I remember the last day I spent with her as if it were just yesterday. Looking back with realization I think she had a different aura that day – she looked at peace, she seemed happier than she was the previous days. She said she wanted to go home and I told her we might have to bring the ventilator home with us. She smiled but for a moment looked wistful. When I went back to the hospital from school, she was still asleep. I teased the nurse to wake her up later, as it was the finals night for ABS-CBN’s Pinoy Dream Academy, and she was rooting for Bugoy. I lingered for an hour then kissed her good night and whispered I love her. I hope she still heard it.

Two hours after I left I still could not sleep, and was watching reruns of Prison Break when I got the urgent call from the hospital. Running to her room I saw a team of doctors, nurses and attendants trying to revive her, the way I had observed them do with some other patients in all those days I had stayed with her. And as with those other patients, it was her time to go.

I will never forget this hard-hitting, heart-stabbing line from My Sister’s Keeper (Jodi Picoult, 2005): “There should be a statute of limitations on grief. A rulebook that says it is all right to wake up crying, but only for a month. That after 42 days you will no longer turn with your heart racing, certain you have heard her call out your name. That there will be no fine imposed if you feel the need to clean out her desk; take down her artwork from the refrigerator; turn over a school portrait as you pass – if only because it cuts you fresh again to see it. That it’s okay to measure the time she has been gone, the way we once measured her birthdays.”

Too bad there isn’t. I still miss her every single day, and in that very silent moment between being awake and dozing off, I still see her smiling face, her twinkling eyes. In times of pride and joy when our kids are doing well in school, I want her to be there to confirm I am doing a good job with them. Whenever I feel tired with work and stuff I wish she were there to tell me I need not wear myself too thin with everything, and that sooner or later things will turn out just fine.

Whenever I achieve something I yearn for her to be there and tell me she had always known I will make it good someday. It’s probably not grief anymore, but a simple – yet complex – case of longing. I love you, Ma. You are terribly missed, every day.(serendipity.couch@gmail.com )

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