If I had not felt the gentle brushing of humid air on my face, I wouldn’t have remembered that I was actually alive. I was alone, sitting silently inside my hospital room, waiting for the smell of flowers to creep up my nose, and when I exhaled, I was almost sure that out with it I’d exhale my soul. My Lola once told me that before people die, the scent of deaths’ flowers would hover about in the air. It is the call of death, the moment when we only have a few seconds to recall, reminisce and ponder on what kind of life we have lived. We remember what we have done, who we have hurt, and who we have loved. When inhaled, it comes into our bodies, moves about gently shutting down each of our organs; and when it’s time to exhale, it carries us to heaven as we close our eyes.

That December I celebrated my birthday in the hospital. It was that time of year when pollen was scattered in the air; weeds and flowers would bloom along the roadside waiting for little boys to pluck them from their roots and to give them to their little sweethearts.

I had a little sweetheart who walked on crutches. Everyday before he went home from school, he brought me flowers that were actually weeds with stems and pretty green petals that looked like minikin gerbera blooms. As a child, I didn’t know they were weeds and neither did he. I loved those pretty flowers even if they look so much like the flowers my Lola burned when she trimmed the hedges and swept the garden every Saturday. Once, Lola made the mistake of burning what my little sweetheart brought me. Oh, I felt terrible! I’d left them on the dinner table and forgotten to put them away in my room. Every time he brought me flowers I would put them in a small vase with water, and I would only throw them in Lola’s fire heap when he visited again with a new cluster of little blooms.

I didn’t know what to do so I cried, and when Lola saw the tears brimming my eyes and falling on my cheeks, she went out to the neighbors’ garden and came home with a small bouquet similar to the one she had accidentally burned. I felt better, but that day became our little secret. And because he labored each day to bend over by the roadside to pick flowers to put in my vase, I never told my little sweetheart my Lola burned the flowers he had given me that one time.

The flowers would turn brown very fast, overnight sometimes but I kept them in a little vase painted with blue flowers and Chinese characters until a new set of flowers took their place. Lola gave me that vase when once she saw me putting the flowers in a soft drink bottle. She took the vase out of her special antique cabinet, which was kept locked everyday, and told me that it was very precious. It came from her mother and was passed on to her some years back.

Sometimes I put the flowers in my hair, and because I was so insecure, I recited the Ave Maria in broken Spanish in front of the mirror while pretending that I was one of my Spanish cousins with high aquiline noses and deep-set eyes. As a child I never thought I was beautiful, I believed I looked like a stick drawing - frail, with pale corn yellow skin, with slits for eyes and a big head, thin lips and stringy hair. The only suitor I had was my little sweetheart, he visited me everyday at my Lola’s house and we’d sit together on the old patio and have a tsokolate eh drinking race.

Unlike other seven-year-olds who spent their afternoons playing patintero, sipa and agawan base, we often sat together in the sala on the gallinera to watch Little Lulu or Sesame Street on TV. In the dusk, we stood on the flat roof of my Lola’s house and flew small boka-bokas made of special Japanese paper from the bookstore. Sometimes I saw my little sweetheart looking down from the rooftop at the other children who played running games and wondered if he’d rather be down there than up on the roof with me and our tiny kites. I often wished I were not asthmatic and he were not disabled so that we could join their games. I wasn’t even allowed to step out to buy taho from Mang Perding when he passed by every early morning.

