For Lolo Pete, who passed away on November 4, 2021.
You nearly made it to eighty-three and that’s amazing. I wish we had more time together.
When Lolo passes, it is in the middle bits of autumn, cold like a meal left exposed and untouched. The hunger to reunite scoops the belly empty, preparing the body for food. We won’t get a taste of what we crave. All we have is aching unfulfillment.
It’s been a long time since we shared a meal, sat at a table together with plates filled with something in thick sauce paired with jasmine rice. It’s been a long time since we were together. It’s important that we remember it with satisfied stomachs near bursting at the seams with the results of old family recipes.
Before we know that it’s goodbye, we prepare the home for his coming.
One night, we’re on the phone with him, trying to use video to communicate and settle the plans for his arrival. He and I wouldn’t understand each other with only words to speak. Language is a wall between us, almost as divisive as the land and ocean that force us to live on opposite sides of the world. The video cuts in and out like the rise and fall of waves. The static on the audio is as frequent as regular inhales and exhales, sharp as a needle point pressed to the eardrum.
It’s frustrating to try to make plans like this. He can’t hear and can’t see on his side. On ours, the image is pixelated, boxes and blurs, indistinct colours on a dark background. The volume goes up and up, the screech of poor connection and unstable communication.
Wave and smile, say hello again and again. Say love you and miss you and try not to weep when you’re hoping it was heard. It’s hard to know what manages to reach across the space. Already, we squeeze ourselves into the small overlap when both sides of the world are awake but weary. Sun rises at the ancestral home and sets in the migrant’s new nest.
“Will you be there?” I ask. “We’ll be waiting.”
“What?” Lolo says. “Huh?”
“They can’t hear,” my mom explains.
“Can you ask?” I feel guilty making the request, but I don’t know how to learn the language. We found a book the last time we landed on home soil, trying to turn the text into lessons. Reading the pages and notes and explanations led to a feeling of being and feeling overwhelmed, buried alive in what I don’t know. I know I should learn but I don’t think we have the time to catch up. I am lagging behind by decades.
My mom repeats the question in a translation.
“Oh!” they say in sudden understanding.
It’s defeat for me, a blow to the belly that knocks the air out of my lungs. I try to smile, try not to look like it hurts. There’s no blood, no cuts or bruises, only the injury that comes from tripping on the steps to the front door only to find out I don’t have the key to get inside.
What we understand is limited in scope. I can catch a few here and there, like scooping up fish with my bare hands. We lean in toward the camera like it will help us translate better. When I catch myself, I look at my mom and laugh.
Most of the time, I whisper to beg for a translation, to ask what was said and what I can say back.
I know that on the other side, he’s smiling. It doesn’t matter what we say. There’s love here and it doesn’t need to be spoken. In the end, we say our goodbyes. I shuffle away until the next time, embarrassed by my limitations. I am the young one, the one with all the years to come. I should be putting in more work, but I don’t know where to start.
Guilt puts my tongue in chains. It shackles me to the ground and tells me that there’s no point.
At least we’re planning to have them fly to be with us and see them all again.
It’s a rush to get to that day, trying not to glance at the hourglass with its sand spilling from the abundance at the top to pile below.
“It’s okay,” my mom says. “You can still learn.”
I’m embarrassed that it’s easier to speak French than it is to understand my family’s native language. I hope I can better carry a conversation when I’m immersed in our history and culture again, whenever that may be. Maybe I’ll feel less like an outsider the more I’m in the homeland, where I almost look like I belong.
Lolo will be with us here this time, flying through the stars for the first time to spend however much time is allowed before he’s on the next journey.
During the months that Lolo will be with us, it will be his ninetieth birthday. He would hit the miracle of becoming a nonagenarian. We want a big party in his honour, something to celebrate the man who raised four children in a house built on joy. There were cracks in the floor and stains on the walls, it got too warm inside during the hottest season of the year, but it always smelled like food and music played every morning.
We get a record player solely in anticipation of his arrival. It’s an unfamiliar place to him despite its long since established position as our home. I imagine him leaning over to listen, closing his eyes and smiling as he enjoys the songs. It’s his favourite pop band, the one whose albums he blasted at full volume to ensure he could hear them.
He’ll love it. We know he will. At first, he might be confused.
Why would you buy that? he might wonder.
It could turn a strange place into a safe one.
