By Micah Dela Cueva
“The living build a house to provide shelter in the afterlife. Houses for the dead are nicer than the living. I’ve seen golden-plated door frames. Air-conditioner. Flat-screen TV. Someone tells me that reburial ceremonies were more common before colonization.”
So still. My Lolo. So dead too. A lizard chills on the ceiling right above his casket. I'd shoo it away with a broom but I think this is its home. We're just borrowing the place. As a whisper, I say: Thank you.
None of my cousins, including me, look similar. Our family genes are finally dying. Do genes shrink until they're no longer recognizable?
The casket is squeaky clean. So new. White. I peer in. His hands look peaceful. Pressed barong. The detailed embroidery on the thin cloth makes me wonder how expensive it was. Pressed fresh flowers everywhere. If fake heaven existed, this would be it.
If fake heaven existed where you thought it was heaven for real until someone tells you it was all a test, this would be it. This funeral isn't real. Though I guess that's how it's always been for the living.
My cousin Ally asks me: Why are you thanking the dead? Weirdo. It's too awkward at this point, so I let her believe whatever she wants.
If I walk away from the casket too soon, I feel like a Tita will tell me to spend more time. I imagine the scenario. I'd say with an attitude: With whom? He's dead. I would so get away with it since I'm so American now. The lizard crawls away; my cue to dip.
There are traditions I've forgotten. I'm to take an elderly's hand while bowing and press the back of the hand on my forehead. A blessing, but sometimes they give you a lesson, so I humble my eyes.
At first, Lola didn't want to go to her husband's funeral. No divorce because it's illegal in the Philippines. I never saw her cry or lost her temper.
Throughout my younger years, I admired and despised Lola so much that I think I'm becoming just like her. Cold. Calculating. Superficial. A mountain can be so lonely and no one would ever ask how it's doing because it would never break anyways.
I sometimes wonder who or what a mountain would lean on. Metaphorically. But also like if a real mountain collapses? Would its children offer peace offerings? Would the moon lower itself from the sky to offer solace? Would nearby villages find it an inconvenience? I catch Lola sitting on one of the chairs beside the casket. A small smile. Weirdo.
Are dead hands allowed to look peaceful when they've pointed a gun at their wife? How does a mountain form? His dead hands look like they never knew violence. Fingernails so clean. My eyes trickle toward his face. My first time truly seeing him that I'm almost embarrassed. I barely knew him.
I see Ally sitting in the front row with drooped shoulders. My mom and her siblings cater to the guests: Eat some more. We need to refill the hot water Where are the cups? So many flies. I tune them out and focus on Ally whom I haven't seen in ten years. When we hug, I squeal under my breath because I can't be too excited. I remind myself, this is a funeral.
On the first night, a worn out cardboard box appeared in front of the casket. I notice the word Balikbayan was right in the center of one of the sides. Balikbayan: An overseas Filipino returning to the Philippines. I sit next to Ally on the first row and watch her watch the box as if she's on guard duty.
If I had a heart for Lola, I'd keep her company. Is that bad to write? I watch her say something to Lolo as if she's remembering a memory. Earlier, she introduced me to the guests: This is my youngest daughter's daughter. Her features are from the other family. I sweetened my smile. She was right, though the punch still hits me and continues to sting.
There are two other funerals happening in the next two rooms beside ours. I watch Lola checking the food of the one next to us. She takes a sample of the sweets. When someone notices her, she points at our own funeral. More people gather around her. So easy how she makes friends.
There are patterns in each family’s generation. The well-off family branch is the one that has the stone from my great-grandfather Mamay. For the drama, the stone was stolen on his deathbed. By now, it's a superstition, though everyone is paying the price for it. Stones live inside us and are passed down as tumors, kidney stones, etc. When I'm bored, I believe all of it.
Back then, daughters were married off to men who came from wealthy families. People learn to either love or tolerate the person they marry. It's easier to be lonely by yourself. Nothing is absolute in this world but loneliness. Is that too emo? Ally tells me she doesn't remember her dad. She was too young. I only know Tito Jun from my mom's stories. In my mom's memories, she lost all their fights.
Ally looks so lonely while staring at the Balikbayan box, it's almost pathetic. I've seen this loneliness before in my own reflection. She reaches for my hand. As kids, Ally and I both lived in our grandparent's house, though she was always the favorite, so only I'd get in trouble. We fought a lot. She was a biter. I was a hair puller. In my memories, I won all of our fights.
Lolo's sister ushers all of his grandchildren to sit and stand in a line. Two girls in front. Two boys behind. Two girls at each end of the two boys. She looks at my black satin among the whites that my cousins are wearing. Lolo's sister opens her mouth to say something when I power struggle with her through a staring contest. She readies her camera. No cheese for the photo, but one of us smiles.
I also half-smile to see what Lolo's sister will do. She lowers the camera: This is a funeral. No smiling. We redo it. By the fourth time, I'm ready to lose it. In my writing, Ally and I are always holding hands, but I'm the one reaching for her. I'd never admit that I need her more. My mom finally notices the box. She rips the corner and wiggles her finger in. Ally says: my dad is in there.
