#cudiamat

by Sophia Cudiamat

It was on the road where I found myself dreaming at the backseat. It was also on that road where I found a nightmare I didn't know I had become a reality.

My family and I were beat. Traveling from Manila to Dagupan then back to Manila then back to Dagupan was no easy feat. Everyone in the car was tired, but kind of used to it. It was something we did every year for my Grandfather's birthday back then for Christmas with my Dad's side. The warm sofas and festive home-cooked feasts compensated for the hour-long butt cramps and gasoline station pit-stop meals. The destination was usually always worth the journey, but nothing is worth what happened that day.

We had to make it back before traffic made it impossible to get home by lunchtime. It was a familiar scene, a comforting one that I took for granted. My family complete and together, sleepy but together. My dad took the wheel as usual, mom at his side. Like many other kids with a need to prove that "baby" no longer applies, my little sister and I loved sitting in front. Perhaps it was the way the light came in differently from the window or how the the view in front made life's possibilities seem endless, like the road ahead that made us love that spot in the car. It was my sister's turn, however, so I had to make do with sitting next to my brother. His drowsy and dorky smile was also the last thing I saw before escaping back into slumber, keeping in mind the amazing nap that awaits me inside my bedroom.

I can't remember if I dreamed during my sleep. I don't know if I was diving into pools of ice cream or riding a horse through a meadow of sunflowers while my eyes were closed. But there are days when I also wish I couldn't remember what I saw when my eyes finally opened. There next to my gurney laid my brother, his dorky smile gone and replaced by blood and bruise and cuts. Sirens and panicked voices played at the background, flashes of blue and red obscuring my vision. I guess my eyes decided the dark was better than what I was seeing and closed once more, enveloping me back into unconsciousness.

When I woke up, I was covered in white sheets, on a bed with white covers surrounded by white walls. This was no bedroom of mine.

"Where is my sister?" I cried out to anyone who could hear.

"Hi darling, you're awake. How are you feeling?"

"I want my sister? Where is she?"

"She's just in the other room. You have to rest. You're going to be okay."

Lies. Lies. Lies. They didn't tell me what I wanted, what I needed to hear. But how do you tell a nine year-old girl that her arm and two legs were broken, accompanied by a busted lip and that she will have to go to school in a wheelchair for months? How could you tell her that she was in an accident, that she slept while her father swerved through the streets and caused a multiple collision with another car and tricycle? How do you tell her that they didn't make it back to Manila in one piece and that there'd be nothing merry about this Christmas? I guess the nurse decided for herself that she just couldn’t, and decided that I wasn’t ready to hear those answers. I don't know what happened but I knew things weren't "okay" from the moment I woke up.

They waited until my condition was stable. Later on I found out that my mom and dad died on the spot. My little sister with a need to prove that "baby" no longer applies flew from her seat and was thrown through the windshield. But that is what she was. She was a baby, a child too young to be found on the pavement with her head cracked open. And that my brother, the only one who got out of there alive with a heart still beating, died after one day in the hospital. They couldn't save him. They couldn't save any of them. And I slept through all of that. I did not see my brother hit his head, or hear my mom's screams. I did not notice my father's struggle in maneuvering or catch that look of wonder leave my sister's eyes. No, I was robbed of all of that. Death picked the lock, broke in, and stole everything that mattered. Death left me alone and lost.

But death could have left me in worse conditions. Throughout my recovery, I was showered with love and spoiled senseless. My relatives’ way of coping was making sure I never had to ask for anything or worry for myself. There were times I wish they remembered that there are wounds pretty doll houses could not heal. I still thank God every day for their attempts. They never handled my doll houses with as much care as they did me. My titas and titos would always be tiptoeing around me, as if I were glass ready to shatter, afraid they’d break me with one mention of “parents” or “brother” or “sister”. But they never saw me shatter, no one did. They told me they never saw tears stream down my face even when they expected them to. It scared them to see me have such control over my emotions but really, there wasn’t much to control. Losing so much in what felt like a blink of an eye, can either make you feel so many things or the exact opposite; empty.