Bittersweet

You may have heard this story before. It could be your neighbor’s, your lover’s, your cousin’s friend’s uncle, or it could even be yours. But this time around, it is mine. I am the author, the character, the narrator, the actor, the audience, and sometimes even the director, scriptwriter and editor. There are times, however, when I wonder to what extent I play these parts. Because sometimes I haven’t the faintest idea what exactly is going on.

There was a time when my brother was diagnosed with tonsillitis. My parents started to talk in hushed tones, and I felt something was wrong. What was the big fuss over tonsillitis? Why did they have to confine my brother in the hospital on the day of his birthday? Just because of tonsillitis? That was the beginning of the most drastic change in our lives. I will always remember it though, as a picture of my brother sitting on his hospital bed. Eyes averted from the camera. A distracted smile; one knee bent, one leg stretched on the bed (as if though sunbathing by the pool). He was wearing a white shirt and gray jogging pants and I wore a big smile. He was tousling my hair. I was hugging his waist. Definitely a Kodak moment.
 
Flash. He died less than two months after that. Acute lymphocytic leukemia. He was an athlete and didn’t even get sick with fever or colds. He just came home complaining about his throat, and in less than two months, he was gone. No bruises, no fainting spells, no symptoms at all; no foreshadowing event. It just happened. He died. How could that make sense to a six year old girl? It didn’t make sense. I keep thinking the trauma probably would’ve been greater if it happened much later, like right now or during my teenage years. But a loss is a loss, and it’s always painful no matter when it happens.

My brother’s ten years older than me. He liked showing me off to his friends, especially to girls. I’m sure he had his own self-serving reasons for doing so. But I played the part of a loving little sister, acting as his secretary and making phone calls (especially to girls). So what if I got jealous most of the time when he paid extra attention to others? I was a little weasel and knew exactly how to get his attention. All I had to do was act cute - sing, dance, recite poems. If those tactics didn’t work, crying proved to be almost 100% effective.

When he got home from a basketball game one night, he was so excited and proud to show us his t-shirt autographed by Gretchen Barretto, who also watched the game. I sneaked into his bedroom when he wasn’t inside and looked for the stupid shirt. I crossed out her signature with my black pentel, using firm, bold strokes. I was pretty pleased with myself. When he found out and restrained himself from hurting me, I realized that I did something wrong. But even then, I cried like I was the one wronged. That was just one instance among many when I expressed my creativity at the expense of my brother’s treasured possessions, as well as my ability to cry very loud and have Mama rushing to calm me down. Even as a little girl, I already had sadistic tendencies. I already was a manipulative bitch at such a young age. 

In spite all that, I knew my brother loved me. We played with my barbies and watched The Sound of Music seven times straight on betamax.  He also let me watch Beetlejuice and Splash with him, and didn’t stop me from browsing through his pile of Playboy magazines. He let me tag along when he went out with his friends, taking the risk of dealing with my tantrums. He bought little trinkets for me. Carried me on his shoulder. Took pictures as I followed his instructions to make a fool of myself in front of the camera. He messed my hair, tickled my foot, rubbed my tummy and made farting sounds on it with his mouth. He showed me his stamp collection and drawings, brought out his G.I. Joes and matchbox cars for me to play with, and pretended that we were on a spaceship on the way to the moon. He didn’t seem to mind when I stormed through his neat and orderly bedroom, scattering all his toys and leaving a mess behind. Or when I took his yellow plastic hamper with a white cover and wrote my name on the cover, along with “kuya wag mong aagawin ‘to.” When his room was locked, I would thump on the door with all my might and cry until I was out of breath (never mind if I was out of tears), waiting for him to open the door. He always did. He had this stern face, and said, “ano ba?” Then one look at my tear and sipon streaked face, and he would let me have my way. Even if it meant putting make-up on him.

When he was already dead, and Mama was fixing his stuff, she showed me his diary from 1982. He chronicled everything, even the day my dad bought him a pair of shoes, and how much it cost, or the first time the dog performed a new trick. When I turned the pages and got to the month of November, there was a countdown to my birthday. And when I finally got to my birthday, on the page was written in capital letters, “THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE, MY SISTER DIANA IS BORN.” Mama told me that my brother was in grade four when I was born. On the day that my mom was about to give birth, my brother was pacing back and forth the corridors of his school when his teacher noticed him and asked what was wrong. At ten years old, he was described looking like an expectant father. When he told the teacher that his mom was giving birth, she took him to the office so that he could call the hospital and find out how things were. He was very excited to see me. He was very excited to have me in his life. This I could tell by his day-to-day entry in his diary since my birth. “Diana is now one day old. She is so beautiful.” “Diana is now three months old. She is bigger and cuter than ever.” If I didn’t know it at that time, I surely became aware of it when he showed me off to his friends. Which I enjoyed, of course. I loved being in the limelight, but I didn’t know that my brother enjoyed my being in the limelight, too. I was once part of this play, and Mama told me that whenever I appeared on stage, kuya would exclaim, “kapatid ko ‘yan!”

