Light in the Abyss

Thank God for giving us life, so that we may feel how to live. Thank God for giving us love, so that in life there'd be so much to feel. Thank God for giving us the memories, so that when much of life has been gone and much of love has faded, there'd still be much to remember and cherish. But above all, thank God for Oblivion, so that we may forget them all. Because when all life has been drained out of us, when all the love has vanished and only the memories have been there for too long, the memories shall turn to longing, and the longing will turn to pain. And if eternity is certain to follow death, and memories are certain not to fade, then there must be nothing to feel throughout eternity other than longing... and pain.



My grandmother flashed a smile, and in return, I smiled back. But smiles do not always bear sheer happiness. And in this instance, our smiles were fraught with a little bitterness, and grudge.


It had been two years since I last stepped foot on the soils of my hometown- Puerto Princesa City, two years since I last saw my grandmother in the thick of her health. Back then, if she saw me, she'd not only smile. She'd walk up to me, kiss me and spend long hours talking to grandson she had badly missed. But now, things have changed, she's been bedridden almost half a year. And ever since she had the stroke last year, she had never walked by herself, nor spoke consciously to anyone. The few times hat she did speak, she did so as if she were dreaming. Sometimes, she'd see my mother's face and then she'd talk as if she were conversing with a little child. My mother would talk back, but her words would not be heard. Perhaps, in her weakened mind, she wasn't living in this time and age. Maybe, she thought she was back to the time when she was still a young mother, blissfully playing with the little daughter that was now my mother. And in my grandmother's trance, in her dreams, all she could feel must be bliss. But in the real world where we, the real loved ones exist and see her, there can only be pain. For each time we see the sheer happiness my grandmother gets from her own delusions, we also see glaringly the same real happiness we can never give her. Because the cruel laws of science has already built an impenetrable wall between her consciousness and ours.


Now, I was compelled to ask, when she smiled at me, was it because of me or someone she saw in her dreamworld? I thought it was because of someone else in her dreams. That's why I dropped the smile and moved away. But I was wrong. The moment I started to move away, the smile on her face turned to a frown. And her hand, the same hand that had virtually been unused for months, made one beautiful gesture. It reached out to me.


Why did she have to remember? Why did the laws of science shatter the walls of her dreamland? What good would it do her if she remembered who I was? She would have been better off being confined in her dreamland and not knowing that I had visited. Because inevitably, I would have to leave. My new work as an asst. manager in a laboratory required me to reside in a town more than 100 kilometers away from her home. And even if I did not have that job, I would still have to leave. Because I could not proceed with my life if I were t stay perpetually by her side. All I could do was to pray that someday, she will forget about me, that somehow, she'd forget the moment I walked away from her at a time when she could not walk after me. And when God wills the two of us to meet in either heaven or earth, we'd remember nothing of that painful day.


Ever since I was always a child I always wondered why God had to put our brains in our bodies and not in our souls. I thought, if the memories are in our brains, and the brains are in our bodies, then our memories are sure to rot with our corpses when we die. And when the souls ascend to heaven, they'd have no memory of anything that happened on earth. Cruel, it seemed. Maybe that's why most people comfortably assumed that souls are omniscient beings that can remember everything and know everything. When we find ourselves in peril, we comfort ourselves with the thought that a fallen loved one is watching us. But are the departed really better off remembering us and knowing everything about us, feeling fear each time we're in peril, feeling sorrow each time we shed tears? No. The more I think about it, the more I believe that a kind God shall never burden his creations with a perpetual memory.


While I'm still here on earth, though, living, remembering, I have no choice but to confront my memories. Now that I am back here in my hometown after completing college in Manila I am reminded of the dreams I used to dream, the biggest ones, the ones that time, fate and maturity compelled to abandon, albeit painfully.


Here, in this province, I had become a godfather to a younger cousin at age 8, because I had to attend the baptismal ceremonies in lieu of my father, the real Godfather . But since I was an overeager little child, I took it upon myself to be the truly responsible ninong (godfather) to my little cousin. Each Christmas, following Filipino tradition, I would be the one to hand her the Christmas Gifts that any loving Godfather ought to give a good goddaughter. I never bought those gifts, though. Because I never had the means to do so. In the first two Christmases after I finished college and started working, I failed to give her any gifts because, I ran out of money. Secretly, however, I dreamed of buying a laptop for her, because she was such a brilliant young writer. One day, I thought, when I already have the means, I'd give that laptop computer to her o he condition that she'd join a literary contest or write a novel. Nothing would have felt sweeter than seeing a brilliant young mind churn out a masterpiece because of my own god-fatherly encouragement. But such an ethereal moment was never meant to come. In June of 2007, she passed away. My return to this province should have been the most special because I had a good job and therefore, the means to buy my own gift for her. But all I could offer was a visit to her tomb. The photograph of her tomb remains stored in my cellphone, but up there in heaven, she should have no memory of me. Because that's how things should be. Let me, the living, live the way life should be lived. And let immortal angels like her spend eternity the way it should be spent-blissfully, and devoid of pain.


Maybe one day, my grandmother, who is also my goddaughter's grandmother, would see her up there in heaven. And when they meet, they'd talk and learn to love each other anew. Neither of them would talk about me. Neither of them would talk about my failures. My grandmother would not remember me walking away from her as she lay crippled and mute in her bed. My goddaughter would never remember the Christmases that passed by without a gift from me. And when my turn to go up there comes, they would not know me. But they'd learn to love me anew, just as I'd learn to love them anew without being bothered by the memories of my past failures.


Here, in this island province, my family lived in unfinished houses. Together we dreamed of building a beautiful house for ourselves. And together, we saw that dreams repeatedly shattered before us. I don't know if that dream could ever be realized in this lifetime. But if we do fail in the present, I hope in the next life, or afterlife, we'd dare to dream together again without being bothered by our past failures.


In this town, I had learned to love and fail in the arena of love. Here, I had naively built my silly dream of finishing college in Manila, getting a good job and coming home to blissfully start my own family. That dream never completely materialized, partly because in my quest to fulfill my little dreams, I had found bigger ones and opted to abandon the former. Now, I'm beginning to fear that I'm running out of dreams, both the little and the big. Coming home to the embrace of a beautiful wife and the sight of a wonderful home now seem far more unreal and impossible than it did 10 years ago. Somehow, though, there is hope that someday, when this lifetime had totally faded into oblivion, I'd be stronger and better at realizing my dreams, and expressing my love.


Death is one dark abyss. When you get there, no matter how far you look up into the sky where you plunged from, there'd be nothing to see. And when you walk to search for a new life, a new love and new dreams, there'd be no light to guide you. Yes, in the abyss, here shall be no light. But how can you fear the dark when you have no memory of light?