By Erwin Cabucos
The tide chases the crabs across our back yard, again, but there’s no time to watch them scuttle across the sand. Today Lola, my grandmother, is being lowered into the ground after she killed herself. She was confident in doing it, with the assistance of a doctor. She called it freedom. In the end, she couldn’t really fix everything. She should have tried harder. She’s just created a spectacle. Look at me. I can get your attention. Ha, ha, I can kill myself. You will have to bury me. Then you will make a fuss about who will speak and what to say about me, and you will drop roses on my grave. It feels strange because, as much as I hate her for killing herself, I love her for who she was. I suppose I can’t really blame her. I’m going to miss her.
Outside winter has swallowed my summer. The river glistens in the sun and ripples in the wind. The yellow mangrove leaves fall on the water like confetti.
“Don’t forget to tie your hair up, Emily. We’re leaving in fifteen minutes,” Mum yells from downstairs.
Lola and I used to make cassava cake together in her kitchen. Mum used to leave me with her. She would dip her finger in the mixture and lick it, then she’d flicker her eyes and smile before telling me to add more condensed milk. Creamy and thick, it ran like a silky thread from the can to the bowl, swirling softly in the cake mixture as she stirred it with a wooden spoon. “It’s beautiful,” I said.
“It’s like life, Emily. You have to stir it the way you want it to be, and it will be beautiful,”she replied. As it cooked in the oven, the comforting scent of coconut wafted through the street, summoning my next-door neighbor, Jenny. Together we laughed, cassava sticky between our teeth.
“You’ve got a passenger on your jeepney,” Lola said.
“What?” A frown brought Jenny’s brows together.
“You have stuff between your teeth,” I clarified.
Jenny licked her teeth. “How does stuff between my teeth become a passenger?”
“It’s like someone’s taking a ride on your vehicle.’ I smiled.
Jenny’s eyes widened.
We laughed.
“She says one thing, but she means something else.’ Jenny shook her head. “I can’t keep up.” “That’s Lola for you.”
Lola nodded; her cheek creased in a cocky smile.
I took a bite of cassava cake. I was amazed that the once hard, rough yam had become a soft, creamy cake dancing on my tongue.
I used to fall off my bike and Lola would tell me to stop crying. “Battle on, girl! Be brave. That’s life,” she’d grunt from the clothesline at the back of her house. I would wipe my tears away and carry on.
Then she couldn’t help but retell stories about her migration from the Philippines, and how her family survived the 1941 Japanese attack; and hid in a foxhole to escape the Japs, who’d round up and rape women of all ages. She’d get teary talking about the hunger pains which grew stronger each day her father’s pay as a labourer in the port of Manila was delayed. Then the more stabbing pain of being unable to find work because she couldn’t speak English properly. “What’s proper English when everyone from different places speaks English in different accents anyway,” she’d say. So she ended up working as an archivist in Melbourne. But she used to tell me that I should study law, as she’d done.
And I think I will.
“Oh my God, Emily, that hair isn’t done!” Mum storms in my room. “What are you doing staring at the river? It’s not day-dreaming day, Darling. It’s called get-up-now-to-attend-Lola’s-funeral day. Now, up, and we’re out of here in five minutes. You’re so silly.” Mum shakes her head.
“Mum, calm down. I can do this in the car.”
“Not as good.’ Mum forces the brush through my hair. Strands come off as my head tilts.
“Slowly, mum. You’re making me bald.’
“Next time you listen and actually do what you’re told. Gee, Emily, when will you ever be…’
“Be what?’
“Good enough.’
“Oh my God, Mum. Stop being horrible.’
“I’m not. Sometimes, you just have to get your act together.’
“Why do we have to dress up for a funeral anyway?’
“It’s to show respect to the person, you know that. Your grandmother fought the cancer hard, she deserves honour and respect, at least from you tidying yourself up.”
“She killed herself.”
“She battled on.”
“She euthanized herself. She didn’t battle on. She gave up.”
“She suffered.” Mum scowls. “And she did suffer enough. You weren’t there the whole time, and you wouldn’t have felt what she felt. None of us could really feel what she felt.”
“Still, I don’t think that’s honourable.”
“Don’t say that!” Mum’s voice trembles and her lips quiver. Her palm lands on my cheek, snapping my head sideways. Spit flies from my mouth and lands on the mirror. “A disgraceful 15-year-old child deserves that!’ She grabs me by my shoulders and twists my body toward her. “She wanted to die with dignity.” Her brows crease with the closing of her eyes before tears escape. Rivulets of make-up etch tracks down her face. “She did try.’ She grabs some tissues and carefully dabs her face, sniffling. We know it’s killing, but…” she sighs. “Sometimes, it is best not to say anything at all. Not all words are meant to be spoken.”
“Sorry mum, I guess, I’m confused. I’m just…I miss her too. I will miss her.” I sigh.
“Yeah, we all will. Things happen in life beyond our control. And as they do, we decide what’s best for us.” She lets out a deeper sigh and shrugs her shoulders.
I smear my tears with the back of my hand. Mum uses her tissue to gently wipe them away.
“Sorry, Darling. I didn’t mean to slap you. One day, you’ll understand.”
“That’s all right, mum, I guess” I nod. In the subsiding pain from my face and my scalp, I slowly realize that understanding takes time, a number of tides. The water creeps up the edge of our lawn, and I know it’s time to stop crying. “Be brave, girl. Battle on.”
The river continues to run and the crabs scuttle across the sand.
Image credits: Job Ruzgal