I was barely three years old when my younger sister died. She was a little over a month old then. I didn't cry during the wake. I didn't cry during the burial. Maybe it's because she had a twin sister anyway, and that twin lived, so the impact of the loss was cushioned by that fact. Since then, I have never really cried at a funeral. I think it's unfair not to have cried at my sister's funeral and then cry at someone who's not as closely related. And I think I've always been thinking, "Oh, they're still there, anyway. We can visit them anytime."
Every year, we visit my sister's grave. The place where the headstone should have been is blank, but my sister's name used to be painted there. When we visit, we talk about what would've happened if she had lived. These imaginations are always on a light note, and I never heard any bitterness from any one of us. Somehow, we think, "She's still there, we can visit her anytime."
This year's All Souls Day, we went to the cemetery as usual. There were not many people this year, I thought. We got a little lost going to our 'family plot', but we found it.
But our sister's grave was not there anymore. On the exact place where her blank headstone should have been, there was another headstone, that of someone we did not know. We were confused, and we even checked if we were in the right place.
We were, but my sister's grave was gone.
It took a while for the fact to sink in. When we got tired of rationalizing, we just fell silent. The people visiting the grave beside us kept questioning us about it, but we just felt exhausted, and bitter and confused to answer. My mother, teary-eyed, lit a candle and put it on the grave anyway. My sister, the living twin, also teary-eyed, helped her. I just stood there, unable to comfort either my mother or my sister. I could feel the soft tears running down my cheek. I think that's when I finally felt the sadness of losing my sister, now that I'm all grown up and the grave is not there anymore.
But sad though I was, I don't think I could comprehend my mother's grief. I have not felt the sorrow of losing one's child, I having had no child to lose yet. I have no full knowledge of the pain, the guilt and the confusion of losing a child twice. That is why I cannot fathom the grief of my mother, who was also trying to keep from crying, I think, for us who are living. But she said something that gave me an idea of the pain she felt.
"Ang laki ng kasalanan ko kay Pite."
She was planning to move my sister's remains, you see, and was just waiting for the opportunity. But it was too late. For a mother to feel that, i had a vague inkling of how guilty she must feel. She wasn't able to keep her child from dying, and now she had to deal with not being able to have kept her daughter's grave. It was a vague idea, but it was overwhelming for me.
We didn't take long. It was too suffocating to be there and not be there at the same time. My mother and my sister the twin silently held each other, but I think it was too much for them also. It was difficult to move, yet we wanted to get out of there. When we finally went out, I was sort of relieved, but the bitterness was deeper. We talked about other things, we tried to distract ourselves with going to Robinson's and going to church, but it was a fragile relief. When we went home, it all came back and we were once again confronted with losing a sister twice.
I am older now. Many people close to me have died since. I think I've always been prepared to deal with more graves to visit, but I don't think I'll be able to deal with visiting less.
