Dear Friend and Reader:
SHORTLY AFTER the death of her second husband, I remember Mama talking loudly in the middle of the night. She was invoking the names of her father, her first husband: my father Felix, her second husband Lorenzo, her dead brothers Joe and Frank, and having a loud and lively conversation as if a family reunion, a party complete with food and drink, was taking place in her bedroom.
Wakened from a dream where I was at a family party with Mama, I listened in. Was I dreaming or was there really a party going on in another part of the house? I was sleeping in the next bedroom to keep a watch on her as we prepared for Lorenzo’s funeral. We all called him Bob and I always believed he was the true love of her life.
“Tatang (Grandpa), Bob, Jose!” Mama cried out. In half-consciousness I realized the party I was at with my relatives was not a dream. The ghosts were here. Still heavy from sleep, I moved my limbs, getting up to go to her bedroom. Her bedroom light was on full blast, she was half-sitting up in her bed. Her eyes were shut. She was still talking. I sat down slowly and carefully on the side of her bed, watching her, waiting for her to awaken and see me, full and alive, by her side.
The energy in the room was expectant. I dared not startle her awake, believing my mother was sleepwalking while in bed. She was calling to them as tears started to come. I held her and calmly rocked her awake.
“Fe, nakong (my child), they’re here.”
I held her like a mother holding a baby until its crying subsided. I put both hands on her shoulders, asking calmly, “Mama, what is it that they want?”
“They wanted to know if I wanted to go with them now,” she cried. I knew that once again she was touching the edges of the veil between the living and the dead. This was nothing new for her.