The Mourning After

Early last week, during the wake of a beloved maternal uncle, one of my cousins and I expectedly exchanged fond memories of our departed relative. The second in a brood of seven, our amiable uncle was our family's resident genealogist, always ready to recount colorful and funny tales about his siblings when they were growing up in a two-storey wood-and-capiz house in Marikina, or about our grandparents or about my grandmother's spinster sister and cousins.

Our conversation later drifted to what we remember of our grandfather, who died when both of us were eight. Being that young when he died, my most vivid memories of him were of the nights my mother and I spent at his hospital room when he was confined for a time at the old Medical City, which was very near our village. How he looked so old, so frail then. Very far from the portrait our uncle--and his siblings--had painted of him: a livewire of a man, a brilliant enterpreneur whose businesses ranged from insurance to cockfighting. My grandfather, I was told, loved throwing big parties for just about any occasion, and also loved to brag (and based on what I was told, he had every right to). And during the 1960s and 1970s he would gather all his descendants and his househelpers in two or three coasters and bring them all to Baguio for vacation at one of his houses there. My uncle also told us how our Lolo finished his MBA--almost unheard of during the 1920s--at the University of Missouri in Saint Louis as a pensionado, and how he sidelined there as a talented tenor (!). As my mother once said, my grandfather was quite a character.

At that point, I confided to my cousin that in a way I felt somewhat cheated that I never got to know our grandfather personally, the way my mother and his father did. How wonderful that would've been. It turned out my cousin felt the same way. It couldn't be helped, of course, considering the circumstances. Then I'm reminded of my uncle's younger grandchildren, whose ages averaged around 10. That's when my sadness over my uncle's death got a bit deeper: they will never get the chance to really know their grandfather for themselves, the way their parents, or even their elder cousins did. They will never get the chance to know how wonderful their grandfather was, only through the stories their parents will tell them about him.

Still, sad as I was, I'm relieved that my uncle is in a better place now. He deserved it.