Good Bye

It was already two weeks past and she had gone away, my father's sister. If there was a greater being that can control all these things, perhaps, he has some reasons for letting it happen.

My Auntie was a strong personality. She was the 2nd of the nine children of the family that she knew. She was always the better one at annoying my uncles (her brothers) in their drinking session (I grew up in a culture where drinking wine and beer seems status symbol) , criticizing them with their behavior and their way of life, especially the ones close to her. She has always been the big mouth when her brothers are asking for rice from her, and yet, she'll see them drinking and not working at all. She has been their guard ever since. Seems good to me, telling them how to be better. But it does not stop there. In her younger days, she used to yell at my grandmother telling her that she was good only at giving birth and that is all. That she is next to nothing in doing chores and managing their resource. I don't know, it was all legend now.

I don't know if some of them(brothers) are cursing her, or someone is wishing her dead, now she was. Is it carma? Someone's got to pay what someone's taken. A rule I've been keeping since I got this hype on mind and reality. Perhaps, it is a way, that she need to suffer in order to see others helping hands, she need to be cared, for her to see that others are willing to extend their hand over her, she need to be humbled to see how things are different now than when she was still strong. Now she could no longer yell or speak or even whisper. She was silenced by a disease that she strongly objected. She wanted to fight it, but her body cannot. It was all that she could give and it is the end of her road.

To my Father, she was a comrade who when they were still small, was his playmate at the farm and in school. He was so sad, I saw it in his eyes, but he never let a drop of tear fall. Probably showing his leadership for he is the firstborn. Not even during the burial. But way back at home, he almost collapse to see that his younger sister was now gone, to a place that she would never be back. Perhaps, for him, it is better than to see her suffer in pain. He could not take it. Now only the memories remain, good or bad, they all have been buried now in memories.

All I can tell my children was that she had been good in taking care of me when I was a child. Good bye to you now, and we'll see you later.