Right before Christmas in 2016 my uncle was shot in front of his office. He was a journalist writing about the local drug trade. It made international news, investigations were launched, but no arrests were made.
If you know anything about Christmas in the Philippines, it’s the holiday. They start that shit in September and holly jolly all the way to the actual day and then it’s not even over until Three Kings day which is when I know to take the Christmas tree down.
After my Tito Lar got shot I went straight into numb mode. He was still alive, but in critical condition and I took that as “He’s going to be fine so I’m not going to worry about it until I have to but that’s not going to happen because why would that happen ha ha ha” but the rest of my brain knew what was up and I absolutely distracted myself with numbing things like work and more work. When he finally succumbed to his injuries my family went back to The Philippines. Luckily there was also a super typhoon so when my mom and uncles were finally able to fly out I spent all of Christmas day refreshing flight information hoping everyone landed safely. In a bonus twist of events, my Dad was trying to fly out of the Philippines at the same time but the flights kept getting grounded due to the storm. The super typhoon also wiped out most of the communication and electricity on the island but my aunt had a generator so if there was enough juice AND my mom was online AND I was online at the same time then we could chat with each other. I was going to go back too but it was sketchy since we didn’t know who did it, and it was drug trade related, so there was a real fear that the funeral procession might get attacked as well.
One afternoon I managed to talk to my family long enough to hear my cousins cry and say, “I wish you were here Ate”. I told my husband at the time that I was going to go back when he said, “I don’t think you should go.” Later that night he had a seizure. In the hospital I told him, “Damn dude I already said I wasn’t going to go, you didn’t have to have a seizure.” So in addition to grieving the loss of my uncle, I got a universe sized box of guilt in my stocking. Fun. Probably a good thing I didn’t go because of this seizure thing. Sometimes the universe puts you where it wants.
When he passed, four of his kids were very young, and we all get to remember how shitty Christmas is for the rest of our lives. Sure, we still celebrate and do things, but he died on December 20th, and remembering his death anniversary isn’t the funnest pregame for Christmas. Luckily he was also the breadwinner of his family so my aunt got to deal with all of that too. Time makes it easier though, even though it will never go away.
Compartmentalizing things is amazing if you absolutely do not want to deal with something, so I packed him up and all his memories, and once in a while I would let a little bit of it out, and when it got to be too much I’d just shove it back down again. Probably not a great way to deal with things, but it got me pretty far, so I can’t hate on it too much. But that shit is expensive and you still have to carry it even if you’re not looking at it. Sometimes I wonder if I had gone if I would have been able to have closure earlier, but this is the first time I ever had a family member get murdered and honestly, every situation is different and you never really know what that is like until you’re there.
Once in a while I would have dreams about him. I actually dream about dead family members a lot, but I would only have enough time to ask them one or two questions before they drifted off into wherever they came from. Maybe we had longer conversations, but who really remembers their entire dream? With Tito Lar though, he kept coming back. Sometimes when I was awake, I would just get feelings of his presence that I didn’t know what to do with so I would message his daughter sometimes to tell her I loved her. We’re close anyway but half of those random “I love you!” messages were sparked by him. One time I was able to ask him if he was ok because, damn dude, didn’t you just get shot? And he just smiled.
One November, years later, my cousin accidentally, or maybe not so accidentally, video chatted me online. I hate talking on the phone so for me a video chat is like that on ultra super hard mode. But we kept chatting and her brother came home, shy, and not wanting to take off his motorcycle helmet. I hadn’t seen him in years and I still remember him as a teen, but now when he took off his helmet he looked like the spitting image of his father, only without all the joy. On the inside I wanted to scream, it was like looking at a ghost. But how can you tell your cousin, holy fuck, you look just like your Dad and his death has been-haunting-me-on-and-off-for-the-better-part-of-a-decade-so-I-can-only-imagine-what-you-guys-are-going-through. Instead I just said hi.
Later that night, Tito Lar came to visit me, but it was that space right before you fall asleep and when his spirit came I somehow had to decide if ghosts were real or never talk to him again. Filipinos are superstitious AF, so growing up I was always freaked out about them, and since they always came to me in dreamspace, they were easy to dismiss. Maybe my heart was just so broken over whoever had passed that my brain wanted me to have some kind of closure. I never really had that with Tito Lar so maybe it never really closed? Anyway, turns out, when you have a split microsecond to talk to your dead uncle, even if that means accepting the truth about one of your scary childhood fears, you’ll do it. Or at least I did.
When I was growing up, any time you have a dream about a dead person, you’re supposed to pray for them but this time was different. We never really had conversations, it was more like presence, like enjoying time with someone in the same room, except for that one time when I asked about his death. This time though, he said, “I’m not going to visit you anymore because you don’t need me anymore.” I wanted to shout, “No! Don’t go!” and he said, “I’m proud of you Ne! Now go kill it!” (the irony of his word choice was not lost on me). I panicked with the fact that this time I was going to lose him but this time I knew ahead of time, even if it was just seconds, and waffled between not wanting to let go of him and trying my best to enjoy the last few moments I had with him. And then he was gone.
I never tell anyone this because, honestly, it sounds crazy. Sometimes I wonder if it’s my brain’s way of coping with death. My ex told me though, at least you are fixing things, and is being sane really all that great? I don’t know, when I look at the world, everything seems crazy, so who knows anymore. But he’s right, my Tito’s last visit changed my view on life. I was lucky enough to get a second chance to say goodbye. A real one, where I got to tell him I loved him, and he got to tell me he was proud of me. I try not to waste time. I always hated wasting time to begin with, but now sometimes wasting time means being productive, instead of working towards things your heart loves. Sometimes it means not taking that trip, sometimes it means spending time with people that drain you, sometimes it means not telling someone you love them.
Since then I dragged my dementia Dad across the Southwest and The Philippines. I launched a business that cascaded into a ton of other lessons and learning. I finished an adorable book. I’m writing more, loving more, taking more risks, and there’s been a lot of “fuck it why not” decisions that I’ve been making. I have a lot more things to overcome, and stories to tell. Tito Lar wasn’t scared, so I shouldn’t be either. Don’t get wrong, I’m still scared a lot, but every day is a new day to try.
The last time I saw Tito Lar, he ran all the way to the airport. He was on the other side of the glass and he was laughing and he put his cheek up to the glass and pointed to it so I could kiss it. I flew all the way back to the states and never saw him again. I can’t help but think about the separation between us then, and the separation of us in life and death. It’s beautiful and poetic and I am absolutely so lucky. That is my favorite memory of him, and I’m so honored to have had him in my life.
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