Certainly, there are a lot of things I don’t know about him. And a lot more which I probably will never know. My parents talk about him as if though he were a saint. I doubt that he was. I know he was a very nice guy, but I’m pretty sure he wasn’t all that nice. Still, I cannot blame them for their perception of him. Because he was really a good person. And this I can say based on the first-hand experience of a little girl, and the stories of my parents and others who knew, or at least, claimed to know him.

As I grew older, I sometimes wished I could have gotten to know him from the perspective of a grown-up. But what I do know is that I meant so much to him. It seems so vain, that what I know about him is always in relation to me. But knowing that in his last moments he said that he wanted me, Mama and Papa to take care of each other, reveals something about what kind of person he was. When one of the last things he said was that I could have all the toys in his room, his room itself, I knew what kind of person he was. He did not indulge in self-pity, nor blame God for anything. He accepted his fate graciously, even more graciously than we did. When he was almost gone, he tried to comfort us, and he passed away after expressing that he loved us very much. That was enough for me to know that I had lost a huge part of my life.

I was with family friends who took care of me the entire time my brother was rushed in and out of the hospital. We were at a party when we received the news that he was gone. Black out. I don’t remember what happened next. I’m pretty sure I didn’t faint, but the memory of what happened then has been wiped out forever. Maybe that’s how it is with trauma. The ability to cope comes in forgetting the most painful part of the experience, almost as if it never existed.

After 17 years, however, the ability to cope seems to be in recovering the memories. Reminding oneself that they do exist, and with their existence the comfort of knowing that everything was real. He was real. Not someone I dreamed of. Not a figment of my imagination or a character in my fantasies. At some point in time, he existed, and he loved me. There was a time I had a brother, and I had him for almost seven years. Long after things have been misplaced, and pictures have faded, the memories remain. They may have been buried a long time, but if unearthed could be a portal to a different world. Not necessarily to the one that existed years ago, but to one which is recreated in relation to the years that have passed. It’s not exactly traveling back in time to a specific moment, or experiencing everything that happened then, but more like trying to relive the past by conjuring a semblance of it.

The thought of losing memories with the passage of time is scary. It’s like being robbed twice – of possibilities, initially, like the possibility of a happier life or at least one that is less dysfunctional, and later on, of sense or meaning, like never knowing that certain parts of the puzzle are missing when you get frustrated trying your best to make all the pieces fit. But the thought of recreating memories is just as scary. They are not snapshots of what once was, but portraits artistically crafted on an ever changing canvass.     

This seems to be the fitting end for this essay/ story/ whatever it is.  But I’m not finished yet.

I paint a portrait of my brother and wonder, what if he had lived? What if I had gotten to know him now, what would I have discovered? You might think that I’d be imagining him as a thirty something year old guy, probably married, with his own family and career. I’d even go so much to say that my parents probably wouldn’t have turned out to be so protective of me. If a parallel universe existed, he probably would’ve been the strict and protective one, always the big brother looking out for his little sis. But that’s not how I picture him to be. In fact, I can’t even imagine him as someone older than 17, and in that case, I am already a good seven years older than he is…was. When I think about him, he will always be 17, and I will always be seven, even if I were, say, 57. But suppose we were to meet at this point in time, suppose it were possible to see him again, be with him, what might it be like? What would I say to him? And him to me? Suppose I find myself in a parallel universe that had a different time zone altogether, where he was 17 and I was seven, and in my twenties at the same time? 

Would it be a universe of his generation or mine? Would it be the advent of the nineties or the new millennium? I guess it could be me coming from my own time, and he from his, intersecting in a schism in between. Suppose I went on vacation somewhere abroad, and on my way back home on the plane, I sit next to this handsome teenager fast asleep. I get the shock of my life and slap myself to make sure that I’m not dreaming. No, it can’t be. It’s impossible. I stare at him for God knows how long, and he probably feels it because he opens his eyes and smiles at me.