I have a new house with rooms to spare. It’s the first big space that our family knows in the years since leaving the last in the countryside. It was my idea for all of us to stay here during his visit so we can be close and make the most of however many days would be allowed.
A room is ready for him. A soft bed with pillows and a window that offers a view of open fields and a suggestion of the cityscape. I hope he will be impressed. My parents left their roots to build a life like this.
The house is stocked with Philippine products, brands that he would find in his own kitchen. We plan out every dinner that we’ll make during his stay, things that would be new to him and recipes that Lola would make for him too. Clothes are ordered and delivered to prepare him for the winter months. It might be his only opportunity to experience snow for the first time.
He knows of it through pictures and videos, through television shows and films.
Christmas decorations are on display on the first of September when there’s still heat and golden sunshine. The leaves are still green without a tinge of orange and brown. It’s hardly at all like we’re approaching the cold season and slipping into holidays. That’s what it’s like in the malls back home though. They paint the country in red and green and silver and gold, play music on the speakers, and blast air conditioning to get the right chill.
“Will he like it?” I ask my mom. I feel like I’m four years old and I’ve crafted a little papier mâché with my hands. I want to present it with a flourish, cross my fingers behind my back, and offer a toothy grin.
“Of course,” she says, like it’s nothing.
Her eyes are on the photos dug out of storage, a box of film that was developed before I was even born. She keeps them with me now for safekeeping. I guard them like a dragon with its treasure, hoarding it like an archeologist has gifted me with pieces of the past. I will be the museum to all our memories even if I don’t understand what happened in them.
“Maybe he won’t be homesick,” I say.
“He’ll be happy to be here.”
“With me?”
My voice is small and trembling, and I am, once again, like a child. My grandparents didn’t know me when I was a baby, didn’t get a chance to cradle me in their arms as they crooned lullabies.
“That’s all he wants.”
We miss each other and feel the hollowness in the gaps of time. I want to offer him more than the comfort of this new home we built and furnished and filled.
It’s early morning for us, late in the evening for them. We have the sun and they have the dark sky, the moon and stars hidden behind a layer of the city’s exhalation. The phone rings with the ominous music of a funeral and we dread having to pick up. My Tito is there when we answer, and he looks tired. He says his hellos and speaks to my mom — his sister — before sharing the reason for his call.
Lolo isn’t coming. He’s too sick to make the journey.
The news comes packaged in heartache, shared on the phone again with crackling sound and blurry video.
When the camera turns on Lolo, he’s all smiles and laughter like there isn’t any aching. He’s lasted longer than anyone’s ever expected and his whole life is a miracle of survival.
“Sorry, sorry,” he says. “Doctor says no.”
The Christmas tree is up behind him. There are garlands on the wall decorated with shining ornaments and flowers from the market. They curl around the frames like arms over shoulders, holding on to pictures taken in different parts of the world where his children and grandchildren have travelled. I imagine him looking at them like windows, arms crossed as he examines them with pride.
I want to tell my Lolo that I only know the world the way I do because of the love he offered my mother that she passed on to me. Our family heirloom is of raising children in a house that might not be fancy but one that’s filled with a variety of nourishment that goes in the belly and the heart. His legacy is his teachings, the example of love he offered.
He speaks in Tagalog and I can’t keep up. If I follow the chatter, I can find my way back home. My mom holds my hand as we sit together. I have to turn my eyes away every now and then to compose myself.
Lolo looks older than he did the last time. More wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. His cheeks sag lower and I want to scoop his face in my hands and touch my forehead to his. Lola isn’t on camera but she’s talking to him and they’re joking with each other again. He laughs and her hand is visible for a moment as she swats at him. They’re a funny pair, both hard of hearing these days and both still in love. It’s so unlike my father’s family. The relationship between his parents was sliced apart years before I was born. Love does not exist as echoing laughter in their home, not like it does where my mother grew up. I prefer the noisy evidence of affection.
“When can we go?” I ask.
I am thinking of our work schedules and the cost of plane tickets. I am thinking about the sacrifices necessary to take time away from my normal life. I am thinking about the numbers in my bank account and if it’s enough to get there and back and to make all the time in the middle worthwhile.
Lolo’s on camera again and he’s confused for a moment like he has forgotten he was on a call. My cousin holds the phone and points the lens in his direction. You can hear her laughter, muffled as she tries to stay calm. He squints his eyes and then they brighten, like he’s happy to see us.