I snort and tried to pass it as a nervous laugh. My mom flips her head back at us: Who!? Ally's dad, dead and already buried. I straighten my lips as it curves into a slight smile. Only Lola can ask for something so ridiculous and get away with it. In the afterlife, family members are separated. All randomly teleported. Believe this with me. Don't worry, afterlife heaven has nice streets.
The living build a house to provide shelter in the afterlife. Houses for the dead are nicer than the living. I've seen golden- plated door frames. Air- conditioner. Flat-screen TV. Someone tells me that reburial ceremonies were more common before colonization. I'm trying to rewrite this story with more grace toward Lola.
The second morning, the box is opened. There is a skeleton body sitting next to Ally. I blink again. Maybe I've caught a lesson from an elderly. The skeleton has no meat hands, just bones as half- fists.
I told Mama to wait. Before I could say anything else, it's been done. I heard the oldest brother say. The heavy atmosphere is hiccupped by Lola's snores. Tito Jun walks toward the room where we rest from the guests. He doesn't open it or can't. I cackle. He shifts his whole body to look at me. I roll my eyes while I get up to open the door wider.
Tito Skelly sits in one of the two chairs beside Lolo. Ally slouches and has already accepted the new reality. I approach the empty white plastic chair across from him. I look at his ribs first—dry, dirt- stained with grass. I make my way to where his heart is supposed to be, his chin, where his eyes have been taken out.
We're definitely in fake heaven. My mom and her siblings call for Tito Skelly to join them, so he does. They offer him food but he shakes his head. They do this three times before they give up and start eating.
One of the siblings isn't in the blame game. He just carried out what Lola asked. I loiter inside the room. Tito Jun blocks the door entry, so Ally and my other cousins peek through his ribcage. Who will inherit the guilt? A sister asks. I pout at Tito Jun. So this is where I come in. They are still their mother's children. The guilt is left to the next generation.
Ally and I watch someone's purse bump into her skeleton dad. A piece of his elbow chips. The sound of the chipped bone shuttling through the tiles makes us laugh. He is now looking at us. I semi- bow my head for good karma points. Ally demands: Go get it. I side- eye her because I am still eight months older than her.
You go get it. You're his daughter, he won't haunt you. He loves you. She looks at me to see where the lie is, but even in the lie, there is a truth. My cousin reluctantly follows the chipped bone trail.
I close my eyes. So still, I could be dead. Before the sun wakes, I offer my sleeping spot to a Tita. I sit on the farthest chair from the casket and Tito Jun. Does he miss Ally or his other siblings? My mom leaving me at the mall with him? All the girls used to say: He is so handsome. Too bad he has a child. He'd get annoyed but would still babysit me.
Tito Skelly is sitting again beside his dad's casket. One by one, a sibling sits across from him. Perhaps they tell him stories of what he's missed or some sort of confession. Isn't this what we all want in the end? Not so much to have the dead back, but to have one moment with them again, even if we can't squeeze their hand.
Only when a mountain is smoothed to a stone, does a new mountain rise? Lolo's sister hands Ally candies shaped in a flower. She says something him. The skeleton smiles. I believe this because she smiles. I don't know what I should say to him. Thanks for showing up?
They're all silent, though it feels like everyone but me has come to an agreement. I will inherit this stone. The night before the funeral, my cousins sleep on the floor where three futons are spread out. I drew the short stick to sleep on the end. Lola warns us not to sleep at night during a family funeral or we will wake up with the body next to us.
I rush to get the candy flower. In front of Tito Jun, nothing comes out but a soft: Thanks for taking care of me. I smiled because I believe he smiled. At the burial, the white box is lowered with the casket. I still take the stone. Its rough edges on my palm. I am to swallow it.
I wish I could miss the dead the way that everyone does. My mom and Lola argue about whether or not to say the rosary. The guests watch. An open white-clothed medium box is propped next to the casket. Everything feels so muted. Ally tells me the instructions while we line up in front of the casket. I kept asking her to repeat it.
When I picture Tito Jun, I see him with long ravened hair. Always fiddling with his guitar pick. How nice. For him to be home with Lolo. Everyone cries but Lola and I. Ally reached for my hand. In my memory, he takes the multi-colored candy flower-turned-bouquet.
When I only wrote the reality of the memorial service for my grandfather and the reburial of my uncle, it felt too controlled, as if I had arrived at what I already knew rather than an unexplorable, possible truth. What might I give space to if I lessen my focus on the heavy emotions? And so, speculation bridges truth and grace by exploring the compartmentalization of grief and the inheritance of memory and guilt.
Word Weaver Micah Dela Cueva was born in the Philippines with the ocean on her skin and mountains on her back. Her writing has a gentle nature that is often contrasted by the harsh reality of her stories. She has an MFA in Writing and Publishing at Long Island University, Brooklyn. Her work has appeared in Hunger Mountain.