Posts Tagged ‘Death’

Dear Carmi


2011
11.16

November 11, 2011

Dear Carmi,

Hindi ko alam kung paano sisimulan ‘tong sulat na ‘to. I’ve never written you a letter when you were still here with us. And now, I’m writing you a letter that you’ll never get to read. And so, perhaps, I’m writing this more for myself… for our family, relatives, and friends. Seven and Alodia are right here beside me, as usual, nangungulit na naman, asking me questions like “Bakit ka nagsusulat para ke Ate Carmi e patay na siya?”

Tama nga naman.

Not having any clear and satisfying reasons why I am doing this, I keep on writing… typing, if you will. Today is Errol’s birthday. It’s also the second anniversary of my “rebirthday,” when I flatlined two years ago. Since that fateful day, I’ve always thought that I was a bit braver… owing to the fact that I’ve already “died,” and that just a few moments before I passed out, I’ve accepted, perhaps reluctantly, but still accepted the ineluctable reality that that was it. I was revived, but I’ve come to realize with greater clarity that at any given moment, I could die. Just like that.

And so, I thought, I should prepare for that moment. That moment of death and dying. But this time, I’d like to welcome her as a friend or lover, not reluctantly, but with, corny as it may seem, “open arms.” And so, with a kind of grim determination, I started to make an effort to cultivate in myself that readiness to face death should she come again unexpectedly to fetch me.

Oh, but life and death are full of surprises, and they threw me a wallop that almost unhinged me. Death did come again unexpectedly, not for me, but for you.

I’m still, as Mommy and all who love you, coming to grips with your being no longer here with us. Sometimes, I think of you as just being away for a very long vacation in some far away island with a beautiful beach, much like the one you’ve been dreaming of just a few months ago.

Ate Li told us that she dreamt of seeing boxes with letters on them arranged so as to read: “Kuya Ian, Kaysarap isiping matatanggap mo rin… Carmi.” Oh I will, Carmi. Balang araw, matatanggap ko rin. It’s hard. But I’ll get there. It’s hard because I have so many questions to ask you, so many things to tell you and I don’t know if these things will ever reach you. I hope they do. Haha, this is even harder than unrequited love, not being able to communicate with a loved one who loves you back. (Eto na naman yung mga pamangkin mo, ginugulo ako.)

Once, I came home tired and wanted to sleep. You were already sick then. Nakahiga ka non sa kama ng mga Mommy. Nahiga ako sa tabi mo. Wala akong t-shirt and you touched my back. Sabi mo, “Ang lamig, angsarap hawakan.” I didn’t reply then but I thought of transferring some of my health, my life-energy to you through that touch, wishing that you would get well, get better faster. (Juan would joke later after I told him this story: “Baka ikaw pinapasahan nya ng energy.”) I was thinking then, even if my life expectancy is cut short, just as long as yours is extended.

Several weeks later, beside you at the mortuary, I told you I’m willing to have my life taken away just to have you back. After all, I’ve already died. And I still think it every now and then, my life for yours.

But as it is… as it is… here I am, writing this letter. And you… there, somewhere, perhaps in some far away island with a beautiful beach. And I’m thinking… perhaps, in some parallel universe, I did die and was never revived on that fateful day on November 11, 2009. And you’re the one writing me a letter similar to this one. In that parallel universe, you’d probably get married and have lots of beautiful children, and grow old to be a doting grandmother to your beautiful grandchildren, as Mommy is to our nieces.

Well, I hope to see you someday… and hug you, and talk to you… Perhaps, we already are doing this, in some parallel (perhaps more properly, perpendicular) universe…

But know that in all these multiverses, I love you.

We love you.

Carmi. Imrac. Carmechay. Taciturn’s Blood. Kendankill… Carmina.

Love,
Kuya Ian

A Rehearsal for Dying


2010
04.04

A Rehearsal for Dying
By Michael Ian Lomongo

“To conquer death, you only have to die… you only have to die.” – Jesus Christ, in Webber/Rice’s “Jesus Christ Superstar”

I was a young kid then when my brother Errol and I used to play with toy guns, soldiers and tanks. Once, our mother heard us talking about wiping out each other’s “men.” She said that we shouldn’t be talking so cavalierly about killing and deaths because, in the real world, lives that are taken are lost, well, permanently.

