Of Remembering

Nonfiction by Zakiyyah Sinarimbo | November 8, 2015

The only sound that resonated in one of the crowded rooms inside the lonely
mansion at Lugay-Lugay Street was her loud, ragged, and pained breathing. It
was 9:45 in the evening, the night after Christmas in 2007. Families, relatives,
and friends, rushed from different distant cities and countries to Cotabato City
to be with her in her final moments. The golden silk curtains were drawn, the
air-conditioning unit was turned off, all the lights were switched on—brightly
illuminating every inch of every face, and of everything—in the house, and the
white narra door that was always locked was now left wide open for the people
to enter and see her in such a heart-breaking state.

She was lying on a hospital bed bought by her eleven children, six sons and five
daughters. IV needles were injected on her bruised right hand. She was wearing
an oxygen mask that did nothing but to amplify her agonized gasping for air.
Her black, thinning hair was tied into a messy knot. Here caramel skin was too
big and too loose for her now thin body. As I sat silently in a corner, my back
against the whiteness of the walls, she looked very small and shriveled as a leaf
that had fallen from the mango tree her firstborn son had planted in her garden.

The hushed sobbing of the crowd. The soft rustling of clothes being smoothed
down and brushed. The anxious patting of the bare and naked feet, as the people
in the room shifted their weight—left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot. The
holding of breaths. The passing of time. Her breathing slowly fading away.
Silence. Her youngest daughter’s horrified wail followed by her youngest son’s
urgent warning, “Stop it, stop it. Do not cry.” Her husband’s nervous laugh as
he tried to crawl out of the room. These were the sounds that pulsed in the room
as my heart thumped heavily in my chest.

One by one, the people left the room to privately mourn. Some went out to
smoke. Some went home. Some went to the kitchen to drink a glass of water.
Some made calls for the preparation of the funeral the next day. Only a few
remained to gently touch her face. Only a few remained to remove all the pins
that left purple stains on her hands and skin. Only a few remained to smoothen
out the tangles of her hair. Only a few remained to blanket her hair with a white
face towel to let her finally sleep.
I went with her grandchildren to one of the rooms in the house. It was the room
of her son in Japan, Bapa Pe, which was unoccupied, unused, and almost empty
the year round except for casual visits from relatives who would sleep there a
night or two from the farm. On the floor, a blanket was spread out by one of the
silent boys, her fourth grandchild Hassan. There, they lay motionless, wide-
eyed, and speechless. A knock came from the door. Hannan, a sweet-faced girl,
got up and opened it. The person who entered was one of the deceased’s older
daughters, Babo Babai, a thin woman in her trimester. She lay down beside her
nephews and nieces and asked, “Did you know what her illness was?” No one
from the group answered.

She calmly offered her answer. “Cancer.”

“What type?” I asked.

“Colon.”

“What is that?” It was Hassan who asked.

“It is the type that attacks a person’s large intestine.”

“Stage?” Dia, the deceased’s first grandchild, asked.

“Four.”

Their questioning about their grandmother’s illness lasted for an hour. That
night they learned the depressing truth about their grandmother’s condition and
struggles. Stage 4 colon cancer had no cure; it was one of the types of cancer
without the tell-tale signs and symptoms like the unusual yellowing of the skin,
weight loss, and weakness. The chemotherapy sessions their late grandmother
took only worsened her condition.

“But I thought chemotherapy killed cancer cells,” Hassan protested, hard-voiced

and confused.
“It does, but the healthy cells also die in the process for because they too are
exposed to the drug that prevents the cancer cells from dividing uncontrollably.”

Babo Babai also told them about the attempt of removing the malignant tumors
in the deceased’s large intestine by means of surgery. But that too proved not
helpful in saving her mother’s life. The tumors cannot be surgically removed
because they grew too close to each other and on the most sensitive part of the
large intestine.

That night, no one slept. All were anxious for the funeral next day. In Islam, a
dead body should be buried within twenty-four hours after the soul has left the
body. Otherwise, the burial would be considered as haram. But there are
exceptions to this rule. For example, if the dead body still needs to be travelled
from one place to another because the mourning family requests so, then the
funeral can take place after the body’s arrival where it would be buried.

At the deceased’s lawyer son’s house, I stayed with her grandchildren privately
mourning her death. Hannan retreated to her side of the room that she shared
with her two silent brothers. Her part of the room and her brothers’ were
separated by a patterned pink curtain. Hussayn, the oldest of the trio, climbed to
the top bunk of the double deck while Hassan, Dia and I sat on the lower bunk.

I noticed that Dia was tightly hugging a pillow, refusing not to cry. Hassan was
lying on his side, facing the white wall—the paint was beginning to peel off.

“Why don’t you just cry?” I asked her.

“I do not want Ina to suffer as she swims across the Sea of Sorrow towards
heaven,” she replied. Her lips trembled with her efforts of not giving in to
anguish.

“Why don’t you just cry?” I asked again.