“Are you okay, miss?” he asks.

This can’t possibly be happening.

“I, I…uhm, yeah… I, uhh… you…you just look like somebody I know.”

He laughs. That loud quirky laugh of his that his friends call tawang balalex, for some reason. In spite of myself, I smile. He extends his hand and introduces himself to me. Oh God, it can’t be possible. My dumbfounded expression confuses him and he wrinkles his brow as he takes back his hand. What a weird lady, he’s probably thinking. But he smiles again, showing his pearly whites that were hidden behind braces for four years. He’s tall for his age, half an inch short from six feet. And he’s muscular, too, being a varsity player in basketball and tennis at his school. He looks mature, with his mustache, but it’s generally how he carries himself. He has a reputation for being a chickboy, ladies’ man, playboy. I know where to find proof of it, too. He had sets of photo albums filled with pictures of different women. He also had a phone book with over 300 of girls’ names. It became quite famous among his barkada, and his friends constantly kidded him about sharing with them that “little black book”. Somewhere in his essays, he wrote that he made it a goal to meet and befriend a girl wherever he went. I guess this was what he was trying to do now. 

“What’s your name?”

“Dianne,” I tentatively say.

“Oh, really? That’s great! I mean, what a coincidence. I have a little sister named Diana. We were fated to meet. Haha.”

Ever the big flirt. I think I got it from him. But okay, what was I supposed to say? I felt like this was some practical joke. I felt all sorts of things altogether, including wanting to throw my arms around him and crying and asking him never ever to leave me again.

“My sister is the most adorable person in the world. She’s so fair-skinned, not like me, and she’s very talented. She loves to sing, dance and act. And cry. Oh she can cry very well. She gets what she wants by doing that…Oh I’m sorry, I could go on and on about her, but you seem like you want to get some rest.”

“Oh no, it’s okay. I, uhm, I just…” Great. What was I gonna say? Hey, I’m the one you’re talking about, you know. I couldn’t help getting teary-eyed. Oh dear. Okay, now I’m crying.
“I’m sorry, Dianne. Did I say something to upset you? Uhh… I’m not really sure…I’m sorry…”

In between sobbing and sniffing, I tried to justify my behavior. “No, it isn’t you. It’s just that I’ve… I’ve been going through something…”

“Oh…”

“And I cry at the least expected moments… It’s like sneezing, you know. I never know when it’s going to happen, just does…I’m sorry this is so weird…”

“Oh no, no. Not at all. I know we don’t know each other…”

Right.

“But if you want to let it out… you know… talk about it… I’m a pretty good listener.”

Yes, he was. I remember the countless times he spent hours on the phone, at any time of the day, probably even the wee hours of the morning. He was fond of giving advice, as he himself expressed in an assignment for class. My mom had this in a scrapbook she made of what belonged to my brother, including the assignments he did when he was confined in the hospital.

“Can I hug you?” Wow. Even I didn’t expect to hear myself saying that.

He looked surprised for an instant, but just smiled and stretched out his arms to give me a hug. “There, there,” he said while he had his arms around me, “nothing like a hug from a stranger, huh, hehe…’

I looked at him, looked him in the eyes for a second, before I let myself be hugged again. Stranger. It’s funny that’s exactly how I often felt during the few moments that I thought about him. How can he not be a stranger, when I have spent more years without him, than with him, which was only seven damn years? The first three of which, I did not even have the capacity to remember anything that mattered. But hearing him say “stranger” made me want to laugh.

I don’t know how long we sat there, with his arms around me. It seemed as if I were making up for the time that he has been gone. Neither of us said a word. I just sobbed into his chest, as he patted me on the back, and rocked me gently like a baby. He knew exactly how to comfort me. I was older now, yet as I held on to him, I was this seven year old girl. And I couldn’t stop crying. I never even got to say goodbye when he left. I knew that even if I tried, I wouldn’t have been able to explain to him what was happening. And I’m not really sure that’s what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to freak him out. Though that was probably just what I was doing at this very moment. There was no logical explanation for what was happening, and after the initial shock of it all, I knew I didn’t want one. I was just glad to be given a second shot at being with my kuya. This was my chance to get to know him better. So I willed myself to stop crying, and start talking. The flight home wasn’t going to last forever.

“Thank you…”

“For what? Oh this? I do it all the time. Believe me, I’m a professional at this. I should be charging you; I have a fee, you know. But for you I’ll make an exception,” he said, winking.

