Four Funerals and a Wedding: The Fourth Funeral (Part IV)

I love my father, I really do, but since he wasn't that much present in my life, I know I wouldn't feel much loss if he passes away. Still, I'm anxious about what the scenario will be if he dies considering his hostile other family. Would we be allowed to attend the wake? I take comfort at the thought that Ate Katyn would be there to assert me and my sister's birthright as papa's children.

My anxiety was renewed when unexpectedly and too soon, my Ate Katyn died.

She was still young, only in her forties, when she passed away. She didn't prevail against cancer but she fought bravely, never at once showing her family that she has become, and becoming more weak.

My mom and I with my Tita Pat went to Ate Katyn's wake as soon as her remains was brought to the chapel of Funeraria Paz in their Araneta Avenue branch, same as Uncle Tiong kim. There were only a few people inside the chapel when we arrived but papa was there and Tita Rosa was seated in the middle of a long bench with papa's Chinese wife seated beside her, to her right. As my mom and Tita Rosa were partners in crime, having become good friends and sisters-in-law, my mom went to kiss Tita Rosa and sat beside her on the other end of the bench. My dad, immediately becoming aware of the scene, couldn't take the heat and went out. Nothing exciting happened as my papa's wife shortly left her place.

A few days after, a ray of hope glimmered for me when Son-son, passing in front of me during the funeral mass for Ate Katyn, looked my way and nodded in acknowledgement. It was several years before when during Ama's funeral, Sabu returned a faint but sincere smile in response to my reluctant smile. Son-son's gesture made me realize that we are grown ups and no matter what, even if we don't become close, we ought to acknowledge that we are related, we are siblings and we should leave the past behind and at least be civil to each other. After all, we didn't have anything to do about our parent's respective pains. Though it crossed my mind I could be imagining things, I held on to that hope that my relationship with my only brother would be a bit better. In a few months time, I would be proven that it actually did.