Our maid, Inday, did all the errands; whenever I wanted something from outside the house, she would run and get it for me. At first I thought Inday was the answer to everything I needed. She had magic hands; whenever she cut flowers from the garden, they would stay alive in a vase for a week even if they had no more roots. Inday knew what I liked, and every time she stepped out for errands she’d come back and bring me all sorts of pasalubong: binatog, taho, dirty ice cream, ice scramble, balut, pancake ala pobre, buko juice or fresh sugar cane from street vendors that passed by. She was my hero. A few weeks before I was confined, a typhoon struck, and finally I realized that Inday was mortal. Braving the flood, she tried to save our dog Monay as he was being mercilessly washed away to Pasig River by the heavy current. Inday had clung unto an electric post and was later saved by my uncle almost before she too was to be washed away by Typhoon Isang. Monay was gone and later in the evening Inday fell ill with flu and had to be taken to the hospital the next day. I wept and thought that Inday was on her way to heaven without me. I cried so hard that I had an asthma attack and had to be taken to the hospital too. Lola stayed with us in the emergency room and after a getting a prescription for antibiotics and inhalers, we all went home. Inday knows better now not to get drenched in the rain and has gone back to taking care of me when I had my asthma attacks whilst I remained a spoiled cry baby brat.

The only real outing I had was church day. Every Sunday, Lola and I heard mass at the Basilica San Juan. Now, I call it my basiliquette, a small basilica. It could barely hold two hundred people and was always very crowded on Sundays to the point that some churchgoers listened to the sermons from outside. God must have so much money, I thought. Imagine the multitudes that come to mass and drop coins in the offering basket! I bet She had more than what my alkansyang lata could hold. Of course as a child I only saw the church when it was full; I believed that it was always as full and as lively on days other than Sunday. And I wondered where God kept all Her money.

After mass in the morning, Lola and I took home bibingka wrapped in old telephone directory pages from vendors outside the church for our breakfast. We couldn’t stay long, there were too many people and the smells of the morning didn’t blend well with the crowds’ muck of sweat. We always left hurriedly on the first tricycle that would take us home.

My little sweetheart never went to church with us, nor did I see him there. Lola said he was from a different church. We were Catholic; he was a Baptist. I didn’t know what a Baptist was; I thought he was baptized every time he attended their services. Whenever I saw him, his hair looked wet all the time but not a drop fell on his clothes - Probably an after-effect of all that water they poured on him every week. Later on I found out that he wore pomada whenever he visited me; he wanted to look neat. And he wasn’t baptized with water at every Baptist Service, but he told me that the minister baptized him with the Holy Spirit every week. When he said that I wondered why they had to be baptized with the Holy Spirit when we Catholics always acknowledged its presence more than five times a day when we make the sign of the cross at morning prayers, breakfast prayers, lunch prayers, dinner prayers and evening prayers - not to mention prayers whenever we ate merienda. Maybe it was always on our shoulders and not on theirs?

When I asked my Lola, she didn’t know the answer either. One Sunday after mass, I tried asking Father Lorenzo, but I think he was asleep while listening to my confession. I decided to ask God directly but the sound of many little boys and girls asking questions must confuse Him, so I reckoned to wait until I was grown up; Lola said that only a few grown-ups prayed, so I’d probably be first in line when I ask my question. I was satisfied with that and was sure that I could wait till then. I even wrote it down in my diary so that I would never forget to pop the question when the right time came.

One humid afternoon, I was sitting on the patio waiting for my little sweetheart’s visit when our neighbors’ tricycle sped by quite close to where I was sitting. I was too distracted by the loud purr of the motor that I did not move away from the patio when smoke spurted out of its clanky muffler. It tipped over as I heard it’s horn blow repeatedly as if warning a stray dog to move out of its way. I inhaled the smoke by accident and fell to the floor. I tried to call Inday but my voice went hoarse while I gasped for air. I managed to cough loudly and use my bakya to make noise on the wooden floor. Inday came running from the back of the house, and a few meters away from where I lay, I heard her scream, “Josko! Josko! Ano nangyari?” (Oh god! Oh God! What happened?) I could hardly speak, everything became a whirl of colors and sounds. I felt her carry me in her arms everything was silent.

Aba ginoong Maria
Napupuno ca ng gracia
Ang Panginoong Diyos ay sumasaiyo

I could hear them in the background. Angels must be praying for my soul.

