Our 4th Wedding Anniversary and Fond Remembrances of Loved Ones Lost

Our marriage rites, with Monsignor Aguilar (now deceased) in the foreground.

The date was 08-08-08. Oliver and I got married, and it was an incredibly happy day. Now, years later, on our fourth anniversary, I look back on that day with a deeper understanding and better appreciation of what a happy time that truly was.  They were all still there, then. Before God took them back.  Some beloved ones who celebrated our milestone with us. When I look back at photographs, their faces grab my attention.  It's funny how we see things differently as time passes. Right after the wedding, I was looking at superficial things in pictures: dresses and decor, and which angles were most flattering.  Today, as heavy rains descend upon us with no pause - and half of my city is submerged in water - as flash floods rage and some friends and family seek refuge elsewhere after having evacuated from their homes - I revisit my wedding album with a keen sense of the uncertainty of life.  And I use the photos, and the act of looking through them, as a springboard for jumping through time and space and taking a mind trip. My wedding album is my boarding pass to this magical destination in my brain - where I am in an eternal celebration - where the dead still live - and we are all forever young, and beautiful, and happy.

Monsignor Pablo Aguilar, one of three priests who con-celebrated our wedding mass, was so strong he took the strenuous 10-hour land trip from Bicol to Manila the day before our wedding - then incredibly - made the same trip back the day after. Who knew he was then afflicted with leukemia? Less than three months later, he was gone.  It was the 31st of October when he died. I remember because I had just come back from the cemetery to visit Oliver's father's grave when we discovered I was bleeding and may be having a miscarriage. I followed doctor's orders and stayed in bed praying that I wouldn't lose my baby.  And for that reason, I was unable to say a proper good-bye and pay my respects. I was unable to make the trip to attend his final milestone, while he was able to make the trip to take part in ours. Oliver and I owe him a debt we can no longer repay - unless, perhaps through prayer.  God did listen to my pleas, and my threatened miscarriage was addressed in time - and we were blessed with our daughter Narra. Shortly after she was born, however, we received devastating news.

Oliver and I, with Owen, at our wedding reception.

Owen Carsi Cruz, Oliver's brother, announced to the family that he was diagnosed with lung cancer in its advanced stages in June, 2009. Narra was just a month old then.  Slowly, as the months passed, the disease took its toll on his body and he started to shrink before our eyes. I look back at our wedding pictures and I see him the way I want to remember him - tall and handsome, proud and strong, vibrant and active. He put up a valiant effort to fight the disease, doing everything possible to find a cure. His efforts prolonged his life another two years, but we lost him in September, 2011. By then, I had given birth to our second child Guijo, who unfortunately contracted an infection and was confined in the same hospital where Owen was being treated - for the last time.  They left the hospital on the same day. Guijo went home to us, to start his life. Owen went home to God, to end his life on earth.  We were just recovering from Owen's loss when death claimed another of our kin.

With pretty Tita Boots, at the reception dinner.

Ma. Raquel Socorro, Oliver's aunt, was just at home, cleaning up as usual, when she felt funny. She was rushed to the hospital and didn't make it through the night. Just like that. She wasn't even sick with any disease. Tita Boots, as we lovingly called her, was a vivacious lady, fun-loving and sociable. I can almost hear her high pitched voice and her infectious laugh.  At our wedding, she was strikingly slim and pretty...which is her usual look.  There was never a hint of ill health in her outward appearance. We  buried her in October, 2011 - a week before Guijo's baptism.  And at that baptism, we had an honored guest. My Lolo Inte, my mother's uncle and our family's patriarch. He was then already in an advanced stage of colon cancer, and was in pain. But he made the effort to travel from Bicol to Manila to attend the affair. He was amazing like that. He'd make the effort, make the trip, to be there for family. Lolo Inte has been a big part of our wedding from the very start.

Lolo Inte at our Pamamanhikan dinner, when Oliver's family met ours.

Atty. Vicente De Lima, our "Lolo Inte", honored us by being a role-player at our pamamanhikan (the process of the groom's family meeting with the bride's family to formally discuss the forthcoming marriage).  It was May, 2008 - three months before our wedding. I was still based in Singapore then, and had to fly in for the affair. My Lolo Inte had to travel from Bicol so he could play the role of respected elder, and formally receive Oliver's family into ours.  Lolo Inte provided a precious line of continuity. He was there too, thirty years before, when my father formally presented himself to my mother's family, to ask for her hand in marriage. A man of incredibly sharp memory, Lolo Inte had many stories. Oliver and I made a family tree as part of our wedding invitation, and he gave me a century's worth of details, the names of my ancestors who lived on for as long as he remembered them.

Lolo Inte, giving us wise counsel at our pre-wedding  pamamanhikan.

Lolo Inte died last week and he is in my mind.  And I remember an image of him on my wedding day, one that was not caught on camera, but will forever be replayed in my mind.  I was walking down the aisle, bathed in sunlight, and I saw him turn his head, and seeing me enter, he made the effort to slowly stand up - and I felt so honored. Here was this big, proud man, our respected elder and patriarch, standing for me because I was a bride.  Lolo Inte respected the institution of marriage and valued the sacred ritual that made it possible for previously unrelated families to become related.  I loved Oliver long before we got married - but it was on that day, 08-08-08, that we became family - that Atty. De Lima became Oliver's Lolo Inte, that Owen became my brother, and Tita Boots my aunt.  This is the kind of miracle performed by priests like Monsignor Aguilar, who transform strangers into family in the marriage rites they solemnize.  

