Filed under: Cup of Sweet and Bitter Musings
Beat the rush by filing a one-day leave in the office. Reach the bus terminal to find a long line to the ticket window. (Faint.) Start singing in my head to occupy myself while standing in line for hours. Ready to dish out a two-disc album from all the singing. Line is barely moving. Pay the P400.00+ fare and wait another hour for the bus to arrive. Third CD is in the making. Sleep on the bus ride home. Wake up to a sunny day. Get up to prepare for a long day. Decide who holds the flowers in bouquets and the ones on vases. Argue more. Finally gets hold of the bouquets. Ride the mini bus to Aringay cemetery by ten in the morning. Picture-taking on the way. Glare at those who stare. Greet the early-comers. Lay the flowers on our great granparents’ tombs. Light candles. Pray. Observe the teens who look like they came to party. Groove a little to the upbeat music of the cemetery’s loud sound system. Picture-taking some more. Cross the road to the memorial park and place the set of flowers and candles on other relatives’ grass-covered graves. Have lunch at the ancestral house just past the Aringay wet market. Go home. Take a nap. Wake up at three in the afternoon. Ride the tricycle to Bauang cemetery. Weed the way through the thick crowd. Lay flowers and candles to the great grandparents’ and grandaunt’s tombs. Attend mass via the loud broadcast from the center of the cemetery. Stay a little. Picture. Go to the nearby memorial park to visit other relatives’ graves. Say a prayer in a friend’s. Make chikka with acquaintances met along the way. Get wet a little, the annual drizzle is here. Say goodbyes. Step on tombs (which I do not really like doing if I have a choice) to go to the parking lot at the other end. Huddle inside the uncle’s car. Heave a sigh of relief as rain starts pouring outside. Go home.
Here goes the annual Undas ritual for the family.
Oe thing is different though.
I missed it this year.
