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by Yoly Tumangan Tubalinal.
January 7, 2011
Last week Bart and I had been to the wake of Ross Cabanero, the beautiful wife of Ram Cabanero. At 51, Ross succumbed to lung cancer, a malady she managed to “subdue” for three years or so. Ross left Ram a young daughter, Robin, who I’m guessing, must now be in her pre-teen.
Ross’s death, which came right around Christmas, put me right in the face of a dreadful future that hangs on the fringes of my present. It’s a thought I had buried in the deepest recesses of my mind but somehow manages to climb back up into my consciousness every now and then.
I guess it is foolish to think that it is something I can ignore or refuse to think about, especially when there are glaring reminders all around me, like Ross and that young and promising Harvard graduate and City Solicitor of Providence, Rhode Island, Joseph Fernandez, who died recently at age 46. While Ross’s demise wasn’t such a surprise, Joseph’s was totally unexpected.
I’m scared, alright. But the fact is, it isn’t my passing I’m scared of. I have accepted it as a possibility waiting to happen, especially with my medical history. I’m actually afraid of being the one to be left behind. And if I’d have my way, I’d rather go first than be alone to suffer the pangs of aloneness. I’d be miserable beyond words.
When our children have gone and we are left to each other like fully certified empty nesters, we develop a special kind of bonding with our spouse. This bond only gets stronger with every passing day. No matter the disagreements and petty quarrels, we know that at the end of the day, the two of us will lie down on the same bed at night, snuggled up and close to each other, till we fall asleep and wake up the next morning to savor a new day.
This is the phase when couples like us have truly become one spirit, and one identity, living not so much for one’s self as for the other. We spend more time together yet it doesn’t bother us anymore that we do. In fact, being always together has become the norm rather than the exception. Where one of us is, there the other person must be too.
My! Are we getting there much too fast? The scene looks all too familiar – some retired couples doing their grocery shopping together at Dominick’s, Jewel and Walmart, having lunch in a family restaurant or simply walking hand in hand to their car… Bart would sometimes make an insensitive remark about how slow they walk or drive and I would, in turn, remind him how we aren’t too far away from that stage.
Yet the dreadful fact to me isn’t that we are growing old together; it’s that we might have to grow old without the other.
My two elder sisters lost their husbands, one after the other in 2009 and 2010. Though both strong and independent, they felt the vacuum that their husbands left in their lives. Despite being surrounded by her two daughters and their families, who live close to her, my eldest sister has sunk into depression and lost her usual energy and vibrancy. She’d often go to her farm and passed the time watching the farmers work on her land, coming home only at dusk. She told me to preserve what Bart and I have and be thankful each day that we are together. Her voice quivered as she said to me, “Mahirap ang nag-iisa,” (“It’s hard to be alone”).
My second elder sister, a retired high school principal, would rather be in the Philippines than live with her children, all of whom are now here in the U.S. It puzzled me at first why she’d rather live alone in the Philippines and in Lingayen, where she has no relative from her own family, than live alternately with her children. Unlike my children, hers were all born and raised in the Philippines and are imbued with family values that cater to serving and loving their parents next to God. Bart and I took her along when we went to our house in Houston for a month. After our trip, I realized what she was going through and why living in the Philippines most of the time would make her feel better.
Unlike my sisters who never thought of how their lives would be when their spouses go before them, I do think of it a lot. I know that God’s grace and my faith in Him would carry me through the darkest nights and harshest times but I know, too, that it would be tough. Bart, on the other hand, would be stronger and would cope with his loss faster than I could ever do myself. The interruption would be brief and he would bounce back as most men do.
I remember Ross and Ram when Bart and I would meet them at Adriana’s home for the healing mass and at Holy Hill where my dear friend Amy brought me once for a miracle. Ross was a picture of peace and hope and Ram, a strong anchor for his wife. Their faith in God had carried them through the tough times. Ram’s life, like my sisters’ and all others who had lost their spouses, will never be the same again. I hope for his sake and his daughter’s, too, that Ram would soon come back to living his life the way Ross would have wanted him to.
There’s no easy way to tackle a subject as grim and cold as death. It’s something we avoid to discuss for obvious reasons. It isn’t fun. In fact, it’s scary and to say the least, depressing. But it’s inevitably in our future. For the lucky ones, it shows up late and for the unfortunate others, it’s much too early. Those who believe in God and have lived according to His teachings, there is nothing to fear where they go when they die. Death’s impact is on those left behind.
I apologize to those who picked negative vibes from this article. It wasn’t meant to do so. Rather, it was meant to liberate this writer of the fearful thoughts that some of you might be having just as badly. And though I know that I risk offending some readers by writing about an unpopular topic like death, I felt it was worth taking the risk. As someone once said, “…To try is to risk failure, but risk must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.”