His birthday is weeks away and we’re trying to organize something to celebrate it.
Most of the grandchildren are young adults now. All his children except my mom are with him. What can we do for such a milestone? We’re thinking of an abundance of food the family has grown over the years, offering more than what was possible in his youth.
He continues to speak in Tagalog and he’s trying to talk to me. I catch a few words, but the meaning slips between my fingers. He’s talking about the next time I come to visit. He wants to show me more of the neighbourhood and the secrets between the buildings. I remember that it doesn’t have any of the refinement of what I’m used to. The colours are more vibrant while other things are muted. Despite being within the same world, his experience in it is vastly different and he seems to want to show me how. He seems to want to ensure that I don’t miss out on the beautiful things I wouldn’t have noticed without his aid. I like that he wants to share pieces of his life with me and I imagine that knowing such details enables me to fit with the family.
I’m preparing a package to send back home for his birthday. I can fit my whole body into the balikbayan box if I curl into a ball. It fills up: from clothes to candies to little knick-knacks that I want to share with him. There are bits of Canada — syrup in maple-leaf-shaped bottles, a keychain of raccoons, a snow globe with the Toronto skyline. Tourist-y things that make me laugh and I hope he likes them as much as the Toronto Raptors hat we brought him before. We have a call with him and my mom translates again. The package is on its way.
“Can we have a party?” I ask.
They don’t seem to know how that’s going to work.
Dinner here, breakfast there. We’ll plan to have it around the same time so it’s like we’re eating together. He thinks it’s funny and laughs all the way through the conversation. We’ll cook the same things and set our tables like it’s a fancy occasion. We can dress up and decorate our homes. It will be like having a party despite being so far apart.
It isn’t entirely for Lolo, but he doesn’t know what he wants. He looks amused as my mom and her brother discuss the options. I don’t speak much, relying on them to sort out the details.
By the end of the call, Lolo is asleep in his chair. His head lolls to the side and it makes me laugh. During the short length of time that I visited him, he loved his naps. He only wakes as we’re saying goodbyes, then he jolts into alertness. There’s a strange shadow on his shoulder that resembles a hand. It falls behind him as he leans forward, opening his eyes as big as he can to stay awake.
I wave to him and he waves back. Every time I interact with him, I feel less like an adult and more like the child I wish I was when we met. There’s a significant portion of my life that he would have made better. He was always there, just far away.
It’s the night before the planned party when I’m woken from my sleep by a whisper.
The words are impossible to decipher. They’re so light I feel them against my face like I’m standing at the window instead of in bed. My eyes meet the blank wall, searching the surface for some sign that I’m not alone.
I reach for my phone and check the time.
Only eleven o’clock at night. Too early for my partner to come to bed. I barely get an hour of rest before waking. My heart beats violently, as if it might shatter my rib cage to get free. If there’s something in the room with me, I can’t find it. Shadows move across the walls as a car and its lights pass down the street and shine through the window. I follow them like they hold a clue.
I am not superstitious. I don’t believe in folk tales and horror stories.
We do hang a rosary in the car. We have one crucifix in our home. Every Sunday, we say we ought to go to Church. We take the day off when it’s a religious holiday. But we do not worship as much as we would if we were in our homeland.
My mom is not superstitious. She does not pass on the myths of the Philippines to her children like they’re history to be studied and reasons for wariness. The only time she speaks of them is in passing, treating them like side notes in her memories. Still, she talks about monsters that prey on the weak — the old and the young, the sleeping, the vulnerable — like we ought to be careful in case they’re real.
Mumble apologies when you walk by a mound of dirt. Avoid being entirely in the dark. Listen for sounds that aren’t natural, the clicking that gets quieter and quieter as the monster gets closer. Worry about the dead coming back and not only to say a proper goodbye.
Ghost sightings there are as common as a raccoon in Toronto. Your loved ones might linger in this world before passing to the next. That’s why we hold on to religion, why we say our prayers to God and keep him in our hearts. It doesn’t mean that one might encounter malevolence. It could be nothing, a spirit waiting to move on, wanting to spend a little longer with their loved ones. I open my messages and check my calls, waiting to see if my mom has tried to contact me.
If she wants to alert me with news that Lolo is gone.
But there’s nothing. He must be okay.
All I have are the shadows in the night, the lights of passing cars, and the sound of my heart pounding. I lie back down and go to sleep again. In the morning, we will prepare for our little party spanning two sides of the world at the same time.
