A LIFE THAT WAS LONG OVERDUE (Aunty Peryang: In Memoriam)

After living together for around three years with a son, me and my wife Rosemarie, were finally married through a very private Catholic Church wedding ceremony on October 9, 2004. We were after God’s blessing that our matrimonial union maybe sanctified at last. The officiating priest was very supportive. Knowing my financial status, when I asked how much tithe I owed him for the ceremony, he opened his right hand to me and with a smile he said: “it doesn’t matter how much you will give, twenty pesos (Php. 20.00) will do, I’ll close my eyes so I won’t see the amount”. The wedding was very private as in really, really private. The church was closed. The only persons present during the wedding was me, my wife, the priest, my mother, our two year old son Benedict and, our only one wedding-godmother, my septuagenarian aunt – AUNTY PERYANG.

After the said wedding, during the meager reception at our own residence, we had a very short talk with our only visitor – my aunt-godmother.

Aunty Peryang had been living alone in her house because she had no family of her own. She opted single blessedness. Because of her age, she was now sick with various ailments. I told her that a well to do niece of hers in Davao City had been waiting for her to come and promised to provide for her proper medication. In reply, she seriously stared at me for long and after almost a minute of silence she stoically said: “what for, I don’t need any medication. I have no children nor grandchildren unlike your mama. I don’t have any offspring to look for or attend to. Frankly, I don’t have any reason at all to be around in this world.” Not expecting what she just said, I was stunned but she wasn’t finished yet and she added the most chilling words I ever heard: “The fact is, I’ve been expecting death fifteen years ago. My life has been long overdue, long overdue…” I was speechless, I really didn’t expect hearing unnerving statements from her. She appears totally different to the jolly and cool Aunty Peryang I used to have known since my childhood. At the age of 75, she ran-out of lively stories to tell. All that she could barely utter now were groans of aches and sharp pains from the various parts of her body.

In less than two months after our said conversation, Aunty Peryang died alone in her house.

A couple of days before her death, I was in a hurry looking for someone who may be kind enough to lend me money to fed my family for that particular day, I happened to pass by her house, she saw me and said she had something very important to tell me. I promised to talk to her afterwards but sadly, I wasn’t able to hear what it was.

After her death we discover a cocofed insurance certificate among her belongings in the amount of ten thousand pesos (Php. 10,000.00). I was her beneficiary. Consequently, half of the said amount was spent to settle the remaining balance of the expenses of her burial.

When she was still alive, Aunty Peryang used to be a very enthusiastic story teller. A year before her death, she was still the same person I used to have known since my childhood. Among us, her nephews and nieces, she was quite famous because of her unique hilarious laughter that she alone could exhibit. While telling her stories, her laughter serves like commas in each of her sentences. The words cool, calm and yet lively metamorphosed into tangible flesh in her person. While listening to her, time seemed to stand still. Her manner of story telling emanates a calm and lively ambiance, inducing one to momentarily set aside personal reservations, worries and the like. Most of the people in our hometown look at her akin to an exotic but an exemplary specie, a rare one of a kind and endangered indeed. Among the many topics she was fond of telling us was her first hand experiences since her childhood, e.g., during the Japanese occupation; how our place evolved from a rarely inhabited sitio to an obscure barrio; and, unto a town that this small Municipality of Bayabas has become now. She also loved to tell her other experiences since childhood with her four older siblings (one of them is my father) and with her youngest brother. She was good looking when she was still young, a fair skin (still evident in her old age), slim, sexy and pretty enough to attract numerous suitors. Interestingly, she told us stories about the numerous admirers who formally tried to win her heart during younger days but to no avail. Eventually, some of these men became very wealthy and prominent individuals.

But why didn’t she get married?

Aunty Peryang would casually and proudly claim having willfully, i.e., through her own volition, decided earlier in life not to get married, bear no children and deliberately become perpetually celibate and chaste for a sublime purpose. Literally, the sublime purpose is to serve as caregiver for her parents, i.e., our grandfather and grandmother, specially during the latter’s both older days in moments of senility. When she was still young, she would say, if I get married, who will take good care of them?
Consequently, our grandfather died many years ago. Four years after my grandfather’s death, our grandmother died subsequently later. Indeed, our grandparents died not without the loving care, and many sleepless nights that an exceptional caregiver dedicatedly and tenderly served them with. When our grandparents were, respectively, in the prolonged agonizing state on their deathbed, I remember my father, Papa Percing telling Aunty Peryang to likewise attend to her own personal health and welfare. Otherwise, he insisted, she might die soon, earlier than her patients.

After the death of our grandparents, Aunty Peryang felt that her purpose in life had been already accomplished as well.

Almost two decades after the death of both parents, Aunty Peryang, faced the twilight of her own life. She was afflicted with various illnesses that even she herself could not identify because she refused medication.

As universally claimed, the family is the oldest form of institution that has ever existed in the history of mankind. This institution cropped up, according to sociologists and psychologists, from the innate nature and basic need of human beings to closely and intimately associate with each other. That is, to communicate, share experiences and laughter, to elicit sympathy and comfort, and to love and be loved. Aunty Peryang challenged this incontestable truth of man’s nature and she paid the price, i.e., a lot of ordeal, sacrifices and self-denial.

At the age of 76 Aunty Peryang breath her last. She was unable to receive the same degree of attention that she rendered her own parents onto their deathbed. Given with the opportunities to raise her own family, Aunty Peryang bravely contested the invincible current of the eternal laws of nature. She prevailed and shelled-out the cost of a willing victim. She sacrificed her whole person on the altar of utmost empathy for her adored parents. She lived the life of a martyr and paid the price of solitude unto death. Her most priced unwritten last will and testament declared that she should be buried beside her most beloved parents. For this, her bereaved nephews and nieces reverently laid her on an elevated cemetery lot exclusively allotted a long time ago for the three of them. God knows, what sort of reward a martyr like her deserves up there…

Now, in eternal union with her beloved parents, maybe she has resumed telling her never ending stories, interrupted only as usual with outbursts of laughter. Aside from her beloved parents Nanay Kayang and Tatay Anton, surrounding her up there as company and audience, most probably are the following who passed away earlier: Priscillano Sr. (my father), Priscillano Jr. (my brother), Perluz Francia (my sister), Manuel (my uncle), Irenea (my aunt), Leopardo (my uncle), etc, and many other relatives belonging to our clan.

Perhaps, with Aunty Peryang’s presence now in heaven, souls have not only rest peace but with lots of laughter as well…

So be it Lord God, we pray… Amen.