Saturday Morning.

We woke up fairly early–around 6:30–because we were still on NY time. We just had an extended nap. We all washed up and went downstairs to see if anyone was awake. We were happy to be able to wear shorts–it had just snowed back home, and wearing long pants and long sleeves on the plane was torture.

We said good morning to my grandma (Ama, in Chinese). The second she saw me, she started crying. It’s like I’m a constant reminder of my mom, and her loss of my mom; the suicide attempt, her broken body. I cried too–now that I’m a mom, I can imagine my grandma’s pain. I don’t know what I would do. We then introduced her to Graem, who was being shy. Graem made Grandma smile, which made me feel a little better–that she’d accept Graem, and that her pain was eased if only for a moment. Shawna introduced herself, and my Grandma was accepting enough. We found that all of my relatives were kind and accepting, and allowed Shawna into the family–one less thing I had to worry about.

I had asked my Uncle Fred what needed to be done, and he explained the process in a convoluted way: we had to go to the chapel (funeral home), get the urn, approve the engraving, pay for the cremation, go to the church, go back to the chapel and spend as much time there. I figured that it would all fall into place, but it drove me nuts that there was no clear agenda or time frame. He also told us that we needed to dress up–shorts were too casual. No mention of white or black.

We got dressed, and hopped in the car with Uncle Bobby, Uncle Fred and the driver. It was a short drive to the chapel–down the road, past the McDonald’s (McDo’) a right, and then a U-turn around the boulevard. It was the second right or so from there. All the major roads are boulevarded, and you can only make U-turns and right turns–no left turns. I guess it kind of makes sense, that way you never have to cross traffic–just merge. There’s a lot of merging.

We got to the chapel–La Funeraria Paz–and my heart started to pound. I was scared, afraid to see my mom, and if she looked ok. The entrance was a covered port cochere, with steps up to the first floor. No doors, as much of the architecture in the Philippines is open. Each floor consisted of three or four private rooms, which were set up as chapels, complete with pews, a separate kitchenette and bathroom. The first floor were clearly the first class suites. The one furthest to the left had a ton of colorful paper “gifts.” Uncle Boy explained that those were to be burned as offerings, symbols of luxury items and amenities to follow the deceased into the afterlife. Some were made up to look like TVs and radios, complete with knobs and brand names.

We walked up to the third floor, my mom’s room was the last one on the right. I was afraid that there would be a smell, but it smelled mostly of old flowers and must, as most funeral parlors do. The room was yellow, with a barrel vaulted white ceiling. The pews were brown, and small table sat off to the right behind the last row. There were a few plastic chairs. As you entered, there was a small lectern with the sign-in book, and a sign with my mom’s name: Diana Dy Chiuten, Born: April 8, 1948; Died: April 18, 2007. It was so strange to see her name, the dates. The days were filled with little moments like this that made it more real, but in little snippets at a time. I would cry at random moments, but was never really overwhelmed with grief, not until the end.

My mom’s casket sat at the end of the room. It was gold with angels’ wings at the corners, the handles adorned with images of the last supper. To the left was her medical school graduation picture. It was strange to see it, as I have no visual (or auditory for that matter) memory of my mom. There were wreathes on either side of the casket, and a stand with mass cards on it. The clips on the stand were cast in the form of hands in prayer. I walked up to the casket, and looked in at my mom. Thank god, she looked good. Peaceful. They had fixed her teeth–her front teeth had been removed when she was first intubated back in 1984. They also made sure her face didn’t look sunken in, as I remembered from 1998 when I last saw her. She looked like a skeleton then. She had makeup on, with a white satin dress, and a blanket covered her up–including her one arm that she couldn’t bend down due to the paralysis. I peered down the casket and saw that her knees were still bent up–I guess I was glad that they didn’t try to force her to lie straight. She just looked peaceful and asleep. Finally.

I brought Graem up with me and told her that this was her grandma, her mommy’s mommy, and that she died. This was why we were all sad. She started repeating me, saying “Mommy died,” and we’d try to correct her with “Grandma died.” Grammy kept wanting to go up to the casket to see my mom, and it broke my heart every time–that she and my mom never met, and would never get to know each other; and that I’d only been able to shield my daughter from death for two and a half years. Once or twice she said “sleeping,” but I told her that it wasn’t. I know she’s fine, and will continue to be fine.

We hadn’t been there an hour when Uncle Boy asked me to go with him to talk to the urn guy. I took Grammy with me the first time, as I’d assumed it was just downstairs. We took the elevator down, which was just around the corner past the bathrooms from my mom’s room. We left Shawna and Uncle Bobby there to receive guests. We went outside, and just across the parking lot from the funeral home were a couple of small shops–the one on the left for flowers and wreaths, and we went into the one on the right to talk to the urn guy. My uncle conversed with him in Fookienese, so I picked up little bits here and there. Mostly I was trying to keep Grammy from running out the door. My uncle handed the guy a handwritten note with my mom’s name and birth/death dates–the first of at least three in the next two days. After a bit more conversation, my uncle explained that we had to go to another shop to pick out the urn.

