While Dad was alive, I thought that his almost continuous grief over the death of his mother a bit OA (over-acting). I did not understand then. I had underestimated the ties that bind. My grandfather and grandmother had died before... I was close to them, but I moved on. I was also close to my cousin, Kuya Noel... he was a friend not just to me but my wife and he was my choice to give the homily during my wedding; he had died very suddenly and unexpectedly, but I had moved on.
I had been very close to my Dad. As this image proves, I was constantly in touch. Thanks to modern technology, my move to Australia had not been as traumatising as I had feared. We chatted. We "skyped". He knew what went on with my work. I knew what he preached on the previous Sunday... what the choir sang... who was there in the choir. In his last years he became more friend than father, really. We both spoke the same language. Talked about savings. Talked about pensions. Talked about everything.
I had assumed, so blithely, that if and when he died, I would mourn and, like all others, I would move on. Unlike him for his Mother.
I haven't. It has been more than a year, and the pain still stabs at me unexpectedly. There is nobody for us to talk to. Whereas before, my wife and I would discuss things and we would always end a stalemate or help clarify issues with "Let's see what your father thinks". Now... well, we still make our decisions as carefully and as logically as before... as confidently as before... but it seems we are always missing a step.
I have nightmares—I dream of Dad being alive, talking to my boss, hearing good things about me, or at a "True Blue Aussie Barbie", explaining how the grills worked, or my wife showing him around the Yarra libraries, showing him how you can borrow DVDs of movies he would like to watch... showing him things that I know would have made him happy. Things which will never come to pass.
I have a recurring dream: Dad is sitting lying down at the sofa, ostensibly resting. I am fiddling with the computer, fixing things, berating him gently, even jocularly, how if he just remembers to make sure to scan his drives, clean the mouse, etc. then he would not need me to do all this "maintenance". "Jojo," he would always reply. "You know I can't do that anymore—all that fixing up. I can't, even if I wanted to. I'm dead, after all."
Then I would turn around and see the sofa—that which we have owned for as long as I can remember, where he would sit at, typing at a new sermon, or checking papers, or lying down for an afternoon nap—empty... dusty... derilict... alone. And I am in an almost empty room, save for a few packing boxes. And I stare and I stare and I stare, willing him to come back. Willing his voice be heard again.
The company of boisterous and irreverent Christians have become odious to us, my wife and I. How dare they jump around and sing? How dare they dance? How dare they make 12-minute prayers, sing repetitive songs, and pray another 12-minute prayer, then give another sermon about how much money one ought to give the church because it is how God ostensibly blesses you. "Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house," they would say, quoting Malachi 3:10. Food in God's house?
I remember weeks when my mom would mix powdered milk in very chewy rice for all of us to eat, when all my Dad had to eat was a small bit of fish six centimeters long and having to explain why we cannot have beef to his hungry boys. How he had to explain why we can't have apples. How he used to jump at any "handaan" by some rich churchgoer, debasing himself, embarrassing himself, just to bring along his family "para naman may matikman na masarap sila." Was there food in God's house then?
We needed sermons and homilies on grief, but they are all wrapped up in thinking that somehow you've done something to displease God if you were depressed, or do not feel like clapping like an idiot or shouting fake Hosannas. Grief is a valid Christian experience, isn't it?
Dad mourned his dead mother until the day he died. He had recurring dreams about it. I saw it as a weakness... perhaps, it was. If it is, then I am very, very weak.