“Why?”

“Oh I don’t know… I feel we have some sort of connection…”

I couldn’t help smiling. “Really?”

“Really. Like I know you from somewhere… didn’t you say you think you saw me before?”   

“I said you reminded me of someone.”

“Yeah? Not someone who’d make you cry, I hope…”

“Well…”

“Aww, man. I remind you of your ex-boyfriend huh.”

“No,” I was laughing now.

“So who is it?”

“Well, if you must know… you remind me of my brother.”

“Younger or older? Well look at that, and you remind me of my sister. I miss her all of a sudden.”

“Younger. I mean, older. He’s ten years older.”

“No kidding! I’M ten years older than my sister. So your brother, he’s like, what, 28, 29?”

“Turning 34”

“You’re lying! You mean to say you’re 24?”

“23 actually, I’m turning 24 in November.”

“But I swear to God you look like you’re 18, or at most, 19.”

Flattery at its best. He was in his element.

“It’s the crying probably.”

“Oh no, I would’ve said you looked like you were seven, if it’s the crying. Hehe. So your birthday’s in November? My sister was born in November, too. My birthday’s August 21. When’s yours?”

I hesitated for a moment. What the heck. “November 18.”

“Are you serious? That’s also my sister’s birthday! This is so cool.”

“What a coincidence.”

“You should meet her some time. You probably would get along.”

“She cries a lot too?”

“Oh, you have no idea. You could do it together. That would be so cute.”

“You’re mocking me, aren’t you?” This was getting to feel more natural the weirder it got. I blew my nose on a Kleenex.

He just laughed. Might as well. “You know, you laugh like my brother, too.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It’s one of a kind. Or at least I thought it was.”

“I’d love to meet your brother some time. My friends say that there’s no one else in the world who laughs like I do. What does your brother do?”

“My brother, he’s…abroad. I, ummm, I’m not sure exactly what he does…”

“Oh I know what you’re talking about. Some of my dad’s friends have children who are like, systems analysts or something. And it sounds really great, but I’m thinking, so what exactly does that mean? Well, you know what I mean…”

“Yeah, I do. Actually, I was visiting my brother.”

“Oh. How is he? He’s not sick or something?”

How weird was that. “Nah. Never been better actually. We don’t get to see each other often, that’s all. Sometimes he visits, sometimes I do…”

“So where does he stay?”

“Uhm, in San Francisco.”

“Hey, I came from Daly City!”
“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“What were you doing there?”

“I was visiting my relatives. My family stayed behind. In Daly City. I had to go back earlier because I’m graduating from high school this year, and I have to apply to universities.”

“That’s great. So where are you going? I mean, for college?”

“La Salle, maybe, coz that’s where I’m studying now… or UP.”

“What course are you taking?”

“Anything pre-med. Psychology, Biology, whatever. I want to become a doctor. What about you?”

“Oh, I don’t want to become a doctor…Just the sight of blood scares me…”

“No, that’s not what I meant…”

“Yeah, I knew that. Hehe. I’m a teacher.”

“My mom’s a teacher.”

“Really? What does she teach?”

“Pre-school. Also in La Salle.”

“I bet that’s also where your little sister goes to.”

“How’d you know?”

“Wild guess.”

“Yeah, the three of us all go to the same school. So what do you teach? And where?”

I’d have to be careful on this one. “I teach English in Atheneum.”

“Cool. Atheneum, that’s a pretty name for a school. Even prettier than Ateneo.”

“You’re just saying that coz you’re from La Salle.”

“Haha. So I’ve never heard of this school before. Where’s it at?”

I wanted to tell him that it’s a school dedicated to his memory, that there’s a quadrangle and a hall named after him. That the catalyst for founding the school was his sudden death. It was therapy for both my parents. Instead I said, “Oh, it’s a small school that my parents own, and it’s somewhere in Cavite…”

“Hey, I’m from Cavite!”

“No kidding.” I could’ve acted more surprised, actually.

“Yeah. We’re like soul mates or something, haha.”

“Do you believe in that? You know, having soul mates?”

“Why, don’t you?”

“Well… depends on what you mean by that, I guess…”

“How would you define it? Soul mates.”

“Hmm… I think it’s romantic to believe in the idea that there’s someone out there destined for you and all that…”

“But…?”

This was difficult. I smiled. And struggled. “But… I think that if there’s only one person out there meant for you and that person dies, then it’s very sad, and cruel… to live without ever having the chance to be happy… or complete… I don’t know… it’s like you’re just settling for whoever you end up being with, you know?” 

