I woke up pretty early this morning, despite not having gotten to bed until maybe 1 AM. I was in bed by midnight, but I did a lot of thinking amidst my many pillows - about life and the meaning or the non-meaning behind it. I've always thought about life in a reflective way. Being me, I find it easy to overanalyze everything, from major, life-altering decisions to what my day's strategy is going to be. But last night's thought session was driven by something more concrete.
My uncle, my dad's brother, passed away yesterday. When I was in Manila for the break, I knew that he was sick and that his condition was serious. I also thought about how it wouldn't be a remote possibility to come back home this Christmas and not have him with us anymore. But I guess it's different when it actually happens. It's different because it has happened, and the long drawn-out process of sickness and occasional minor recoveries has come to an abrupt end.
But in a way, it's also the same. Because I am here, halfway around the world from Manila, I can very easily make myself believe that he will still be around when I come back home.
This is not the first time that someone close to me had passed away. Two years ago, my Tita Nel, my grandmother's sister, passed away. Tita Nel has a special place in my heart. When I was young, I'd run to her and ask her to tell me a story, and she'd comply, a different story every time. I loved the stories that she told me, and I loved how she told them. It didn't occur to me then, but I know now that the stories she told were a collection of European and Asian folktales. She was a teacher back in Zamboanga, so that is the kind of stuff that she would know.
She came to Manila to get treated for her cancer. She still looked very much healthy when I saw her shortly after she arrived in the city. The only thing amiss with her was the numbness she said that she sometimes felt in her left arm. But after a while, the numbness turned into paralysis, and pretty soon, she was bed-ridden, and then she couldn't even talk.
Eventually, she decided to go back home to Zamboanga. I knew she was very sick, that she was suffering (literally) from a terminal case of cancer. I was there when she was loaded into the ambulance to take her to the airport. And I said good-bye to her, and saw my other relatives saying good-bye to her as well. I knew that they were saying good-bye for good. But I wasn't. I saw her eyes. They were alive, alert. They were not the eyes of someone who was about to die.
But a few weeks after she left, she passed away, in her home in Zamboanga, which she shared with her daughter and the twin granddaughters that she loved so much. Up to now, it is easy for me to forget that she is dead, and that I will not see her again.
I never knew my grandfathers. My Angkong passed away when my father, who was the youngest among five children, was only fourteen. My Grandpa passed away when I was two. In adherence to this Filipino tradition, they carried me over his grave, and my cousin tells me that I kept pointing to his coffin and asking where he was going. My cousin told me he was going away on a ship. I don't remember any of that.
I know my grandmothers well. My life mirrors my Granny's life somewhat. She and I are both Chinese mestizas and the eldest daughter of a family of four children, with a younger brother and two younger sisters, exactly in that order. I see myself in the tales she tells of herself - we are both proud, headstrong, quick to laughter, and very much the silly ducks.
My Ama and I haven't had any profound conversations. She speaks Fookien, and I don't speak that language and understand very little of it. But I have seen how she looks at me when my Father tells her of what I have done in school and what my plans are, and I feel our connection. One of the most touching things she said to me, in simple Filipino, was that there was a time when parents would be disappointed to have a daughter, but I am proof of why that shouldn't be the case.
I got to speak to her a few minutes before my plane to South Bend took off, just a few days before my spring semester began last January. I had the good fortune of being upgraded to Business Class for the Manila-Nagoya leg of the flight, and was therefore in the airplane couch, sipping on my orange juice while the coach passengers boarded. I told her good-bye, and that I would see her again this December.
Later on, days after I had resumed my studies here, my father and I were talking on the phone when he asked me whether I was crying on the plane, when I spoke to my Ama. I told him that I wasn't. I did have an emotional breakdown of sorts on the way to the airport, but by the time I was in the airport itself, I was fine. The mess of people and luggage in the barely functional NAIA is very sobering. My father said that he thought that I was, because after getting off the phone with me, my Ama was crying. When asked what the matter was, she said it was because I was crying.
My father tells me that my Ama has been crying a lot over the death of my Uncle. That is one of the things that makes the death more real to me. When I think about this, my stomach tightens because of his passing.
I find that I am in a rather confusing point of my life right now. I feel that it is time to take a stand on most of the current issues in the world today, and to set root in some ideological framework and start to pattern my life after that. It may be difficult to tell, but I relish the feeling of feeling passionate about something, and doing something to show other people that you feel strongly about an issue.
I had my taste of political activism in Manila, in the whole EDSA Dos rally. I was one of those who wore black and plunged head-long into the noisy crowd that was calling for the impeachment of Joseph Estrada. As purposeful as that may sound, it really wasn't a difficult decision to make. The issue was about the corruption of Joseph Estrada, and between Erap and a waving Santa decor, I'd pick the Santa decor any time. I think the decor would sound more intelligent, even if it had no mouth.
But most of the issues in the world aren't clear-cut. Issues in the world (like abortion or stem-cell research or even the broad interpretation of the Constitution) come in different moral shades, and I really don't know which side I support or why I am taking the ambivalent stance.
I am a practicing Roman Catholic. My faith is very important to me, and it will be a big part of my life until the day that I die. I don't see myself letting go of it any time soon, nor would I ever. But at the same time, I price reason. And I know that Ateneo (or more specifically, Ignatian) theology teaches that reason should be enlightened by faith and faith should direct reason, and I do believe that. I do. But I get confused sometimes. Especially when the Church takes stances that I don't agree with.
Ah, I'm confused all the time. But I'd rather be a confused thinker than a blind follower.
I hate being not definite about things. I hate non-definiteness, or maybe infiniteness or infinity, which I think is the proper apposite term. That's why I bristle when I read another one of Judge O'Connor's balancing tests, or even when I learn that personal jurisdiction is not exactly statutorily determined but must in fact be applied in reference to a list of factors that in itself is not exhaustive. I prefer clean-cut rules - either you're this or you're that, either you're here or you're there.
But in my life, I don't apply clean-cut rules, nor do I even recognize them. I make decisions on an ad hoc basis, and I have balancing tests of my own. I think that life would be so easier if I always knew what the right thing to do was. But I don't. And I guess that uncertainty can never be fully resolved. At least not if I was determined not to be unsophisticated or simplistic.
Translation to my post title: oh life.
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