Ashes In An Urn

So we buried my grandmother yesterday. She was 82 years old.

Technically, she wasn't really my grandmother as she was more of an aunt or an elder sister to my mom. But given the Filipino's penchant for extended families, we (the younger generation) regarded her as our grandmother.

It was pretty quick. Lola Tila (as everyone called her) had a massive stroke early Thursday morning and by afternoon, she was in a coma already diagnosed as critical. By early Sunday morning, she passed away. Those of the various families who were available (the rest being out of the country) gathered just before noon for a mass at Loyola Memorial in Guadalupe and lola's body was placed in the crematorium by lunchtime. By 3 o'clock, the ashes were placed in the urn and brought to the nearby Makati City cemetery to be interred in the family mausoleum.

There was no grieving process, no funeral wake. My mom said Lola Tila had specified that there would be none as all her close relatives (all old as her or older) wouldn't be able to stand the 7-day wait before the burial. I suppose my grandmother knew her time was coming already.

Lola Tila had lived a life waiting on others. A spinster, she took care of one person after another: aside from my mom when she was younger, lola also took care of another relative's mother, she took care of us kids, she even took care of the next generation after us. By the time she had her first job, she was already 50 years old. (She was a clerk in a trial court; she retired 10 years after and managed to score a nice government pension.)

It was weird during the funeral: most of the relatives were laughing and joking, reminiscing about lola, of the good and bad times. There were some tears (my mom tried hard not to cry) but mostly everyone wished my lola a safe journey to wherever good souls go after death. Strangely enough (or maybe not), a lot of lola's contemporaries had that same rattle-like voice that strongly reminded me of her.

Though I barely knew lola, I will miss her. A strong disciplinarian, she took care of my older brother and I several times when we were just willful sprats. Later on, when I was older and she would visit us, I would normally catch her awake already whenever I would come home around really early (or late?) in the morning.

Ever since I hit the big 3-0 mark, I've realized that the passage of time is ever-so-slowly increasing. The death of people you've know all of your life and loved also emphasizes that fact.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.