The dead lives on

I have witnessed the dead alive and well through a glimpse of the past.

About a month ago, my mother told me about her plans to restore her and my father’s wedding video, encased in a dusty VHS tape case that was unearthed by one of her recent, impulsive cleaning sessions at the house.

When I first heard about it, I shrugged it off as one of those classic Estrella quips of planning to do something but never actually doing it — an out-of-the-country trip, a solo room, a restored VHS video — I don’t think I’ll hear about it again. We’re more of the impulsive type of family, the fewer days to plan, the better chances of it happening.

But my mother brought it up again as I was two days from leaving the house again to travel eight grueling hours to my college dorm, facing the inevitable period of homesickness.

She said that to restore the tape, she needs to go to the actual photography studio in Manila and pay a hefty price amounting to around P5,000. And I thought, “Well, that’s the end of that.”

Two weeks passed, and on a Wednesday night, I received a message from my mother. After a lull in the conversation, she sent me three videos that had our living room television in the frame. I played the video and stared.

My mom and my dad. At the altar. In 1995. Their wedding day.

Under all that classic VHS grain were my parents, both in white, smiling and staring ahead at their future at the altar of the Barasoain Church in Malolos, Bulacan. At 9:25 a.m. on June 15, 1995, I saw my mom and my dad exchange genuine smiles as the officiating priest greeted the witnesses of their matrimony. And it was indeed a welcome sight.

It was strange, seeing my parents so young and only at the beginning of their marriage. As their daughter, I have an idea of what would transpire after this moment, both the successes and hardships they would have to face together. What a disorienting thought to have while watching that if it weren’t for this occasion, I would not have existed at all.

As the short clip ended, I immediately went and played the next video. But it made me stop for a different reason.

It still had my mom in her perfect wedding dress that was completed by the cascading bouquet of flowers in her hand, the ’90s chic veil on her head, and the most beautiful smile on her face, but beside her was another wonderful sight, it was my grandmother, alive and well.

Nanay passed away just two weeks into 2023, devastating our family so early into the hope that comes with the new year. Seeing her kiss my 26-year-old mother on the cheek was both heartwarming and heart-wrenching.

The third video greeted me with the scene of my dad in a white tank top staring at his bed covered by his barong Tagalog ensemble. It immediately cuts and shows my father on a stairwell of his old house with both of his parents beside him — my grandparents, alive and well.

Both Lolo and Lola died long ago that I have a hard time remembering when. The vision of them walking my father out of their ancestral home was disorienting, especially seeing my grandfather, who died when I was too young to grasp what death really was.

I understand, physically miles away from my mother, that this was a bittersweet accomplishment. While she was successful in restoring her and my father’s wedding video just in time for their wedding anniversary, it remained an emotional affair as she consequently restored what were once personal and forgotten memories of her mom and my father’s parents.

Seeing the restoration of that dusty, 28-year-old VHS tape of my parents’ wedding, I was not only able to see the love between them that would later blossom into my brothers and me but see the dead live on.

It made me recognize the importance of preserving pieces of one’s family history, such as in the form of a grimy VHS tape that may look unremarkable and costly to restore. Some old junk lying around in our houses, buried and forgotten, could contain treasured memories of a moment we once lived, with people that left us already.

While some of our loved ones are not with us anymore, they live through memories and are archived in physical objects. In keeping their memories alive, we can be constantly reminded of the people they were, that then influences the person that we become. Not only through pictures and videos can my grandparents be immortalized, but, better yet, they live on through their children, grandchildren, grandchildren’s children, and so on.

The dead lives on.

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Joyce Estrella, 21, is a communication student at the University of the Philippines Baguio.