NEVER SAYING HELLO AGAIN

UNEDITED SAMPLE LITERARY ARTICLE
By Zatia Denise Danao Gammad
IV-Madame Marie Curie


Sitting beside the engraved marble epitaph, I lit two white candles and his favorite incense sticks and said the prayers he taught me when I was three years old. It was on a sunny day that I felt sadness still lingering in me. Why did he have to leave? He was a religious man, and he was a heroic man. He served the church for as long as I could remember, and he served the country for a lifetime. Yet it wasn’t enough to let him stay in return of his unconditional services. As the whispering breeze combed my straight hair, I imagined the times he used to do it before I played with my friends. He was waving goodbye as I rushed to play patintero or hide-and-seek with them. I knew that saying goodbye meant saying hello again soon. That’s why I waved back with a smile whenever he did that. But when he waved goodbye to me at the intensive care unit last October 2006, I feared that waving back would mean a different one. And indeed it was.

He waved for the very last time as he closed his eyes and never woke up. I never received a hello again from my grandfather. It was heartbreaking; it was truly devastating. Tears didn’t hesitate to trickle down my face as sorrow grew deeper than I could ever imagine. The scenario was still vivid in my memory. The needle, the dextrose, the metal instruments. They were all terrifying. And they were all entering his body, trying to hold his life in place. The doctors informed him of what procedures were to be done before they executed it. They were countless and the incisions were too insufferable. I was in pain and so did everybody else. My parents were beside me as we watched from the glass window. My uncles and aunts held each others’ arms and hands as they watched too. My cousins couldn’t bear watching it and so did I. But the mere presence of mine gave him strength to fight, like the times he used to shoot in the field. And everybody else’s presence gave him more strength to hold on. My grandmother was inside that cold tiled room. She was brave as she held my grandfather’s hand. She masked her dread with vacant expressions for she knew that grief would lose his will to live. But he had a will that was unexpected.

He had a congenital disease of polycystic kidneys and liver. They were parasites eating up his strong will. For years, he ignored it. He did not use a single centavo to cure it. Instead, thick-crust pizzas and half-gallon ice creams were his priorities. He sent them every month as a monitory note of his stay in the city. And yes it was a good sign. But later, he knew in his heart that he would soon leave but he hid his fear from us. He was just there, in the old-fashioned church of Basa Air Base in Pampanga, serving communion to retired soldiers and their families. Sickness was the only thing that he would not be open about for it made pity reflect in his face. And he was not to be pitied upon. He was a fighter stronger than all of his own soldiers combined. He was a defender of man, of truth, and of justice. Even with us cousins who used to play rough with every neighboring kid in Nayong Pobre, our grandfather would end the battle. But never did I expect that he would end the battle in him. His strength became a failure. His will was no longer to hold on but to give up. He chose to walk up and sit beside his best friend. God. The ever merciful God.

I was not allowed to enter that cold tiled room but I can picture what he requested to his children. He asked for what will be done in his funeral and the inheritance that he’ll leave. Each of them strode inside with courage for a single step crossing the door made everyone frail with woes. His children are his most loyal soldiers. And loyalty was still alive even when something planned is at the face of death. So they followed. Everything my grandfather requested. The disallowing of gun fires during his burial, the distribution of his savings to his grandchildren, the giving of his motorcycle to my brother, and others. I could see from that glass window that they tried to act deaf for it was a signal of him finally waving goodbye. But then it would not make him peaceful if his last orders were not followed. Before he was rushed to the AFP Medical Center, he requested a last visitation at the Christ the King Church to receive his last communion and say his last prayers. Though I cannot read the messages he had for the Lord, I was certain with one. He was ready to say goodbye and never to say hello again.

Now, as I sit six feet above him, I still share my achievements and worries that I’ve recently experienced. I wait for the crisp scent of his favorite incense sticks to blend with the warm air blanketing my body. I still reminisce about the times he used to kiss my forehead, teach me The Angelus, remind me to always tie the laces of my right shoe first, and to study well. With sadness slowly flying away, I stand and give my kiss to his engraved marble epitaph. I know that my prayers have reached his ears high above the composed clouds. As I walk away, leaving a trail of the remaining strength from that tragic scenario, the candles burn an everlasting light of hope that he’ll soon say hello to me once again.