I picked up Grammy and we all walked around the block to the urn shop. We had to step over 9″ high curbs, garbage and putrid water, piles of rubble, and down a street to get there. Meanwhile, motorized pedicabs and cars and jeepneys would speed by as I clutched Graem. The pollution was intense–my throat and lungs burned, and later that night my asthma would act up. The shop was just across the street, up a few stairs. Inside there were several people: one guy working on a tomb engraving, a bleached blond kid–maybe in his teens early twenties–and a woman just sitting around. My uncle talked some more with the urn guy who walked over with us. We saw the urns sitting on the bottom shelf, all marble of similar design. They were all turned on a lathe, with slightly different banding. My uncle picked one out, and the guy dusted it off. As he picked it up, I saw it. There was one that was different than all the rest–it had an hourglass shape to it. That was the one: I figured it was a little more feminine, and different. I asked my uncle if it was ok if we picked that one. I hoped the cost difference wasn’t a problem, but he made no indication that it was.

He continued to converse with the urn guy about the engraving. They showed us the one that they were working on–they were putting the gold leaf on it. The person’s name was in script at the top, birth and death dates just below. Then, in Chinese, were the birth/death dates; the person’s full Chinese/family names, and then the spouse’s and children’s names. They discussed some more, and then my uncle said, “I guess we can only do it in English, since we don’t know how to write your dad’s Chinese name, or yours.” I was kind of saddened by this, one more indicator of the loss of my heritage. But it was what it was, there would only be my mom’s name and dates in English script. I was fine with that.

We went back to the chapel, dodging traffic and filth once more. When we got back upstairs, Shawna told me that one of my mom’s classmates had stopped by. We sat around some more, drank some bottled water. Little time had passed when Uncle Boy said it was time to go again: this time, to visit Betty Chang in metro Manila, to talk to her about my mom’s cremation. I asked Shawna if it was okay for me to leave again, this time leaving Graem with her. Of course she said yes–Shawna was quite accommodating throughout the whole ordeal, and was able to entertain herself. I’m amazed and thankful; I’m not sure I’d be able to do the same were our situation reversed.

We drove a while this time, maybe twenty minutes or so through a ton of traffic. Off the main boulevard, this time I think it was the one that ran by the University of the Philippines, the streets were quite narrow. My uncle and I conversed about urban design and architecture–he was trained as an architect and designed both my grandmother’s house and my great-aunt’s. He talked about how there was no real zoning per se, and how it made no sense that all the universities were placed in the same district as bars and movie theaters, etc. I think I would disagree, as in the US, those are complementary uses that enliven the street. Maybe here there are just too many people, they don’t have to worry about dead streets!

As we turned onto the street that our destination was on, he commented about how backwards it was here: the cars park on the sidewalks and people walk in the streets! We found the building we were looking for, and hopped out of the car. The driver left to find a place to park the car and wait for us.

We went upstairs–it was a nice office building–and into the office looking for Betty Chang. She greeted us into her thankfully air conditioned office, where there were four or five other desks, with people at them–either on the phone or reading the newspaper. No computers, everything was written by hand. Again, she and my uncle conversed in Fookienese, something about my being the daughter, from the US, and then some numbers. I always have to count on my fingers when I hear numbers, especially because my counting stops at 10! My grandfather (Ankong) taught us numbers the first time we visited. I had to sign some papers and attest that I had paid 10,000 pesos for the cremation. At the current exchange rate, that’s about $200.

We left and had to walk back to the car. A campaign procession came by while we were walking–elections are May 14–cars lined up with loud music, people on loudspeakers, and lots of flyers. I saw barefoot children playing in the streets, horse-drawn calesas, cars parked on the sidewalk. We walked past a drainageway–it was filthy, the water was gray and trash-laden, and stagnant. There were shanties built over about half the width of the drainageway. I imagine sickness and death are close neighbors. We turned the corner and walked down a street of stores that sold light fixtures and metalwork–very cool stuff. I told my uncle that I did all the metal design in our office. He asked if I wanted to stop for noodles or something, I said no. We then stopped into a shop that was run by a distant relative, and as we walked up, the guy recognized me from twenty-plus years ago. I also recognized the shop: it was a beverage store, and sold soda and liquor. The bottles behind glass on shelves on the wall, the glass counter, and the cash register on the counter on the left were all familiar. Even the two soda cabinets filled with glass Coke bottles came back to me. It was weird, nothing had changed in twenty-four years, except me, it seemed like. They offered me a drink, and unfortunately, all I wanted was cold, clean water. I settled for some iced tea. My uncle got a pack of cigarettes and attempted to pay for it as well as my drink, but was told his money was no good there–we were family. They talked around me in Fookienese, and then it came up that I had grown up, and looked good. These were some of the few relatives that didn’t tell me I was fat.

I started to get anxious, as it was nearing noon and we had left Grammy and Shawna alone–and they were probably starting to get hungry. I told my uncle I was worried about Grammy, and we left. We walked around the corner into a parking lot, where my uncle called the driver, who quickly pulled up the car. I saw a mangy stray cat dart under an SUV. We drove back to the chapel, and discussed our lunch options. We decided to go back to the house so we could wash up and take a nap.