ILIGAN City ― When I rested for the night after traveling for more than nine hours from this city to Davao, I found out after about two hours of sleep, that I couldn’t walk anymore. I could only crawl ― like a baby!
What, I had become a baby? What was happening?
But that’s going ahead of the story. That was in early February 2019. So that was in another lifetime, as in B.C. (Before Covid). I and my son Den had come over to Davao City to attend the funeral of my niece, Nancy. An OFW in Vietnam, she had come over to Davao, to die. She was sick with breast cancer. She was only 45.
We started in this city of Iligan on the morning of that day, riding in two buses, one from this city to Cagayan de Oro City and then from there, in another RTMI bus that took us to Davao.
So, by around 6:00 in the early evening of that day, we arrived at a funeral home that was about five kilometers from Matina, the place of my sis Lyn, where we were to be billeted.
Funerals are sad occasions. But it too has redeeming aspects, for it is a reunion of sorts. There I saw siblings, relatives, friends, and acquaintances. From Libagon, Southern Leyte where most of us were born, from Cebu City where several of us had studied, from Cagayan de Oro where we had lived too in another lifetime, from Davao, from Cagayan de Oro, and of course, from Iligan where Den and I had come from.
And there was Nancy who now had lain peacefully after her painful three-year battle. In 2017, she had come to Cebu City from Vietnam to be operated on a breast, which doctors said, was benign.
They were wrong. And now…
She was to be cremated the following morning.
And in Lyn’s comfortable house, I settled in for the night while the men remained in the funeral home, including my son Den.
And back to my “crawling” story. Don’t panic, I told myself, even as I crawled to the bathroom. Maybe, if I tried hard enough, I could learn to walk again.
And after several hours of practicing to walk again, and trying very hard, I learned to walk ― again. Though with a limp in the morning. Throughout that ordeal, I thought of the movie, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” where Benjamin starring Brad Pitt was born “old” and died “young.” Or the “Planet of the Apes” wherein the apes “progressed:” while the careless and reckless humans “retrogressed.” So, they were the ones lording over the earth now!
I don’t believe in such kind of logic, though I still enjoyed seeing them nonetheless, for I am a movie buff.
By early morning, I had learned to walk again, though with a limp. My fear of creating a fuss for myself was too much.
And so, at the funeral home, my niece Nancy was cremated after several prayers, with a priest officiating it.
I learned one thing in the process. That there is a stage in which the whole body looks like corrals. The ones doing the process did not show us the whole time. But they showed us the “corral-like” stage. Which reminded me of the corrals by the seashores in Libagon, my hometown. After that, the corral likeness was shoved again into some mechanical contraption which could have been some kind of oven and those in charge of the process had let us understand that what would come out would already be the ashes.
My sister, Kaking, Nancy’s mother, and I then talked about yesteryears. I had regaled her with stories of Nancy Drew, that teenage detective whose analytical mind solved many a mystery. Hence, the name, Nancy. And now, 45 years later…
After the tears, the hugs, and the kisses, it was time to return to our respective places where we came from. Again, that is over a nine-hour land trip via RTMI buses. And this time, my mind became analytical in order to avoid that “crawling” episode of my life. And I remember that on my earlier trip to Davao, a tablet before me, which movies were shown. I enjoyed seeing again on that tablet, “Gone with the Wind” starring Clark Gable and Vivian Leigh. But when it was time for another movie called “Hotel Rwanda” the dialogue which I heard, with the help of earphones, was still “Gone With the Wind!”
Was that a portend of something to come in the coming hours? That I would “unlearn” how to walk? It was good that the room where I slept was dark. So, nobody had witnessed my “practicing” walking again.
So, on the trip home to Iligan City, I decided to refrain from sitting all throughout. My “sedentary” position during all those hours might have been the culprit. Therefore, even when senior citizens were told not to bother coming down when everybody had to come down I decided to come down with the “juniors.” It then occurred to me that we seniors are too “pampered” for our own good!
And another lesson that we learned, even in kindergarten: God helps those who help themselves.
Another lesson which was taught too by one senior to other senior citizens, okay from a lawyer R. Macalintal: He says, seniors, should be “madaldal” or talkative.
For this too can prevent the onset of “Alzheimer's.” Everybody, I suppose knows what this is. That is, your mind goes back to being a kid! Never mind if you're now trapped in an old person’s body!
Email: norasorino2@gmail.com