Bucod cang pinagpala sa babaeng lahat
At pinagpala naman ng inyong anac na si Hesus

“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.” I felt something on my forehead. Was it Ash Wednesday? Someone drew a cross with his finger on my forehead.

I opened my eyes and around my bed there were none of God’s angels, only my Lola talking to the priest and Inday praying the rosary.

“She will feel very bad when she hears what happened,” Lola said in low tones. I felt so nauseous that I could not make out the rest of the story. Inday sat still by my bedside with only her lips and her fingers moving from one rosary bead to another.

The priest left quietly after talking to Lola and so I asked when we could go home. Lola said we’d go home in a week or so, until my cough got better. I told Lola how excited I was to leave the hospital and that I wanted to get better so I’d see my little sweetheart again soon. Lola froze as I mentioned his name; Inday paused and stopped praying. Both of them looked at me with blank stares as I have never seen them look at me like before.

At that moment, I felt like I was waiting for something to be said. I didn’t know what the looks meant but I knew that something important was going to be said.

I looked at my Lola and she said, “He didn’t make it.” Lola tried to tell me something but I didn’t understand. For some strange reason, I knew there was something wrong. Lola did not finish her story, she motioned to Inday to tell me.

“Yesterday when you fell on the patio floor while waiting for him to come, the tricycle that sped by so close to you tried to avoid him as he bent over to pick up the flowers he dropped in the middle of the road. The tricycle did not miss him. Both of you were brought here to the same hospital but he didn’t last the evening. He was too bruised and hurt from the hit that his body became too weak to respond to the medicines.”

Inday went on and on but at that moment, all I heard was what she said between her sobbed words. He was gone.

Death to me was unfamiliar. No one as dear and close to me had ever died before. The pain was new. I felt like my heart was breaking while my whole body shivered and I felt very cold.

There was no one to bring me flowers. There was no one to fly kites with me. There was no one to have a hot chocolate drinking race with me. There was no one to visit me in the afternoons.

Lola said my little sweetheart was in heaven and that I should be glad he went up there. I didn’t think I wanted to go up there just yet, and I’m sure he didn’t either. Best friends stayed together right? So why did he leave ahead of me? I did not understand how he could want to go to heaven just yet when he said we’d go visit the carnival when I got better and when he could someday walk.

Sometime ago, I told him the story about the scent of flowers and he laughed. He said he’d bring me flowers everyday to show me that I wouldn’t die after smelling them; that I would have another day to live. So everyday I waited for him at the patio, and I’d smile when he arrived bringing flowers for me. I haven’t smelled any flowers since the day I fell on the patio, but today I was waiting for their sweet smell to come and take me to him. But maybe when the scent creeps up my nose, it would mean exactly what my little sweetheart said. Some how I wish he still would bring me flowers everyday to show me that I have still another day to live. But maybe Lola’s story is true. And when the scent of flowers comes, I’ll know that he has come to take my soul to heaven.

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Vocabulary:
Lola - Tagalog word for Grandmother
Patintero, Sipa, Agawan Base - Filipino games children play in the streets
boka-boka - home-made rectangular kites
tsokolate eh - think hot chocolate
binatog - dessert made of corn
taho - dessert made of soybean
dirty ice cream - slang for ice cream peddled on the streets
ice scramble - dessert peddled on the streets made of ice, milk powder, chocolate sauce, sugar and sago (tapioca balls)
balut - Philippine delicacy, a day-old chick
pancake ala pobre - yellow pancakes peddled near churches
buko juice - coconut water
alkansyang lata - coin bank made of tin
bibingka - rice cake
pomada - a hair cream that makes hair look glossy
merienda - Filipino afternoon snack usually eaten at 3pm
bakya - wooden slippers

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The author is a freelance writer and was a columnist for the Manila Times.  She dabbles in teaching self defense for women and once in a while, tries her hand at creative writing and writing about LGBT issues.