We have a guest before we finish setting the table. The rice is in its pot, still bubbling as it cooks. The porcelain plates shudder where they sit, the spoon and fork beside them rattling like wind chimes. A breeze drifts in and lifts the scent of the stews from the serving bowls.
It looks like we are about to host a grand affair, a party of dozens of people rather than a handful. A tablet is already positioned on a tripod, facing the table in preparation of tonight’s event. It will be so late for us, nearly eleven o’clock in the night, the same time that I woke from sleep the night before. But back home, it will be close to noon.
A door opens, one we can’t see from the kitchen and dining area.
I stare in the direction of the noise, waiting to see what might enter, if anything at all.
“Should we pray?” I ask.
My mom doesn’t find it funny. Her face shows concern. Nothing has appeared, not yet, so she shakes her head. I press my hands together anyway, the act more meaningful than anything I could say.
Still, nothing emerges, so we carry on with our preparation.
Minutes later, when we’ve moved on from the worries, a shadow sweeps into the room. The figure is a black veil of a being. It moves to the table, tracing circles onto the plates with its hands.
I drop the glass I am holding, and it comes crashing to the floor. The sound of its shattering alerts our guest. It doesn’t say a word, but something speaks to me of its name. Of what it is.
Death is an expected guest, but He arrives without a flourish. He did send a warning; I understand that now. No eyes on His face, no mouth to offer explanation. Just a silhouette pressing against fabric, a smooth surface. He turns to us and inclines His head.
Is it an apology? It feels like one.
He doesn’t take a seat. Death does not rest. He has a duty, and we may fear Him, but we must also acknowledge the necessity of His existence in tandem with God. He moves around the room, inspecting the work we’ve done like it’s up to Him to decide if it’s good. A hand drifts over the table and settings, causing the cutlery to move slightly.
I want to laugh that this is our guest, though not the one we meant to honour.
Slowly, He swings over to me. The hem of His cloak brushes against my legs as He gets close. I hold my breath, wondering what the interest in me might be. But soon, He moves away, going close to my mother. She has a knife in her hand and she grips it tight, as if she might fend herself against this ghostly entity. For a moment, it seems like they’re staring at each other in the face.
Then Death is gone.
“What is that?” I ask. “Why —”
My mom rushes over to the tablet and sets up the video call, immediately trying to connect with her family. Her brother answers only with his voice, no image available.
“Ate, Tatay isn’t doing well,” my Tito says.
The rest of it, I don’t really understand. They switch to Tagalog and it all blurs together for me from there. I slide my fingers into my hair, twisting and tugging on it in frustration. My mom turns away, shutting off the video and hiding her face. The hard part about being far from family is that we can’t be there at a moment’s notice. There’s no reason to rush. Even if we left this second, we would be a day too late.
She ends the call and stands there in silence. I inhale deeply and exhale slowly, still positioned where I dropped the glass. Fragments surround me on the floor and I’m almost too afraid to move. We don’t need another cause for worry.
“What happened?” I ask.
“Tatay is in the hospital.”
Death stands at the window when I wake in the middle of the night. It’s a miracle that I managed to fall asleep with the stress ravaging my body like a tornado in a dense neighbourhood. I stop breathing the moment I feel His presence. It takes another moment to find the ability again.
“Who are you here for?” I ask.
Again, I am alone. My partner must still be in his office, working away on something urgent. It’s dedication that I’ve always admired, but I curse it now, wishing he was here beside me to give me strength in the presence of this faceless fiend.
“The old man ought to rest for we have a long journey ahead.”
At first, I don’t understand the words. Once they hit me, tears fill my eyes. In less than a second, I am weeping. I miss him already, like an old teddy bear ripped from my arms. The only strength I have, I use to hold myself together. My mom is here in the guest room, unable to find her way home after meeting this being.
He stands in silence as if willing to be patient. This might be kindness, some compassion I didn’t expect. Then again, Death has to come at some time. He has kept a distance from Lolo longer than expected. Maybe that’s generosity and I should be more grateful.
The question twists around my tongue. I can’t find it in myself to ask if He waited, if He allowed us to have these moments of excitement and joy over this milestone. Is Lolo dead now? Is he dying? I don’t think I can afford the time for the funeral. I don’t think I can manage to keep myself composed on a plane for an entire day, if I’m lucky enough to get a non-stop flight.
