The night of May 15 began like any other. Dinner in the hospital. Reading the local daily and spotting an interesting ad about a 60-something Caucasian man looking for a girlfriend who, he said, had to have "huge thighs." Passed the ad to my Lolo who guffawed and told his amused nurse to send in an application. A few minutes later he couldn't breathe. Then the nurses and the doctors started streaming in. The sight of plastic tubes being readied was disorienting. Ran downstairs to the chapel to pray. Broke down to my best friend over the phone. Hunched in the hallway with my fingers to my ears, trying to block out all the sounds which still made their way into my auditory nerve and soldered themselves into my memory chips, sounds which still come back crisp and clear no matter how deep into my ear canal I shoved my phalanges wadded with cotton on that night. By one in the morning, our whole world had been turned upside down and kicked across the field to Timbuktu. That was the last night my grandfather ever spoke.
My Lolo and I talked to each other all the time. He always gave me the best and the most memorable conversations. Period. He was articulate and could clearly express himself through the spoken word. Ever since I was a little girl, I would sit in front of his huge desk in his office and we would trade stories much like hawkers dealt with their wares. From my vantage point, my grandfather was a man in control. He was literally on top of everything and anything that came running down his way . Whether it be a rolling boulder or a gigantic mastadon, he could take it down just like a single shot from a Gloc could topple a rampaging elephant.
The sight of him, helpless and frail, was too much for me to take that making a single step towards him was impossible. The lie that I forgot everything about that night continues to rear its ugly head as I can still vividly remember the sickening smell of antiseptic and the scent from Dr. Danucop's shirt as she put her arms around me. The guilt still hangs around like a lamprey with its vicious teeth sucking at my neck. Up to today, I still feel I was too chicken to stand beside my lolo in his moment of greatest need when he was a constant presence in all of my valleys.
I remember shuddering and gagging at the odd mixture of antiseptic and alcohol which bordered closely on being labelled a "stench". My lolo's eyes were closed. The room was silent except for the steady hum of machines along with the mechanical sound of air rushing in and out of the respirator, much like Darth Vader inhaling and exhaling through the breathing vents in his black mask. My lolo lay very still. No matter how hard I tried to swallow, a stubborn bolus seemed to be stuck in my throat. Approaching his bed took all of whatever remaining strength I had left, which was actually very little. He was as helpless as a newborn baby but sadly was not as unencumbered. No matter how frightened I was, I did the most logical thing: I took his hand and held it in mine.
That was the first time in a long time that I ever held my Lolo's hand. Unlike my sister, my grandfather and I were never touchy although I hugged him every now and then and pinched his cheeks, especially when he was being obstinate. In contrast to my desperate attempts to completely obliterate everything I saw and heard on that night, the feel of my Lolo's warm palm encased in mine was one fragment of memory I fervently wish an occasionally treacherous mind would never lose to time and dying brain cells.
If I had the fluidity with words of a truly unimpeded wordsmith, I could clearly describe to you what it felt like to hold my grandfather's hands in the last ten days of his life. His palms and fingers were hard, rough and calloused, owing to years of manual labor. The skin in the back of his hand was thin, translucent and inelastic. I would pinch a section of skin and it would stay in place for a few seconds before slowly drifting back to its original state. Mottled brown patches were scattered sporadically around his knuckles. I could make out the veins underneath his skin which stuck out prominently akin to a network of thick wires running through the entire length of a thin carpet. His wrists were bony and his pulse was steady. Oddly, his hands felt very warm in contrast to the iciness of my own fingers.
Initially, my grandfather was obviously uncomfortable with having his hand held. He wanted to wrench his wrists from the cloths which bound them to the bed rails. After all, he was indeed a man on top of everything. He probably felt we were holding him down and he would glare at me when I would hold him back and plead with him to be still. He would comply, albeit begrudgingly, but he never did respond to my touch.
After about a day or two, I was surprised when he closed his fingers over my hand. I looked at his hand in mine and then at his face. His eyes were closed and he was quite relaxed as he breathed steadily. Then he slowly released his grip but I refused, wary that he might try to pull his tubes off again. He looked at me and motioned with his hand that he was not going to do anything. I let his hand go cautiously with my fingers just millimeters away from the cloth which bound his wrists.
Slowly he lifted his hand over the bed rails, rested his palm over my right shoulder and closed his eyes. I tried so hard not to cry as he moved his hand back to the bed. I held his hand and he held mine back. We would be like this for the next couple of days, in a comforting - and comfortable - state of silence until his heart finally stopped beating.
As I held his hand on that morning, I hummed softly. It was some random song - a spontaneous mash-up of "Over the Rainbow" with some unidentifiable tune. In my palm rested not just a mass of flesh, blood and bone but a hand which brought twenty-seven years of stories, laughter, love, forgiveness and encouragement. This was the hand which taught me how to deliver a strong straight and a swift uppercut. This same hand smothered grape jelly on my toast during 9 p.m. "midnight" snacks when I was six. This hand demonstrated how to properly hold a fishing pole and tug when something started biting at the other end. It showed me how to pluck a guitar. This hand had fingers which could contort into a bangi-bangi (local term for tiny crustaceans) and would tickle me to no end until I could no longer breathe. This hand also held me in dozens of family pictures, gripped my arm when I would stumble and planted more trees than I could count with my fingers, most of which would definitely outlive me. This hand made me countless dinners. This hand also curled into a fist when I said I was going to have a date for my high school prom. This hand wrote me countless notes. The very same hand would send me off with a wave from the front yard every time I would leave home at the end of every school break.
One of my lolo's favorite songs to sing to his grandchildren and great-grandchildren as toddlers was a Hiligaynon lullaby called "Uy, Alibangbang." It is a song directed to a butterfly, asking it to take care of a tapulanga (vernacular for "gumamela") as it flutters about. He would sing this tune in the top of his voice and what made it particularly endearing was the corresponding hand gesture. He would flail his palm around the air like a butterfly's wings and he was so convincing that the grandchild he was singing to would be compelled to imitate the action.
The song has always appeared to be innocent and straightforward but it is only upon closer examination that the last verse seems rather foreboding as far as my grandfather was concerned. There is, after all, no way we could hold on to him, no matter how much I wrapped my fingers around his hand. Much like the alibangbang in his favorite song, he had to leave at some point. That left us, the ones who had to stay a bit longer, in the same state as the tapulanga in the song - saddened and grieving with heads bent to the ground.
Uy, alibangbang,
Kung ikaw ang maglupad,
Tatapa sing maayo
Ang tanan tanan nga bulak.
Basi sa ulihi
Kung ikaw ang maglupad,
Pobre si Tapulanga,
Sa duta ayhan mataktak.
On the other hand, maybe my lolo had his reasons for loving the song about the butterfly and the flowers he left behind. There is more to the act of flailing one's hand in an awkward attempt to imitate a flitting butterfly.
Because flying through the air will be the very same hand which still holds his memory.
- In loving memory of my dear grandfather
(March 24, 1925 - May 25, 2010)
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