Another Funeral...
12th of September, 2006. Today, my brother buried his young wife. I never knew her that well. We spent all of 10 days together when she came to our home during the Christmas season of 2004 in Bacolod City. They were living in Iloilo City during the first few months of their marriage because my brother worked there. The only memorable part of that brief period in time that I spent with my sister-in-law was my taking her up a mountain resort where the officers of our Chapel Council held a Christmas Party-cum-Despedida Party for me. I was due to leave for Makati City on 09 January, 2005. We trekked up the mountain trail for half an hour so she could witness the marvelous sight of the first and tallest waterfall of the Seven Falls of Mambucal Resort. Little did I know that the exertion on her part could have been fatal. She was fourteen years younger than her husband.
My brother summed up their life together in these short paragraphs he wrote for her Eulogy. This should have been entitled, The Love Story of Robert and Thelma...
MIRACLES
On May 13, 1983, a baby daughter was born to simple folks in a little known town of Balamban on the western side of Cebu island. She lived an idyllic childhood in a very idyllic setting. At sunset the waters off Tañon Strait could rival Manila Bay’s famed beauty with bonuses; the peaks of Kanlaon lording it over on the left with the island of Negros in front going from green to deep blue. The strait is also full of playful dolphins.
The baby girl would spend an entire day near the seashore turning a ruddy red that in the vernacular would be described as “lagum kaayo”. Playing house with her friends until dinnertime, being truant at school, climbing fruit trees (guavas and mangoes were a personal favorite), generally speaking living “life at the beach”.
At the age of five, still wetting her “banig” at night, she was sent to live with an aunt near the national highway, where a true miracle would happen. Stepping down from a tricycle with her aunt, she was called by friends on the other side to come play with them. She ran and was hit by a car. The driver could not see her as she came around a parked truck. She flew anywhere from 6-10 meters (depending on witness’ point of view). On the way to their district hospital, she threw up blood. At the hospital, the doctors would not admit her for, in their opinion, she was going to die. The family had to transport her to Toledo, over the mountains, to Naga and then to Cebu City. A trip, that in those days, could take two (2) hours. And she survived. SHE LIVED. A MIRACLE, AN UNDENIABLE MIRACLE.
After twelve (12) years, a vagabond young man was assigned to their sleepy town to take charge of a very old Oxygen plant with a record of two (2) deaths and an explosive accident to its name. Not to mention the competence of the workforce. (Still, I would have dearly loved bragging about it to Uncle Ben, for his plant was up only to 180 cylinders a day while mine topped 700 cylinders a day.)
That young man was generally used to the bustle of city life, and the humdrum would have driven him nuts, except that the plant needed a lot of work. Since this was the province, I was able to afford a 3 x 4 meter room with a 3 x 2 meter kitchen. Pretty big and I slept in it about two (2) nights in a week. On my weekly runs to “mercado”, riding a tricyle, I noticed a girl with curly hair leaning out of the window. Interested I got her name and other info from the store across the street. I guess the owner was eager to pair me with just about any local girl. She had a boyfriend then and I had to wait out another one before I could make ligaw. I guess she found me a big departure, since she knew I was interested for a long time and had the patience for her to be free from other emotional entanglements. The courtship had its hilarious moments (getting her to eat at a place like Sbarro or Max’s was an adventure) and its truly memorable ones, very memorable ones. Needless to say, the rest was history. The one thing that stands out though was the way that this lass changed the young man. It is nothing short of a miracle, that all of my experience, my so called “sophistication”, all of my education, could be reduced to three (3) mere words, “I LOVE YOU”. There on that little known place I came to know the true meaning of those words. I thank God for such a miracle to come to me at all.
My wife was so full of life and there were physical attributes that still baffle me to this day. She had wonderful shoulders, not sloping or slender but strong and pretty wide. Putting my thumb on her spine, her collar bone would extend about an inch beyond my middle finger. Her hair was curly at the middle but straight on the sides. She loved the beach but did not know how to swim or even float. She could outrun me for short distances but did not have the stamina to walk around SM Iloilo even once. And she could create a miracle all on her own.
After she had her first bout with UTI, I got her to visit regularly an OB-GYN. It was her doctor who ordered that she should have a sonogram. When we made the appointment she was nervous since the doctor who was to perform the sonogram was male. Later she could not stop giggling, since the doctor was “bayot” (gay) but complained that he pushed the probe very hard. The diagnosis was not good. BILATERAL POLYCYSTIC OVARIES was something a young woman in the prime of her life could barely understand. It meant that her ovaries could not produce the eggs needed for her monthly cycle not to mention pregnancy. Most patients diagnosed with this condition have to be on medication for three (3) years and their chances of getting pregnant were very slim (we looked it up on the Internet). Some even resort to IVF (in-vitro fertilization) just to have a baby. Some cases even lead to cancer. After her OB-GYN explained everything to her, she looked me in the eye and said that she will have a baby. After only four (4) months she indeed got pregnant. Our son is a miracle. To be conceived at all, that was a miracle his mother gave to me.
That miracle, however, could have undone the first. Her six year old body could have coped with the trauma of a head-on crash, but her head could have not. Extreme head injuries could have gone unnoticed considering that CAT scans were not the norm then. The miracle of her pregnancy could have stressed those injuries further. Considering the elevated blood pressures and other hormonal changes in a pregnancy including the long labor and natural childbirth, that possibility could have easily happened.