“Whoever said that it has to be only one person?” he grinned. “I think there’s a reason for all the people we encounter in our lives… and for those who matter to us more than others… whether or not we want them to…we should just be grateful that they help us know who we are…”

“So you’re saying that who we are is determined by how we relate to others?”

“Well, if you think about it, don’t the relationships we establish somehow reflect and influence the kind of person that we are?”

“Quite insightful for a young man…”

He laughs. That one-of-a-kind laugh he has. I really wish, more than ever, that I could’ve been able to establish a relationship with him that would reflect and influence the kind of person that I am.

“No. Not insightful, really. I just like to argue.” I could really get used to hearing him laugh all the time.

“You should take up law then…”

“My dad’s a lawyer,”

“So is mine”

“You’ve got to be kidding!...So how many coincidences since we started talking? I lost track already!”

Uh-oh.

“Soulmates.” I shrugged and smiled. I wasn’t thinking. This whole thing felt so natural that I let my guard down.

“Anyway, you know what I think?” He tilts his head and looks me in the eye. “If you have someone you can bare your heart and soul to, that’s your soulmate. I mean, it doesn’t even have to be romantic. It can be your mom, your best friend, whoever. And if people go through their lives without ever finding even a single person that they can connect with like that, then that would be very sad for them.”

I was speechless.

He just smiled.

“Have you found your soulmate?” I asked.

The food came right at that moment. All of a sudden I felt like time was running out. And I couldn’t help but think about how all this was going to end. Just when you’re getting the hang of suspending disbelief, reality creeps right back in. Sigh.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. 

What was wrong indeed. Maybe in this life, or alternate universe, or whatever it was, I could be the one to die. Maybe the plane would crash, and my name wouldn’t be on the list of survivors. If I admitted that this was wishful thinking on my part, then that would reveal my state of being right now. Maybe I feel guilty for being the one to survive. Maybe I think I’m not worthy to be alive when he isn’t. Maybe it’s the pressure that comes with being an only child. Maybe I just hate being alone. And since I probably wouldn’t ever have the guts to commit suicide, even if I have a tendency to think about it but never actually do it, at least I could explore the possibility of taking my own life in this story.

I’ve lost the will to live for a long time now. I like to dwell in my misery, and most of the time, even seek it out. Probably because I think I deserve it. When exactly this has started, I’m not really sure. But I trace it to the time I lost my brother. I don’t want to experience that loss again. This is the six year old girl talking right now. The 24 year old little girl that cries oftentimes without knowing why. The one who always thinks of the past as better than the present, and thus, can never truly live and enjoy the present until it becomes the past.

What’s wrong, he asked. What WAS wrong? I’m lonely, and lost, and confused. Could I tell him that? I’m punishing myself by working too much, and intentionally denying myself any chance for happiness. I hate how my parents behave these days. Can I say that? Even the façade of a near perfect family doesn’t work anymore. He hurts her, she hurts him, I hurt them both. It’s a cycle of hurting that is deeply rooted in love, I’d like to believe. It’s just a very unhealthy manifestation of it.

We all know how this is going to end. Someone dies. The end is always the same, anyway. Eventually everyone dies.

The plane starts to make strange noises, and suddenly lunges forward. Everybody panics, except me. I take his hand, and say that everything’s going to be okay. He looks at me as if I were crazy. Someone once told me that we teach best what we most need to learn. I guess it’s also true that we say best what we most need to hear. After a second of probably wondering just how demented I was, he holds my hand and nods calmly.

This is the last time that I was going to see him again, and I’d think I’d know what to say. I’m much older now. Surely I’m better equipped to express myself. I love you? I miss you? They don’t quite capture the complexity of what I feel. I hate you? For leaving so soon? For screwing up my life because you had to die? For forever leaving me with a sense of loss, of what if, of lack, of ache, of a gap between the life I could never have and the desire for it?

I am angry. Not at you. At God? At fate? At time? But not at you. Not at our parents. We are just victims of circumstance. I am angry at that. That there’s nothing I could do. Except this.

I hug you like I would never see you again. And you mess up my hair the way you always used to. You tell me that you are glad to have known me even for just a short while. That’s exactly what I feel. I try to memorize every detail of your face as I look at you. There’s only one thing left to say, something I never got to tell you, and neither did you.

Goodbye.


-          finished at 9:05pm; Dec. 02, 2006
-          edited April 11, 2007