Café Kontra

Food and Death

My grandmother died in the wee hours of May 31, 2005, and I spent most of the first week of June going to the wake. It’s been some time since there’s been a death in the family; I’ve been to other wakes recently, but they were mostly relatives of friends and the like. The last time a first-degree relative died was years ago.

This is the reason why, although I’ve attended many wakes in my short life, my grandmother’s wake was the first in which I experienced the actual preparations. Way back when, I was still too young to really help (or at least remember) how people set the place up or entertained the guests. The most we did, after being bored out of our minds and playing card games, was run out into the lawn and play Frisbee Football.

She passed away last, last Tuesday due to complications from a bad bout of pneumonia (I don’t really know what time, exactly, but I was still up then because I was cramming our org website), at the age of 81. That was, as mentioned, in the wee hours of the morning. Later that afternoon the mania began.

We Filipinos have an insane preoccupation with wakes. Celine Lopez once wrote about them in a column; specifically, about how she hated it when people made wakes into a sort of mini-fiesta. Even when I read that column so many months ago I already knew that I disagreed with her; though it’s been some time since I’ve attended a proper wake, I remember them as enjoyable times, where family and friends would gather and sometimes (actually most of the time) play a game of cards. My recent experience reaffirmed my position. With wakes, as with every aspect of our lives, we Filipinos cope by celebrating.

And so barely half a day after my lola’s death, there was a chapel and there was her body and there were already a number of condolence flowers along the chapel doors. People kept on bringing food every minute, and we cousins were put to work on mini-projects such as a photo-collage. At the end of the day there were nine different condolence bouquets, and I marveled at all the flowers. I spent the night picking away at the food and letting my cousin solve puzzles he’d eventually give up on.

The next day everything was in full gear, since the preparation had, more or less, been finished. When I arrived my mother told me that there was pancit, which I expected because that was what they served the previous day; what she didn’t tell me was that there was also pork roast, rice, and mashed potatoes. Mmm. The day after that, aside from pancit, venison, rice, and vegetables, there were also sandwiches. The food multiplied every day. During the last day of the wake there was even a cake and patries. One of my guests who had visited commented that “it was like being in a hotel.” The impression was facilitated by the fact that there was a keyboardist and a bassist (actually my Tito Roy) playing decidedly un-wake-like songs, with me and my cousins and titos and titas singing along (using 1001 Songs, volumes 1 and 2). I almost felt sorry for Monsignor in the other chapel; his wake was so much more quiet and boring in comparison. I half-expected him to get up from his coffin because of the racket.

It wasn’t only the food that multiplied, either; after the four days of the wake, I counted thirty (!) huge, towering, but still absolutely beautiful condolence flower arrangements, coming from everyone from the ABS-CBN Publishing House to Teddy Boy Locsin to Dick Gordon. I suppose that’s what you get when a mother leaves behind nine children who have worked in every conceivable place and field. My favorite set of flowers, though, came from a bunch of my mother’s friends; they were bunches of spring flowers in hues of pink and lilac. They looked so alive.

The family organized a program for lola during the last day of the wake; they got all (well, most, anyway) of the cousins to either do a reading or to sing something dedicated to her. My tito made a speech, after which someone told me that he finally saw where I got a lot of my traits. And of course, the program ended with me singing “Ikaw” off-beat and in a quavering voice. Go figure.

I never actually saw anyone cry until the day of the burial, which I understand is not an uncommon occurrence. The wake is a celebration, of sorts; actually, it’s just an excuse for people, regardless of how often they see each other, to get together. The burial, that’s different, though. It’s the last time you’re ever going to get to see that person before she’s finally committed to the ground, the last goodbye. Emotions ran high, that day; my tito JP, my mother’s youngest (and only) brother, was about ready to smash the face of the lawnmower man in for being so noisy while everyone was praying. Even so, after everything was done, the mood was still festive, in a way; of course, there would be food, no matter what. The food that day was good, as usual. I don’t think there has ever been a family event where there was truly bad food. One of the favorites during the day of te burial were the mini-tacos, which were bite-sized (but complete!) tacos, which tasted just as good as the real thing but weren’t half as messy.

I think it was during the day my lola died that my mother told me about how lola didn’t like extravagant funerals, and neither did my papa, who died years ago, which was why they didn’t spend an extravagant amount on the coffin, etc. Of course, that might seem a bit hard to believe after all the food and everything else, but for all that, all the preparations and succeeding events such as the burial and the ninth day mass and dinner weren’t extravagant. Everyone just contributed and helped to make everything happen, which is one of the advantages of having a large family.

Everyone did it for Lola Del’s sake, but I suppose for our sake as well. We need to celebrate to cope. Meanwhile, my lola is in Manila Memorial, her coffin on top of my lolo’s, which in retrospect was exactly the right place to put her.

posted by Jael @ 5:52 PM