Whenever I think about losing someone, I am reminded of the day my maternal grandmother (or Nanay as we call her) was hit by an owner-type jeep and was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. It was the first time I really understood what it felt like to have a loved one be taken away from you. I could say that it was the saddest day of my life so far.
The year was 1994 and I was 10 years old. My sister was celebrating her 15th birthday and I had a short exchange of words with Nanay about it that morning (I could not call it a conversation because that was all it was, an exchange of words), not knowing that shortly after lunch, she was to be taken away from me. From our whole family.
Days after her funeral, I found myself walking into the old house and calling out, "Naaa-nay? Naaa-nayyy? Nanay?" as I had been accustomed to. It happened several times and each time, it took a while for me to snap back to the reality that she was gone. In one instance, my uncle heard me and hushed me, "Little, Nanay is dead..."
You know how when you are having a bad dream and the pain is so real until that moment when you realize it could just be a bad dream, and you decide to just go with the flow of events while willing yourself to wake up? I have had moments like that even years after Nanay died. I would think of Nanay and wish God has made a mistake and that He will give her back.
I did dream about Nanay, especially within months after she passed away. But she was always alive in my dreams; she was even cleaning the old house in one of them. "I had a vacation from heaven," she told me as she applied wax on the floor.
It was only recently that I dreamed of Nanay not being alive. It was her funeral and I was crying like I did during the real funeral but I felt peaceful in that dream. When I woke up, I knew that I have finally accepted that Nanay's stint in this lifetime really ended 17 years ago.
I have let go of Nanay's physical presence but that does not mean I do not miss her anymore. I do still miss her, especially when we have family reunions. I may not see her physical body anymore but I still feel her presence. When I am inside the old house or at the farm, her presence lingers and it is not the spooky kind. Indeed, death cannot kill what never dies. As her granddaughter, she touched my life and will be a part of it, of me, forever.