Hatred cuts into me. That’s how I see it, the violence of the emotion. I do not hate Death, who is here out of duty, who comes to warn me of the loss. We are not friends nor enemies. We are nothing to each other except beings who exist for a purpose. I roll out of the bed onto clumsy feet. Sleep is still a blanket on me and I shake myself to wake up, trying to have full consciousness so I can speak to my mom.
To tell her what Death has come to say.
“Is he gone?” I ask Him as I pass.
“Soon.”
“Could I —”
“No, it would be too late.”
I nod and then I’m heading down the hall, looking for my mom. I knock on the door before coming in. She’s still more asleep than awake. She doesn’t notice Death standing right behind me, not at first, but when she does, she cries out in horror.
None of us needs to clarify who has been called to their final journey. She sees the tear tracks on my cheeks. I lean my face into her palm. Again, I’m like a child around my elders, hoping for their wisdom and comfort to get me through the worst.
“There is no time to say goodbye. He sleeps,” Death says.
Still, my mom releases my face to find her phone. She’s about to call her brother when, suddenly, his name is on her screen. There’s a rush of Tagalog and a loud reminder that we can’t be there in the final moments of Lolo’s life. We are too far, so distant that it’s like we’re in another world.
I am still so full of hate that I direct now to the ocean and sky. I hate the masses of land that separate us. I am on my knees before Death and He does not have eyes to meet mine.
“I wrote a letter. I was going to send it with the gifts, but I forgot to include it in the box,” I say.
He doesn’t say a word. It’s not a refusal; I take it as an opportunity. My mom remains on the phone while I run back to my room. An envelope sits on my desk. Cursive lettering graces the back: Lolo. I wrote this for him weeks ago, starting it when I was emotional and taking my time in choosing my words.
Death turns His head, then tilts it, suggesting curiosity. It cannot be strange for loved ones to make requests. He should not be surprised and I don’t think He is. I know the superstitions. I know I didn’t believe them before, but now I’m hoping there’s truth to it all. If there is, it will take forty days to cross the Earth and reach the Sky. He’ll remain with us in a way, a ghost in our world.
“Take this letter. Give it to him at the end of the journey once he’s caught his breath,” I plead, as though they’re only taking a walk. A scenic route where he’ll see the best of the landmarks that we always wanted to show him, that money and time never allowed.
I don’t want to touch Death. I don’t want to pass something from my hands to His. I place the envelope on the table, push it toward Him. But Death leaves the envelope untouched. He won’t reach for it. “Please.”
“He won’t carry anything from this world,” Death says.
I pick it up and force it into His hands. It feels as though I am touching stone and smoke at the same time. Only the palms are tangible.
He releases the letter as if it would disappear if it’s no longer in His grasp. It doesn’t though. It finds the air and floats briefly like a feather. I grab it. He turns away from me, leaving me standing in my bedroom. I follow as Death climbs down the stairs to the front door, slow-moving but steady.
He leaves footsteps on the pathway, His own and another. As if Lolo walks with Him, the two of them side by side like a pair of travellers. The trail leads away and away and they’re so far gone, I cannot see a shadow or silhouette.
“They are half a day ahead of us,” my mother reminds me.
“We’re so far away,” I say. She lifts up her phone to show the screen. She is still on the call with her brother. He points his camera at Lolo, eyes closed in the hospital bed. We can’t be there in his final moments. It’s only through a screen that we see him fading, his chest rising once more before falling for the last time. And then there’s stillness and he’s gone. He was back home, but here too. Here with us as though he asked Death for a goodbye when he had a sliver of himself in this world.
The front door stays open.
To go home now, to be there for the funeral, would cost thousands of dollars and several days. We cannot fly across the world for a day of services. We cannot spend money when it would be easier to send it home and let them handle it. I lean against my mother, looking out at the empty space in front of my home. It feels like a foreign place at this moment, like I’m not where I should be and where I belong.
There is a dining table set for a party. When I turn around and look toward it, I think I see Lolo sitting there. The silhouette matches the hunched figure I’ve seen on the phone, the tired old man who wants to nap during the day. Is this all I can have of him now? Forty days where he may drift around until it’s time for the final farewell.
He made it to ninety. He fought on.
“Happy birthday, Lolo.”
It’s all I manage to say.
I want to weep over the distance between us now, the stretch of ocean and land that means I can never catch up with him on his journey.