On Grief (My Melancholic Schizophrenia)

For Cari on Chris' 40th day.... I wrote this awhile back and our conversation regarding the fine line between grieving and becoming crazy reminded me of it.


I am lying here
Staring at walls
My mind simultaneously
Blank
And rife with thought

While my ears tingle
As I wish I could shut off
The noise
Knowing that I am secretly afraid of
The silence

This is the dichotomy of my grief

As I struggle to hold on to you
While letting you go
I have become the melancholic schizophrenic

Surrounding myself with people
Even though I want to push them away
Wanting to be alone
Knowing I will never be

Alone

How can I be when you
Are always with me
You will always be with me
How can you go
When I can't say goodbye?

Shine On

One of the things I miss the most about my dad are Sunday mornings that were spent lining up his various dress shoes outside the front porch and polishing them until lunch time.

It was a very ritualistic event. First we'd gather up all his dress shoes and bring them outside. Then we'd drag his shoe shining kits and set up our respective benches. Then he'd light up a cigarette and get started while waiting for one of us to bring him an ice cold beer. And over the strains of Frank Sinatra or Julio Iglesias we'd spend the better part of 3 hours shining, buffing and polishing about 30 pairs of shoes.

Those were good times. Over the smell of cigarette smoke, San Miguel Pale Pilsen and Kiwi shoe shine polish my dad and I would talk about anything and everything under the sun. When I started going to Catholic school, my regulation black shoes were included in the pile of shoes that needed to be shined. And when I started working my leather shoes got the same treatment.

He was always so scrupulous about shoes - how clean they had to be, and how important it was that they were well polished and maintained. He would always tell us that the state of one's shoes reflected a person's habits, sense of self-worth and work ethic. A person who takes pride in himself and isn't afraid of hard work should always, always, have clean and well polished shoes.

I always thought that it was about vanity, until I was about 10 and I asked him why he always took such pains to make sure his shoes were clean and why he always made sure he polished them himself. Then he told me this story:

My dad didn't come from money. He was only about 5 when my grandfather passed away from a heart attack, leaving my grandmother, who was a school teacher, with 6 kids and a small income. To help his family make ends meet he used to sell cigarettes to US army officers that were stationed near his hometown in Masbate. He then moved on from selling cigarettes to shining shoes because the margins were bigger and you could get a tip on top of everything else. For a little kid who wore slippers to school, those big shiny army boots were something he told himself he'd have one day.

When it was time for him to go off to college, my grandmother and my aunt, the eldest in their family, pooled together what they could so that he could go to university in Manila. He went to FEU to study Political Science, in the hopes that one day he would become a lawyer just like my grandfather. He arrived in Manila with 2 white short sleeved shirts, a pair of pants and 1 pair of black leather shoes.

He used to tell me that the second shirt was a big thing, since it allowed him to make sure that he always had a clean shirt to go to school in. When he'd get back to his dorm room he'd immediately wash whatever shirt he was wearing so that it would have the whole day the next day to dry up and he would always have a clean shirt. Since he didn't have much of a wardrobe --- it was a source of pride for him that no matter what happened.... his shoes were always clean and presentable because he polished them himself.

Even while in college, he'd still take the odd shoe shining job to earn extra cents for food, or to help defray the costs of his going to college so that he could make life easier for my grandmother and my aunt. So he never forgot those shoe shining skills.

He had to drop out of college in his 3rd year, because he had younger brothers and sisters who also had to go to school. He applied to PAL as a purser, lied about his college degree and started working.

A few years later, at a hiring event, he applied as a Medical Representative to Mead Johnson and the rest is mythic Eppie Titong history.

He became the youngest president of a multinational pharmaceutical in the Philippines when he was 39. He finally finished college, and was able to earn masters degrees from Columbia University and Insead. And when he retired, he was the head of a Fortune 500 company.

But through all those years, and all those achievements, he still spent every Sunday polishing shoes. From the GI boots, to his single pair of college shoes, all the way to his handcrafted fancy dress shoes --- he polished each and every one of them himself. More often than not, he said, to remind him of how far had he come --- on sheer hard work and determination --- and also so he would never forget his humble beginnings so that he would always be grateful for what he had.

To this day, almost 7 years since he's been gone, his shoes are still in his closet. Like they were waiting for him to come home and dust them off and shine them again.

I miss the smell of cigarette smoke, San Miguel Pale Pilsen and Kiwi shoe shine. I miss those long conversations spent covered in shoe polish.

But his stories, his lessons, and the shoes, shine on.

The Tenth of an Inch Difference Between Heaven and Hell

....is accepting things as they are or wishing them to be otherwise.  

It's been a tough couple of days. This has been my life ---- long stretches of being ok and normal followed by sudden bursts of depression.  

No one really gets to see it. I've become very good at hiding how I feel. The only one who ever senses it (and gives me a wide berth and lots of patience because of it) is John.  

The insomnia's back. Long, late sleepless nights spent staring at the wall. Or writing in my journal. Days that are spent trying to catch up to lost sleep.  

The short temper.  

The tears. 

I slipped in the laundry area again last night, wearing the same slippers I was wearing when I fell that awful night. In my anger and anguish I threw them in the trash. I'd burn them if I could. It reminded me of what happened. And I started wishing again that I never wore them that night. Or that I went up as soon as dinner was over. Or that I didn't got down at all.  

Wishing for things that I cannot change. For things that, I know now, could not have changed anything.  

The most awful realization I have had to make in my sad journey towards letting my babies go --- is that they were never mine to keep. 

Awful, yet freeing at the same time.  

May be one day this thought won't make my heart feel that it's being squeezed in a vise. May be one day, writing these words won't make me cry anymore.  

May be one day I'll be able to bridge that distance and find peace.  

A tenth of an inch doesn't seem that far.

Here We Are Again

I haven't had the heart to update this blog.

I couldn't find the words to say: we have lost 2 more babies.

We hadn't even gotten over losing Ines, and now we have to add getting over Carmen and Salvador (our twins) to this impossible task.

It has been 46 days since we lost the twins.

I still don't have the words.