01
The streets are always empty after there is a death in the village.
There are no screeching children streaking through the dirt roads, no babos and bapas stopping to chat at the tindahan before retiring for the night.
The houses are quiet, too. The young ones will look on in curiosity as their parents sit in incredulous silence. Even the hum of the television is nothing but white noise. No one cares about what is happening on Ang Probinsyano.
In a small village like this, everyone is family — even when they aren’t. There is no distinction between blood relations and friendships here. The whole village raises you even more than your household does. Everyone feels happiness and loss the same way. Deeply, wholly.
Some, maybe, more than others.
The children don’t understand the concept of death quite as well. In a few years, they’ll hardly remember. People often become small village myths after their passing. They become the main characters of the stories mothers tell their children to help them settle down at night — another name in the growing list of people to remember.
In the morning, my younger cousin asked me, “Ate, anong mas marami: ang nabubuhay o ang namamatay?” She just turned nine yesterday. I didn’t have an answer for her, either. How does one begin to quantify life and death and numbers?
She went on to start crying. She spoke of how the deceased was always kind to her when she passed by their house to pet cats. As I said, the village raises children here. However short the interactions are, those capable of remembering always attach their fondest memories to a name.
Perhaps it’s our way of cushioning the pain of loss with the warmth of how they lived their lives.
I used to think that the older you get, the sadder death becomes. These are people you’ve spent your whole life with, after all. With age, I thought loss would pierce deeper.
My grandmother spoke no words when she found out. When she finally did, she looked at me, eyes brimming with wisdom beyond my years.
“Sinabihan niya pa ako ‘nung isang araw na ‘wag magpaulan. I suppose this is what life will always come to.” They lived next to each other for decades, but no tears were shed in this conversation. There was just silence that spoke more words than I would come to understand.
This is the truth of life, I suppose. My younger cousin still asks the questions expected of children. Where do souls go? Why do people die?
My grandmother no longer bothers. There is no use asking questions when there is no one qualified to answer.
Age numbs loss with the knowledge that it is an inevitability. Our whole lives are journeys from the cradle to the grave, regardless of how we live them. And yet, a premium is placed on living a good life.
I know people believe that there is something beyond death. But on a mortal level, I think it’s because, even after we pass, there will still be those to recount our stories.
No one cares to dwell on how someone dies. The only similarity between how my nine-year-old cousin and ninety-year-old grandmother processed their grief was how their immediate reaction was to conjure a fond memory of her.
These stories of kindness and of warmth stay. They say it takes a village to raise a dreamer. And our lives are an accumulation of all the literal and figurative villages we’ve ever inhabited. When we pass, it’s those who we’ve helped raise that keep us alive.
In a few days, the streets will be filled with noise again.
Death, after all, is a passing affair. It is life that persists.