An uncle on the father side passed away in the town of Calamba. The whole family has moved there years ago, leaving the quiet lakeside village of Santa Elena in Buhi for a more prosperous life in that Tagalog town. Except for the eldest, all the other children moved there.
The choice of the Laguna town was not a product of a random decision. In the place where my uncle took his family, the number of transplanted Bikolanos is overwhelmingly significant that the residents have taken to calling their area, Region V. The other relatives are in the other parts of Laguna. They are luckier, if one may use that word, for they have selected San Pedro, with streets populated by Buhinon.
Death means grand reunion. If people are not brought in by the calls of Christmas or fiestas, death can always stop everything.
That day, we stopped for death. In fact, for death, we took the long ride to Calamba and braved the traffic that by itself represented a standstill.
But one does not hurry for death. It must be a rule that when one goes to a funeral, one should leave enough hours for travel time because, however slow the trip, one seems to reach fast the house of the bereaved.
If not for some relatives who recognized us, I would not have recognized the area as the take-off point for that last journey. A sound was blaring from where the tables were set under a massive green and black tent. I can take card games and loud conversation but a sing-along of Matt Monro, however maudlin and plaintive some of his songs may be, was quite new to me. For some reason, the singing stopped. It was about 11 in the morning and the home was busy with all the last preparations. I went up the house and hugged the eldest daughter and allowed her to cry. We looked for the widow and embraced, and allowed her to cry.
As with all other rules about transition, men do not cry. You let women do that.
After a quiet conversation and the condolences were expressed from other relatives who could not make it, we went down and sat with the other mourners. The slow drawl of Laguna Tagalog was congesting the air I could barely hear the thick and guttural pulse of the Buhi dialect.
I know there was a lake somewhere, but I missed that afternoon the mist that I imagined always lingered over Lake Buhi.
In Buhi, death is given its day and life as a rite of passage. People in that town recognize the power of liminality, of that magical space created when a person leaves a territory to move into another level. In that gap or stillness that has no label surges a force that should be tamed or respected or acknowledged.
Lola Ilay knew this. She ruled the death rituals in our family then. She managed the days and nights with other old men and women who knew how to face Life and Death, Birth and Separation.
In that town, men and women never leave their homes, not even in death. A grandfather’s pharmocopeia of betel nut and its accompanying pastes were buried at the entrance of his home. When we left the house, we were entreated not to look back. As the coffin was taken out, we felt the efficient sense of tempo of official mourners closing the windows of the home at the same time.
We were not allowed to touch the coffin. The funeral guides made sure we did not touch any of the wreaths. From the cemetery, we never saw our grandmother. She was whisked ahead, her head shrouded in the blackest of veil. After the burial, we were not allowed to enter the house immediately. We were asked to find our place in the clan’s natural arrangement: the children with their parents, cousins with cousins, etc. Ashes were then scattered over us.
In the memorial park in Calamba, after the bier was lowered, I saw the second son of the deceased approached the widow. He hugged him tightly. I squirmed in my place. He is married and he was looking at the most powerful person that moment, the wife whose grief is so great it could cause death. His sister, the unmarried one should have been assigned to accompany their mother.
I missed Lola Ilay. She would not have allowed the breaking of that law of Life on Death.