My wife suffered an epileptic seizure while sleeping with our son. She died about forty-five (45) hours later.
She was twenty-three (23). Her life may have been short but the miracles she wrought in it would last a lifetime.
Indeed, her life gave me the strength to tell you and the whole world this;
I LOVE THELMA.
On May 13, 1983, a baby daughter was born to simple folks in a little known town of Balamban on the western side of Cebu island. She lived an idyllic childhood in a very idyllic setting. At sunset the waters off Tañon Strait could rival Manila Bay’s famed beauty with bonuses; the peaks of Kanlaon lording it over on the left with the island of Negros in front going from green to deep blue. The strait is also full of playful dolphins.
The baby girl would spend an entire day near the seashore turning a ruddy red that in the vernacular would be described as “lagum kaayo”. Playing house with her friends until dinnertime, being truant at school, climbing fruit trees (guavas and mangoes were a personal favorite), generally speaking living “life at the beach”.
At the age of five, still wetting her “banig” at night, she was sent to live with an aunt near the national highway, where a true miracle would happen. Stepping down from a tricycle with her aunt, she was called by friends on the other side to come play with them. She ran and was hit by a car. The driver could not see her as she came around a parked truck. She flew anywhere from 6-10 meters (depending on witness’ point of view). On the way to their district hospital, she threw up blood. At the hospital, the doctors would not admit her for, in their opinion, she was going to die. The family had to transport her to Toledo, over the mountains, to Naga and then to Cebu City. A trip, that in those days, could take two (2) hours. And she survived. SHE LIVED. A MIRACLE, AN UNDENIABLE MIRACLE.
After twelve (12) years, a vagabond young man was assigned to their sleepy town to take charge of a very old Oxygen plant with a record of two (2) deaths and an explosive accident to its name. Not to mention the competence of the workforce. (Still, I would have dearly loved bragging about it to Uncle Ben, for his plant was up only to 180 cylinders a day while mine topped 700 cylinders a day.)
That young man was generally used to the bustle of city life, and the humdrum would have driven him nuts, except that the plant needed a lot of work. Since this was the province, I was able to afford a 3 x 4 meter room with a 3 x 2 meter kitchen. Pretty big and I slept in it about two (2) nights in a week. On my weekly runs to “mercado”, riding a tricyle, I noticed a girl with curly hair leaning out of the window. Interested I got her name and other info from the store across the street. I guess the owner was eager to pair me with just about any local girl. She had a boyfriend then and I had to wait out another one before I could make ligaw. I guess she found me a big departure, since she knew I was interested for a long time and had the patience for her to be free from other emotional entanglements. The courtship had its hilarious moments (getting her to eat at a place like Sbarro or Max’s was an adventure) and its truly memorable ones, very memorable ones. Needless to say, the rest was history. The one thing that stands out though was the way that this lass changed the young man. It is nothing short of a miracle, that all of my experience, my so called “sophistication”, all of my education, could be reduced to three (3) mere words, “I LOVE YOU”. There on that little known place I came to know the true meaning of those words. I thank God for such a miracle to come to me at all.
My wife was so full of life and there were physical attributes that still baffle me to this day. She had wonderful shoulders, not sloping or slender but strong and pretty wide. Putting my thumb on her spine, her collar bone would extend about an inch beyond my middle finger. Her hair was curly at the middle but straight on the sides. She loved the beach but did not know how to swim or even float. She could outrun me for short distances but did not have the stamina to walk around SM Iloilo even once. And she could create a miracle all on her own.
After she had her first bout with UTI, I got her to visit regularly an OB-GYN. It was her doctor who ordered that she should have a sonogram. When we made the appointment she was nervous since the doctor who was to perform the sonogram was male. Later she could not stop giggling, since the doctor was “bayot” (gay) but complained that he pushed the probe very hard. The diagnosis was not good. BILATERAL POLYCYSTIC OVARIES was something a young woman in the prime of her life could barely understand. It meant that her ovaries could not produce the eggs needed for her monthly cycle not to mention pregnancy. Most patients diagnosed with this condition have to be on medication for three (3) years and their chances of getting pregnant were very slim (we looked it up on the Internet). Some even resort to IVF (in-vitro fertilization) just to have a baby. Some cases even lead to cancer. After her OB-GYN explained everything to her, she looked me in the eye and said that she will have a baby. After only four (4) months she indeed got pregnant. Our son is a miracle. To be conceived at all, that was a miracle his mother gave to me.
That miracle, however, could have undone the first. Her six year old body could have coped with the trauma of a head-on crash, but her head could have not. Extreme head injuries could have gone unnoticed considering that CAT scans were not the norm then. The miracle of her pregnancy could have stressed those injuries further. Considering the elevated blood pressures and other hormonal changes in a pregnancy including the long labor and natural childbirth, that possibility could have easily happened.
My wife suffered an epileptic seizure while sleeping with our son. She died about forty-five (45) hours later.
She was twenty-three (23). Her life may have been short but the miracles she wrought in it would last a lifetime.
Indeed, her life gave me the strength to tell you and the whole world this;
I LOVE THELMA.
She died 07 September 2006.
posted by sheila at
3:23 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home