At about the same time, during the proclamation of faith in one mass that we attended, I heard Errol sing “Si Kristo’y namatay, si Kristo’y nabuhay, si Kristo’y babalik sa wakas ng panahon.” I told our mom that my brother’s got it all wrong, that it should be “Sa bakas ng panahon.” Only to find out that I was the one who’d been singing it wrongly all this time.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I tried to imagine what it would be like at the end of time. I thought there would only be trees and birds. (I even imagined the sunlight filtering through the trees and the birds chirping in an early “people-less” morning.) Everyone I know (including me), and even those I hardly know and don’t know at all, would be gone, dead. It was awful.

I thought people didn’t really die. I thought that they soon got up from their graves or from wherever or whatever they’ve been lying, just like those numerous people who get killed in action movies. And to top it all, there was such a thing as the “end of time.” Oh God!

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Flatline Series 1: A Draft (A Video Installation by Infinity and Accident*)


2010
03.13

Flatline Series 1: A Draft
(A Video Installation by Infinity and Accident*)

I. Dying to See the Light

I’ve heard accounts of people who’ve had Near-Death Experience detailing their encounter with some tunnel of light, or their lives flashing before their eyes.

Like almost everyone, I have this morbid fascination with Death and Dying and everything that comes and goes with and after it.

But what if there is no light at the end of the tunnel?

What if nothing, just this big nothing, awaits us?

Like everyone, I’d like to end this life with some sense of fulfillment or completion. Yes, I’d like to see the light. More, I’d like to be “enlightened.”

And this, before dying.

II. Dog is God Spelled Backwards

A pseudo-intellectual joke: A dyslexic agnostic insomniac was kept awake in the night wondering if there was a dog.

In a past life, I was a dog.

III. The Grand Sex

They say that the orgasm of sex is called “la petite mort” because the release that one goes through is tantamount to some kind/form of dying, “a little death.”

Imagining death as the ultimate experience, would it then be “the Grand Sex”?

Moments before dying, what I felt was an intensification of sensation accompanying the palpitation of my heart. It culminated in an “orgasm,” centered in my heart. It was coupled with everything around me appearing brighter and clearer, as if bathed by a light coming from within. After which, I passed out.

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I woke up, five minutes later (so they told me), on a hospital bed, gagging, struggling, (alive!) and kicking.

ian lomongo
march 13, 2010

(*Infinity and Accident is Wire Tuazon and Ian Lomongo)

Lamay: Pakikiramay, Buhay, Kamatayan


2008
07.24

isang eulohiya para kay Ramon Jose Leyran, sinulat noong Octubre 10, 2003.

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Lamay: Pakikiramay, Buhay, Kamatayan
ni Michael Ian Lomongo

Kung di ako nagkakamali, nabuo raw ni Wency Cornejo ang kantang “Habang May Buhay” sa isang lamay. Kakaiba nga ang lamay ng mga pinoy: sa mga probinsiya, may pasugal (madyong, baraha, trembe), may inuman pa sa iba, may mga laro (juego de prenda), may kantahan, kwentuhan, tugtugan, may pakain din (kape, tinapay, biskwit, sopas, kendi, atbp.). Para ngang lagi tayong naghahanap ng dahilan para magkaroon ng selebrasyon.

Minsan, meron akong kababata at kaklase sa elementaryang namatay. Malalaki na kami nang maaksidente si Rhey sa motorsiklo. Natural, nagkita-kita sa lamay ang mga dating magkakaklaseng bihira nang magkasama-sama. Meron din kaming kaklaseng nasa ibang bansa noon. Tumawag siya (si Elna) sa telepono at nakibalita sa isa sa amin, at ang sabi niya: “Magkakasama kayo d’yan? E ‘di ang saya-saya n’yo!”

Hindi na siguro kakatwang makakita ng mga taong tumatawa habang tumutulo ang luha sa mga lamay. May lungkot dahil sa pangungulila sa isang kasama o kaibigang hindi na makakahuntahan o makakabiruan. May saya dahil may pasasalamat sa magagandang ala-alang pinagsaluhan ng magkakaibigan.

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