Boobie, June 18, 1991-July 21, 2005; Remembering my baby, born 21 years ago today

My dearest Boobie.

You made life beautiful. And when life wasn't beautiful, you made it bearable.

When life brought sorrow, which was often, you put in a pinch of joy.

You are missed, always.

My lovely, lovely Boobie.

Vixen, September 1, 1998-December 20, 2011

My Vixen is gone. My Babes, my Sen-sen, all those loving names I called her.

She was with me for more than thirteen years, literally from the moment she was born, the only female in Boobie and Almond's second litter. I had to put her to sleep today, December 20, 2011. A cancer was taking her body; there were lumps on her liver, her lungs, her ribs. She could hardly walk. All her life I took care to make her happy, protecting her always, making sure she would never suffer. I had to let her go before the pain became too great.

She had been sick since the end of October. I feared the end was coming, but I held back my tears and held on to hope till yesterday, when it became clear she had to go, for her sake.

I don't know how many times I've cried or how hard. What does it matter?

My baby, my Vixen, my Babes, my Sen-sen, my Vickisensen is gone.

There is an emptiness inside that is almost unbearable. It hasn't even been a day, but weeks seems to have passed. It takes forever for a simple hour to pass. Time moves so slowly. I have lived too long.

With Vixen's passing, an era ends. Boobie came to me in 1991, Almond in 1995, Vixen in 1998. Boobie died in 2005, Almond in 2007, Vixen in 2011. My babies are gone. For the first time since 1991, I am in a house without babies.

Goodbye, my Sen-sen, my lovely. Thank you for for all the years of joy and comfort that you gave me.

Time moves so slowly, and life is dark now. Yes, I have lived too long.

In memoriam, Garpy, December 29, 1982-August 10, 1991, Lovingly remembered on the anniversary of his death

After all these years,
I still remember.
That last day, that last time.
You waited for me,
one last time.
Then you left.
You saw me through the dark times,
then said goodbye.

After all these years,
you remain in my heart.

Are we just cockroaches, Part 2

Every once in a while, when I feel overwhelmed by everything, thinking of lives that I have lost and dreams that have died and things that will never be, I come to realize just how insignificant I actually am, how little and meaningless and insignificant my grief, my concerns, and my aspirations are in a world which has seen countless lives lost over billions of years.

From the thousands of deaths in the recent China earthquake to the hundreds who met their watery deaths at sea with the ill-fated Princess of the Stars, lives have come and gone with barely a whisper in the immeasurable expanse of time. Why should we then think of ourselves as so important, so special just because we can think and create and remember?

This sense of self-importance, a major feature of the Christian religion that proclaims man to have been made in the image of God, should bring honest men and women to ask: What, if anything at all, makes us so important?

Honest people, looking into themselves, at the history of the planet, and at the whole range of possibilities in the universe, should come to the same painful conclusion: NOTHING, NOTHING AT ALL. Nothing differentiates us from the pigs that become our (your) meat or the dead cockroach that we throw unceremoniously into the wastebasket. In the end, it seems, we are here simply to live out our days and die, just like every kind of life that we know of.

Which makes the the promise of an afterlife more appealling, perhaps even necessary if we are indeed to lead good lives.

But what if there is no afterlife? As asked before, why should we be entitled to an afterlife when we refuse to accord such a possibility to creatures that are more beautiful and innocent and kind than we are or could ever be?

Perhaps we deserve no afterlife.

But if there is no afterlife, what consolation is there? Are we just cockroaches that crawl, are stepped on, then die?

Think about it this way: either way, afterlife or not, death should be a boon. If, after this existence, we do meet the loved ones who had gone before us, then well and good. If, however, all is nothingness come death, maybe just as well. If we are indeed just cockroaches, then death should be a blessing. The very thought that it would all be over should be consolation enough. After all, with the peace of nothingness, who needs the burden of consciousness?

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In memoriam, Boobie, June 18, 1991-July 21, 2005, lovingly remembered and terribly missed on the anniversary of his birth

My dearest,
You nibbled on my button
and healed a broken heart.
You looked at me from behind her legs,
and I fell in love with you.
You were home.
I loved you every day you were with me.
You are gone now but always remembered.
And the love,
it remains.

In memoriam, Prudence April 2, 1999-January 13, 2006, on the anniversary of her death.

You were our jewel.
Now so terribly missed.

Ashes to ashes

Even the greatest of memorials fade in significance. For the ordinary folk such as myself, memorials turn to dust. We make memorials of all sorts in our desire to preserve a memory, to have our loved ones remembered, not just by ourselves but more especially perhaps by others. In the end, however, once those who had known the departed becomes themselves departed, the memorials turn to dust.

Last month, as million trooped to the nation’s cemeteries for the All-Saints Day holidays, I visited the grave of my old boss, my former editor-in-chief. Amid the throngs of people at the cemetery, the mausoleum where his remains lie was quiet, nestled in a peaceful place with other similarly quiet mausoleums. There were a few flowers, but there was no one there. The mausoleum itself was beautiful and appropriately serene, but there was no one there. Many of his generation are long gone. His works and writings live on, but soon enough they will be just words to a name. Years from now, there will be no one to remember the kind of person that he was.

My father’s ashes lie in an urn placed upon an altar in my mother’s bedroom. My father was both a doctor and a lawyer, and he achieved much while he was alive. He was well-liked and well-respected, a giant among Filipino pathologists. He has no grave to speak of, no memorial which people outside the family can visit—just his ashes in an urn, on an altar in my mother’s bedroom. It’s a quiet and private memorial, but a memorial just the same, with photographs around to remind us of him. His name will surely live on, but when we who had known him and loved him are gone, his ashes will become truly dust. Our memorials to him will fade.

My own beloved babies, enshrined in memory in this blog, were buried in the ground. No casket for them, so they literally returned to the earth whence they came. I make all the memorials to them, for them, but none of those memorials can ever capture the everyday joy I felt when they were alive, the comfort they gave me during the dark times, the love they offered unconditionally, the very beauty they possessed. I can perhaps save part of the ground they’re buried in should, for some reason or another, at some time or another, that ground may become inaccessible to me. But when my gone, even that hallowed dirt will become simply dirt.

Ashes to ashes. Dust thou art, to dust thou shall return.

“He’s not really dead, you know. Not as long as we remember him.”

Insightful words from Dr. McCoy to Capt. Kirk in “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” after they had given Spock a burial in space.

Indeed, as long as we remember them.

But for our departed to live on in memory, we who had loved them would have to live forever. To remember them, yes, to tell others about them, to keep their images from fading, to preserve their memory in family lore. But we, too, shall become ashes. We, too, shall become dust. And when we do, their memorials will lose all significance.

Our memorials matter only while we live. Strange, but we make these memorials precisely because we want others to remember our departed loved ones even when we’re gone. For ourselves, we need no memorials. After all, we hold them in our hearts. While we live, they remain in our hearts, alive and well somehow, with us still. They come to us in our thoughts, in the grief that never really goes away, in the tears we shed in the quiet of night. We need no memorials in stone or marble. We are their memorials. But we inevitably become dust. The real memorials become dust.

It may be disheartening to think that our loved ones will finally be truly dead, finally unremembered, when we who had loved them, who remember them, are dead as well. But even in such a disheartening thought, we may find some consolation. After all, who wants to live forever remembering a loved one, when one can join that loved one in whatever existence follows this life?

Give me a reunion in ashes anytime and let my memorials fade.

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