When my grandmother died
When my grandmother died, I imagined her meeting her mother, the great grandmother I never saw and whose name I never knew. My grandmother kept a child in her, you see, and a few weeks before she died she begged us to allow her to talk to her siblings. It’s so easy to forget that the elderly people in our lives came from their parents and that they were once little children. My grandmother’s past was quite stormy and until now I still don’t know why exactly a Bicolana married a Batangueno and moved so far south to CDO.
I can see my grandmother’s sweet, sweet smile, one with her teeth hidden and eyes bright and gleaming. She was such a sweet, sweet woman, kind and wise (despite the fact that she didn’t finish elementary school). I miss her so much. I honestly don’t know when the pain stops. I want her to rest in a mausoleum, away from the elements, under a roof, warm and safe, just like how she made us feel when we hugged her when she was still alive.