So this anniversary is a celebration of family ties, and we remember that wonderful, happy day that enabled such bonds to be formed. Since that day four years ago, we have lost loved ones, but also brought into this world, two beautiful children.  I hope to spend many more August 8's in my life, and I plan to sit down, and show my children photographs, and tell them stories about the people who were there that day. I will make sure those loved ones who've passed away, will live on, in our minds, and hearts, and be remembered the way they were caught in photographs: strong, healthy, and smiling from the gut, in sincere happiness for Oliver and I, on the day we became one.

2 Deaths in 40 days: Mourning The Loss of Family

I am struck by the way events repeat themselves. The good and the bad come in discernible patterns, especially in my husband's family. Death and Life, occurring in batches.

In the early 1970's, the Socorro sisters Mama Rubi and Tita Boots gave birth to baby boys just months apart. For Mama Rubi it was her 5th child, Oliver. For Tita Boots, it was her first born, Thunder. Oliver had his own big brother, Owen who was ten years older, and he found another brother in his cousin Thunder.  They are very close, best friends. Fast forward 4 decades later, and the pattern of simultaneous pregnancy has been repeated twice since I joined the family just 3 years ago. 

Brothers Owen and Oliver became fathers just months apart...Owen welcomed his 4th child Mateo; Oliver, his first born Narra. Two years later, another repetition: Thunder welcomes his son Marco just a few months before Oliver welcomes his son Guijo.  There were plans to hold Marco and Guijo's baptism at the same time, and to have a joint celebration when Guijo turned one month old - but plans had to be postponed because of sad news.

Owen with Mateo, June 2009, around the time he
announced to the family that he had cancer.

The family lost Owen on September 5th, after his 2-year battle against lung cancer.  The family mourns his loss deeply, and hasn't recovered yet.  Today is the 40th day since he died and there was a dinner gathering tonight among family and friends in his honor.  Marco and Guijo's baptism was planned the weekend after Owen's 40th day - next week supposedly - but as events are wont to repeat themselves - plans had to be postponed again, because of more sad news. The worst repetition imaginable: another death in the family.

Happy times: Macau 2007.
L-R: My husband Oliver, My Mother-in-law Mama Rubi,
My Cousin-in-law Thunder, and his mother Tita Boots.

Last night, Tita Boots died, all of a sudden, without warning... too fast, too soon.  She had a heart attack, was brought to the hospital, and didn't make it through the night. Oliver rushed to the hospital to see Tita Boots being subjected to CPR - he arrived in time to hear difficult questions he'd been asked just weeks before: do not resuscitate? He called me to say he was going to the hospital to visit Tita Boots...his next text an hour later said we were losing her... then it was over, she was gone.  

And we're going to repeat all the rituals of mourning all over again - wake and funeral ... today is Owen's 40th day dinner ... and we will have another one in 40 days for Tita Boots. The prospect of grieving another loss weighs heavy in my heart... I physically feel the pain in my chest as my heart constricts - for my husband Oliver, for my cousin Thunder, for my sister-in-law Ging and her children, for my mother-in-law who had to bury a son, and now a sister.  

I am an in-law. I am the newcomer in the family, and among the adults, I know Owen and Tita Boots least. I feel like a stranger with few rights to mourn - after all, the shared memories I have with them is nothing compared to the storehouse of memories blood relatives have accumulated through the decades. And yet, I feel the deep, sharp pain of loss - the kind felt by real kin.  The day I exchanged vows with Oliver, they became my family, and the day I got pregnant, my relations with them became cemented for eternity... in my children, the blood lines of their family and mine are forever intertwined. And the day Owen died, I felt it in my gut - I lost the closest thing I ever had to a brother even before I had the chance to get to know him better, I mourned the loss of a possible future with him, of having him as Narra and Guijo's uncle, of having him as my "kuya", the big brother I never had - or almost had.

And then there's Tita Boots. I know little about the details of her life: like where she studied, what she did before she retired, her love life - the big details, I don't know these. But I will miss her a lot because she was there throughout my journey into motherhood - all the important events of my life in the last couple of years were celebrated with her. She came to my house for the "pamamanhikan" before I got married, she was there at the wedding, and when I got pregnant, she gave me maternity wear; when I gave birth both times, she was there at the hospital to welcome my babies to the family - and my last photo of her was taken just a month ago, when she visited us in our hospital room when Guijo was confined.  She was there at Narra's baptism, and I assumed she would be there at Guijo's...

Tita Boots at Oliver's Birthday Celebration, 2009.

Tita Boots at Narra's Christening Celebration, 2009.

My last photo of Tita Boots. She and Thunder visited our
hospital room when Guijo was confined at The Medical City.
September, 2011.

I stared at my Excel File with Guijo's baptism guest list, I stared at the entry that said "Tita Boots" - "confirmed"... and I couldn't bring myself to rectify the entry now that she died all of a sudden - I couldn't get around the pain of reducing the family head count - if only Owen and Tita Boots could be there, for the baptism, for all the birthdays to come. I now think of Guest Lists in a different way. They are not just a way of figuring out logistics: how many seats to reserve, and how much food to prepare. It is not just for the practicality of party planning for me now. After having to deal with 2 deaths in 40 days, I look at a Guest List as a celebration of life, a wonderful, beautiful enumeration of loved ones who are Here! Present! Alive! 

Oliver was inconsolable this morning and I had no words of comfort to offer. But I did have a way to reach into that part of him that sees the light in the midst of darkness. I have Narra and Guijo, and their precious innocence. These children, so full of promise, so full of vigor - offer a powerful antidote to the specter of death. They bring inspiration and hope, and intoxicating happiness, even in times of grief.  

Good bye Owen, good bye Tita Boots. Thank you for welcoming me, and my children to the family. See you at our family reunion in heaven someday.