“The more tears I shed, the deeper the Sea of Sorrow she needs to cross
become.”

I had nothing to reply so I just stared at her in awe.

“I do not want her to suffer by crying.”

It was the first time I saw a person so torn between what she really feels and
what she has to feel.

Before the body must be safely and securely locked underground, it must be
first cleansed and purified from all of the earthly pleasures it has experienced
and witnessed on Earth before facing the Almighty, a sacred rule that every
believer must follow and be granted upon death.

For her cleansing, she was carried from her bedroom to the makeshift cleansing
place—the kitchen where every window and door was closed and veiled away
from everyone except for those who would be part of the cleansing ritual. I was
fortunate to be part of that small crew.

In the kitchen, all of the furniture was removed and in place were three layers of
spread-out white cloths—wide sheets of cotton dusted with floral-scented
powder and sprinkled with the perfume the dead used to wear. It was musty and
sweet and tangy and it tickled my nose. Underneath all of the layers of cloth and
cotton and powder and perfume, there were three long strands of thin strings—
one on the top part, one in the middle part, and one for the bottom of the white
sheet. These strings would be used later to tie the sheets into a bundle.

There was a small, old lady who would bathe her. She was wrinkled and her
sunburnt coffee skin clung to her bones. Her bony hands and toes were as
crooked as her posture. As customary, there was no table. The deceased’s body
was to be laid down on Dia’s, Babo Babai’s, and my extended legs. As the old
lady poured lukewarm water to bathe the body, she recited verses from the Holy
Qur’an. She shampooed and soaped ever so tenderly that I wanted to shake the
life back into Ina Bili.

After she was finished being bathed, a blue bath towel was draped over her
body. Everyone who wished to bid her farewell were called and sent into the
kitchen. I sat there, wet and itching, watching how one must say goodbye to a
dear mother, grandmother, aunt, cousin, friend, and daughter. How each
message was desperately conveyed through a whisper, but most of time, would
soon end up being sobbed or muffled into a cry, a kiss, a touch, a look. These
are simplest gestures of saying goodbye.

Her face was serene and smooth as the old lady performed the final ghusl for
her. The ghusl was the cleansing ritual performed on the body by means of
ablution. She then was towel-dried and was gently placed at the center of the
white cloth and was neatly wrapped in the layers of powder, perfume, cotton,
and cloth. She was tucked away in her little white cocoon where no one could
taint her now pure yet lifeless body. She was almost prepared and ready for her
journey to the afterlife.

An orange Crosswind brought her to the farm where she was born and raised by
her Sultan father and her farmer’s daughter mother. We arrived at noon,
traveling with family, relatives, and friends. There was still time to offer a final
prayer for her. After the duhur, the noon prayer, we drove over to the meadow
that expanded to the open horizon. There were the sun, the clouds, the breeze,
and the birds. Everything was set for the funeral ceremony. Her cocooned body
that was blanketed in another cloth—a wide black prayer rug with a golden print
of the Kaaba—was carried down into the hole where, inside, another narrower
hole was dug on the left side where I was standing.

She was unwrapped of the black prayer rug and was carefully laid down on the
dirt floor of her dirt room. Three men worked to angle her body to face the dirt
wall. Her cocoon was then untied. The last layer of the white cloth that she way
wrapped in was securely pinned to the dirt wall by thin, tipped strips of durable
wood about three inches long. Three mud balls were placed at her nape: at the
small of her back and at her ankles to prevent her body from rolling over,
perpetually preserving her gaze and position to the direction of the Kaaba. Then
coconut lumber was angled to lock her away from the world above. As the men
were filling her grave with loose soil, an imam led a prayer among the red-eyed
people who had gathered, around where she was buried. There were also
curious, dirty, snot-faced children who joined in the prayer as they watched the
funeral took place.

When the hole was filled, a single lumber that was carved into the shape of the
domes of the masjid was forked on top of the grave, above where the head of
the deceased was supposed to be. The imam then poured water from a golden
metal kettle to where her head was and again recited a verse from the Holy
Qur’an.

I asked Babo Babai what the pouring of the water was for.

“It is for the dead to know that she is dead,” she said.

“How so?”

“The dead may appear dead to you, to us, but the truth is, they are only sleeping.
Heart beating ever so faintly that it seems she has no pulse. Her heart is still
there, her heart is still beating. Her soul is only sleeping.”

As the funeral ended and the crowd thinned, I was crouching near her grave,
wrestling with myself if I should play a song for her from the flute I brought
with me or cry just like how Dia cried to her mother when she learned it was
alright to cry for the dead. She was told that the dead would not suffer and
drown from the tears of those who were mourning. Or should I just dig her up
again because she was not really dead, but only sleeping.

At that moment, I was almost certain about two things. That, one, she would
have felt lonely waking up in her dirt bed inside her dirt room. After all, she
cannot be kept company by the memories of the dead. And that, two, I would
never come to love the beauty that was brought by the sadness of a funeral.