What I learned after ‘Nanay’ died

Several adjectives can be used to describe me: strong, clever, passionate, determined. But while I am a Rolodex of characteristics, there is one trait that is both unanimous and incontestable: I am a Lola’s girl. Growing up in her care, I have simultaneously developed two feelings about our relationship. I love her with all that I am, but over the years, I have slowly felt a silent fear wrapping around my bones whenever I think about her. I was always so terrified of her dying. The idea of it gnawed my insides, to the point that I once made a pact with myself that I would rather go first before her. It didn’t matter which method I’d use, I just knew I could never witness her death in this lifetime.

Life is short and unfair, of course, so she died before me. It hasn’t even been a month since she left but I already learned three things because of it.

Number one: It’s okay to make jokes about the dead. It’s a completely different story if you are exploiting someone else’s death for a few laughs (especially if you are not close to them, in which case you are simply being mean), but if it’s someone who meant a lot to you, and you know that they wouldn’t have minded some jokes made about them, then it’s completely fine. I know Nanay. I know she would have laughed at the jokes I made about her. For example, when my friends would tease me and I’d jokingly tell them, “‘Wag ngayon, namatayan ako,” and they would either go silent because they didn’t know what to say, or they’d laugh along. Either way, I make these jokes because I do not want my grief to completely control me. As difficult and painful as her death is, I cannot have it consume me. I feel things too deeply that I know I would crumble if I let myself. So at times when I am not crying over her, I try to be lighthearted about it. This brings me to my next point.

Number two: Death can be seen not only as a life that has ended but rather as one that has been completed. To define death as the former is to say only that it has terminated, but to use the latter is to recognize that they have fulfilled their purpose. I like to think that Nanay died when she had to—because her life was complete, because she has loved and been loved well. Her death did not totalize nor rob her of any further earthly experience. She passed away because it was time—and that is completely okay.

Number three: She lives on in me. A few weeks after her funeral, I had to file and organize Tatay’s (her husband’s) government documents for her burial claim. This means I had to sort files such as her birth certificate, marriage contract, funeral receipts, and death certificate. While I was holding these papers in my hand, a huge wave of grief washed over me. I kept thinking, “This is it. She lived such a colorful life, and all she is now is a bunch of documents. These papers could burn down at any moment and there will be nothing left to testify that she lived—that she was not just a figment of my imagination.” I told this to my partner, who very lovingly told me that “Nanay is not reduced to papers because honestly, she lives through you. Every bit of love she’s given to you, you show to the world. How she cares and how she fights—you got that from her.”

My partner doesn’t know this, but I bawled after reading his messages.

Because he’s right. Nanay is in everything I do. She has always been a fighter, which means I am, too. I never back down from anything. She was passionate in everything she did, therefore I am as well. I am writing my thesis which she inspired. As difficult as the writing process is, and as competitive as the institution I am enrolled in is, I know I will never lose heart in this project. I started it because of her and I will finish it with flying colors because that is how she raised me. Unafraid and full of purpose. Don’t get me wrong, grief is not a philosophical affair. It is often ugly and heartbreaking and spent on cold beds with snot running down our noses. We don’t always have to find meaning in it. But we can. And in times that we do, it’s important to hold on to these thoughts, as they may be the remaining glimpses of sense and hope during these trying times.

I love you so much, Nanay. You will never truly die because you live on in me.

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Kyle Irish O. Sales, 21, is a communication student at University of the Philippines Baguio. She loves watching basketball games, reading books, cooking, and writing poems. She wholeheartedly believes that she makes the best bistek in the world.