This is this piece’s first release.
The stillness of the night was disturbed by a soft rain. But over the grasses of the field, families, friends and folks still gathered. As was tradition, they reunited with loved ones they may never meet again in person, but only by the names carved on headstones along with the memories they reminisced during their visit.
Her grandparents were buried six feet beneath the mono-block she had been sitting on since they had arrived in the late afternoon. But sheltered underneath the plastic roof of the tent assembled on this lot, and clothed with fitting gray sweater, she stayed dry and warm.
After dinner which she, her family, and her relatives all shared in this place, her aunts kindled candles contained in glasses, placed amidst flowers over headstones. Prayers had been offered before dinner, but due to the passing wind, the flames often died. Still, what’s left of their dinner’s delicious heat lingered over the plastic table a few feet from the graves. The half-consumed lechon still glazed brown by the light of the battery-fueled lamps leaning against the tent’s posts. The macaroni salad still retained its creamy moisture, but the faint vapor once emanating from the rice in its bowl had long diminished. With a box of chantilly bars opened, what was left could still be set for another feast.
Even her grandparents were given. Two paper plates over their headstones each contained a slice of the lechon’s flesh, a scoop of the salad, half a cup of rice, and a bar of chantilly. It was part of tradition to offer meals for the dead on the night when November begins. When she was too young to understand, she had asked about this to her mother whose parents religiously observed the country’s traditions. She only understood it when her mother had explained to her that doing so will manifest one’s care for their loved ones, enduring even after they died. For it is also part of tradition, as she had been told, to care for the dead as one does to the living.
But even as she belonged to a different generation, a much newer one where traditions are gradually transforming to suit the recent times, she understood the necessity for her family and relatives to gather beneath the tent at this time of the night, offering respects to her grandfather whose emphysema claimed his breath six years ago and her grandmother whose medications could no longer combat her health complications a year ago.
And as the cemetery was still flocked at this hour, she noticed the tradition was still very much alive and its solemnity was one to relish. This was the only time of the year when the nation remembered the departed. The only time of the year when those who slept in cemeteries were not only those who had passed away, but also those who still remained.
As her strength limited her movements, she could only sit and take watch. Blame it on the flu or blame it on the weather. But she couldn’t talk much as her voice had hoarsened by the occasional coughs and the throbbing tightness grappling her nose. Had it not been for the flu and the weather, she could have joined her cousins and sister’s conversation about their jobs and their way of coping into adulthood. As a recent college graduate herself, still on the journey of finding for the right place to work, she could have a lot to express about rejections and rare opportunities. But the moment she was in now was also rare, because it was among the countable times in the year when a familial reunion took place. Besides the night’s solemnity, the reunion was another one to relish.
It was her mother who sat beside her to ask how she was feeling. She said she was fine. Her mother asked whether she had already taken her medicine. She said she did immediately after dinner. Then a moment later, the murmurs of conversations became part of the night. Her mother joined her aunts’ retelling of memories from their childhood back when their parents were still with them. She listened and when there were gaps of silence, read the e-book she had downloaded in her mobile device.
She wasn’t able to finish the chapter when she looked and trailed her sight towards a man in a white shirt a few distances from them which her mother suddenly mentioned about. He was crouching over a headstone brightened by candles whose flames elicited flickering rays disturbed by the fine drops of rain. Unlike most of the cemetery’s visitors, he wasn’t under a tent and he didn’t have an umbrella. But he wasn’t alone, as two girls, not taller than his knees if he stood upright, wearing hooded raincoats like tiny plastic dresses, knelt beside him. With an open plastic container in one hand and a spoon in the other, he occasionally scooped from it and brought spoonfuls of rice into the mouth of each girl and took some for himself.
Her mother presumed the girls as his daughters and all of them as a family. And in the while when no adult accompanied him, she thought the grave upon where they settled was of his wife’s. Not a second later, however, a woman emerged from the outlining crowd and stood beside him, patting his shoulder as she handed a bottle of water. Her mother told her the woman who just arrived could probably be his wife and the grave they visited was probably of a close family member – perhaps the man’s mother, the woman’s mother, the man’s father…
Her mother had always been the observer and this was a trait she had inherited, the trait that made her listen to her cousins and sister’s conversation earlier and the retelling of past memories by her aunts. It’s the trait that now shifted her attention from her mobile device to the sight of the man and his family. There they were gradually dampened by light raindrops without a tent to shelter them and without an umbrella to open and hold. Still, as tradition is observed, they cared for their departed loved one with their presence and visitation.
The tent was silent now save for her mother telling one of her aunts to share to the man and his family the feast on their table. They could at least stay in the tent for the moment and wait for the rain, regardless of how slow it fell, to completely cease. But there wasn’t enough space under the tent, and it would mean that the man and his family would have to leave the grave of their loved one. So, her mother, seeing that the food in the man’s plastic container was all that they have, asked one of the younger aunts to give him and his family a plate full of the table’s feast.
Her mother could easily catch a flu in a weather like this – a trait other than an interest of observation she had also inherited. It was the youngest aunt who approached him. Everyone in the tent saw her handing the share to the man, but with the distance, was unable to hear the greeting. But once he saw it, his brows rose and the corners of lips stretched to his cheeks to reveal a surprised smile. He received the plate from her and with a slight bow of his head, muttered his greeting with the smile still on his face.
Her aunt returned and told them the man said his thanks. Still gazing them, she saw the man giving each of his daughters a bar of chantilly. One of the girls faced them and said as loud as she could in her toddler voice the word of thanks, as encouraged by her father.
Still sitting beside her, her mother responded with a friendly, “You’re welcome.” Then followed it with a statement spoken in a whisper which she guessed she was the only one who heard. “Happiness cannot be bought.”
This echoed in her thoughts while watching the man and his family dine over their share of the feast. Then she witnessed the man setting aside a part of their share on the plate, placing it between the candles over the headstone – an offering very much similar to what her family did to her grandparents’ graves.
If one tradition commits to care for the dead by remembrance, visitation and sharing part of what one has, should it require for a tradition to care for the living? She wondered. Perhaps this tradition reminds one that there is an end to all things. Life, like rain and shifting weathers, ceases. But the memories may live on from one family member to the next just as a tradition may endure from one generation to another, depending on the trends of time.
These memories may involve deeds done or sights seen that are worth remembering. For her, the sight of the man’s smile after receiving the plate along with his daughters and wife sharing over it was one worthy of remembrance. No, it’s not a memory that can only be a topic of conversations during reunions in cemeteries. Rather, it’s a memory that serves as her reminder of the beauty of sharing. If the living can share part of what they have to the dead in a year’s tradition, how often can they do this among themselves in the same year?
She wished she had inherited her mother’s generosity. But an act of kindness is not hereditary. It is done. It can be done. By anyone. By the ones who are still alive and capable. By the ones who ought to make life worth the living, worth the while to live. And she believed everyone can do it. She promised herself to never forget its beauty, how it affects anyone, how it leads the living to believe that goodness can be experienced in the world. Traditions aren’t enough to make this possible, it can only be done by one’s decision to act on it.
As the night resumed, the rain had finally ceased. She looked once more to the site where the man and his family had stayed. But she noticed that it was now clear, except for the paper plate and its contents left on the headstone of the grave. The candles on each side of it glowed brighter than they earlier did. And like the candles over her grandparents’ headstones, the light they emitted shone, without the disturbance of rain, in the stillness of the night.
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