Caleb, My Baby Brother

904 words

         “Mama. Mama. Something’s wrong with Caleb. Come quick!” I called Mama, who was in the kitchen making porridge for my deathly sick baby brother.

         “Coming,” Mama answered as she came quickly.

         It was too late.  By the time Mama got there, Caleb was not breathing.  He was limp, pale and motionless.



         I was barely five, when my two-and-a-half-year old baby brother, Caleb, was sick with dysentery. Suffering from constant vomiting and loose bowel movements, he was dehydrated and became weaker and weaker by the day. Five days later, his frail body gave up fighting the battle and died. 

         It was back in the jungles of Dumingag, a farm site in a remote area of Zamboanga del Sur, where young and aspiring families migrated to claim homesteads.  There were no doctors to go to except for “quacks” who prescribed rituals or chanting to drive demons away; neither were there any medicines, save herbs that the native folks used for common illnesses.

         My father was an adventurer and a dreamer. He dreamed of discovering a gold mine in the mountains of Malindang and getting filthy rich in his lifetime. Because of this, he was always away on a “goldmine prospecting” adventure with his sidekick, Alonzo, a surveyor. He left Mama alone with the children to care for.  At this time, there were three of us: my big brother, Pericles, who was seven, I was five, and Caleb, the baby.

         When Papa decided to move his family with three small children to his homestead semi-cultivated farmland in 1951, little did he know that a dysentery epidemic would plague the natives and migrants.  He believed in his heart that he could safely tuck his family in a little nipa shack he built at the homestead while he looked for that elusive nugget of gold in the sun.

         My mother was a quiet and subservient wife. She was content in whatever state she was, as long as she had the children with her. She encouraged Papa to pursue his fixation in finding a gold mine, expecting him to come home with the bounty.

         I remember how frustrated and helpless my mother was when dysentery hit Caleb.  She made me watch the baby while she washed soiled diapers, clothes, blankets and beddings.

         “I wish your father was around to help,” she would say to me. Papa was away again and neighbors were at least half a kilometer away from each other. When the baby’s loose bowel movement would not stop despite all the different kinds of herbs Mama made him take, she became distressed.  I watched her cuddle Caleb, as she stroked his hair and kissed him gently on the cheeks. After almost a week of waiting for the diarrhea to go away and it persisted, with resignation, Mama waited for a miracle to happen.  She stayed with the baby while I followed her around every minute of the day, ready to run errands for her.

         On that fateful day, the baby dozed on and off. When he woke up from another snooze, my mother told me to watch him while she went to the kitchen to prepare “lugaw”, a soft, soupy rice diet for a sick child.  I heartily obeyed because I felt important and useful that Mama would trust me to watch the baby. 

         Once she turned her back, Caleb started making barely audible noises.  I picked him up, put him in my arms, and sang him a lullaby. He gave me a faint smile for a few moments and then I saw his eyes roll.  I became frantic and yelled to my mother to come quickly because Caleb rolled his eyes and closed them.  By the time Mama got there, Caleb was not breathing.  He was pale and motionless.  Mama took him from my arms and cuddled him. She quietly sobbed, hugging him closely in her arms while I cried with her. 

         “Mama, what are we going to do?”

         “Call your brother,” she said between sobs.

           My older brother was playing in the yard and heard me yelling for him to get in the house.  Mama sent him to the closest neighbor for help.  That neighbor, in turn, went to the barrio site to inform the “Barrio Captain” that another death has visited a home. Word travelled fast and the pastor showed up as soon as he learned about it.

         At this point, there was no established cemetery in the sitio. Caleb was buried in our backyard without Papa being there because there was no way to contact him.           

          Papa came home three days later. He went berserk the moment he knew his little baby boy died. He was angry with Mama for having buried Caleb without him present. He took the shovel to dig the ground and get Caleb back.  The pastor talked him out of it, persuading him that there was nothing he could do to bring Caleb back to life.

         This episode was one of the turning points in his life. It made him decide to leave the homestead, taking his family back to town where help was readily available.

         As for me, one vivid picture doesn’t go away. In my solitude, I see that faint smile he gave me before he closed his eyes and I always feel the pang of a loss when I revisit that special compartment in my early childhood memory.