21st Century Literature of the Philippines and the World Lesson 4

Flowers in the Crypt[1]

By Catherina Garcia Dario

The woman on the photos was not there when Lolo died. She was not there when they wrapped up his
body and wheeled him to the morgue, nor was she at his wake when each of us bent to kiss his cold, pallid
forehead. On the day the oven lit up, I expected her to burst through the door, press her face against the glass
divider and weep while Lolo turned into ash. But the funeral went by along with the rosaries and novenas, plates
of puto and pan de sal; the ornate[2] flower arrangements embellished with long, silk ribbons that read: OUR
DEEPEST CONDOLENCES TO THE GARCIA FAMILY. I waited for her; I imagined her wearing the silver
cocktail dress that we found under Lolo’s bed. I remembered how Lola whipped out her scissors and cut it until
I did not know about Remedios–that was her name, I found out soon after–because Lolo hid her very
well. She was invisible during our beach trips, when he would prop me on his shoulder and carry me along the
shore. He would tell me all his stories about his hometown, his adventures in the war, my beautiful Lola and
how much he loved her. He told me neither of the house in Antipolo and the cousins I’ve never met, and when I
learned them through the cigarettes and coffee my mother and her sisters meditated over, I felt Remedios creep
up on me like a ghost. I did not know if Lolo really loved us, and I was not sure if he really knew how.
There was a moment, sixty years ago, in his home in Bataan. My mother told me that my great-grandma
stood at the top of the stairs, hurling[3] at her husband a heavy, leather suitcase. Lolo sat on the carpet below,
listening to her scream that she did not love him, and she never did. Out his father went and came in another.
Lolo’s mother had been making love to his gangly[4] piano teacher for years, and it took only the departure of
his father to finally conceive the three stepsiblings that dressed in black suit and standing over a bullet-laden
corpse. He was twelve-years-old with half-a-dozen more siblings pressed against another woman’s breast. He
said that the woman didn’t even know of him; he never expected her to.
He left for the war. The year the Japanese broke into his house and took tow of his half-sisters was the
same year he found himself outside a military camp, telling the soldiers that he knew how to cook rice and
polish shoes. For nearly three years he starched[5] uniforms and poured sake[6], almost collapsing under the
deafening siren of the air raids that jolted[7] him awake at night. When the war was over, he went back home to
his mother’s house. By that time the piano teacher had died of lupus, and she sat alone in a wicker chair,
scarcely lifting her head as she told him: “Oh Exequiel, Buhay ka pala.”
He could not forget those words; how his mother’s vacant eyes looked past broad, stocky shoulders and
the moustache that grazed his upper lip. He did not know her at all, and after she had sold their piano, the only
sound in their house was the tapping of her fingernails against her tocador. When Lolo left for university, she
sat on the bench and watched the bus whisk him away. He did not say good-bye.
It was in Manila where Lolo started smoking; selling handwritten poems off to friends and classmates
who wanted to please their lovers. He was driftwood–taking in all sorts of odd[8] jobs to pay for the series of
apartments he rented. The only way to finish his studies was to wake up at dawn and open the gates of the
university every morning, and he was relentless at it. He became a journalist, a businessman; a husband. He
married Lola two months after he published an article about the most beautiful girl on campus; Narcisa Cortez,
18 years old. 5”1, curly hair, high cheekbones, Cebuana.

3 of 3 Student Copy/ Handouts by Mrs. Rose Emmanuelle D. Garcia

This document is created solely for academic purposes and not for reproduction.
 21st Century Literature of the Philippines and the World Lesson 4

I had often thought that it was their abrupt, passionate romance that led their marriage to ruin. Lola sold
her mother’s jewelry in order to pay for the wedding, and not until Lolo landed a steady job in the newspaper
did they move out of his sister’s house. He worked nights chasing after politicians, inspecting car accidents;
searching for tapeworms in eateries. He came home to a wife too young and too eager to bear a man with his
ambition. She had pools to swim in and cigarettes to smoke; she could not wait for the phone to ring and Lolo’s
Mustang to appear in the garage. It was almost inevitable[9] that Remedios would come along.
I never met the woman, but all I know is that she had a long, white legs and copper hair at the time Lolo
hired her to work in his office. I do not know if she was his secretary or another journalist – Lola never told me,
and my mother could not bring herself to. But as the Polaroid showed, she was tireless on the dance floor and
she loved drinking champagne. She was not as beautiful as Lola, but Lolo took her to Japan and Switzerland;
bought her gowns and diamonds. He took their children to the beach, and he also propped them on his shoulder
as they walked along the shore.
For years, I harbored a coagulated[10] bitterness inside me. My mother told me of the moment her car
came to a halt at the traffic light and found herself staring at Lolo’s Mustang humming right next to her. In the
backseat was a girl wearing a school uniform, about ten years younger than she was. That evening, when Lolo
sat me on his lap and read to me his copy of Don Quixote, his words seemed to muck out of his throat. I could
not listen; could not look at him. How could I love somebody who did not know how to love?
I was eleven years old when he got a stroke. The phone call at two in the morning informed us that Lolo
had collapsed in his apartment and suffered multiple seizures. The CT scan showed that his brain had several
distensions[11] and swelled up to his skull like a balloon. I did not shed lightest tear, not even after he slipped
into a coma. When the drugs had seeped in and he finally opened his eyes, he was no longer Lolo. He was a
vegetable.
He lived for two more years. After months in Medical City, we transferred him back to his apartment in
Makati. My mother converted his bedroom into a hospital ward, and soon the curtains smelled like antiseptic
and the drone[12] of the lifeline monitor filled our ears. I hated visiting him, and I fabricated stories so that I
wouldn’t have to go: piles of homework, a migraine, “Sorry I think I have a practice for the school play.” I grew
numb of the weeping of my family. Lolo was a shell, and so was I.
On his last days, Lolo nursed a fever and a bout[13] of pneumonia. Lola had decorated his room with
statues of Sto. Nino and novena cards of the saints. The incessant[14] prodding[15] of my mother drove me to visit
him, and while a priest prayed over the live corpse that was Lolo, I sat in the cold, leatherette couch at the back
of the room. My sister beckoned[16] me to come closer and hold Lolo’s hand; watch his hollow eyes blink at me
while I murmured a prayer under my breath. “Lord, bless this loving man”, I heard the priest say. The knot in
my throat tightened.
On April 19, 2008, I held Lolo for the last time. I remember standing above his pale, stiff cadaver as the
man wiped his face with an acrid-smelling ointment. My mother insisted that the morgue was too heavy for a
young girl like me, but I insisted on going. I wanted to know what it was like to look at a dead person enveloped
inside a cold casket. I expected Lolo to open his eyes, sit up, stretch his arms and say “That was a good nap!”
while ambling out of the coffin with a glow on his face. It was a scary, bizarre[17] idea and when I touched the
icy coldness of his skin, I could not believe that I wanted it to happen.
My family told me to give him a eulogy. I declined. After watching Lola break down during the wake, I
was afraid that the same thing would happen to me. I listened to my titos and titas recite speeches, quote poetry
or movies that Lolo liked. Friends of his would come up to the podium and repeat themselves with: “Exequiel
was a remarkable man” over and over again. I went home with the words generous and loving glued to my
brain. My chest tightened as I thought about them.

3 of 3 Student Copy/ Handouts by Mrs. Rose Emmanuelle D. Garcia

This document is created solely for academic purposes and not for reproduction.
 21st Century Literature of the Philippines and the World Lesson 4

The post-funeral events kept my family busy. Distant relatives would appear out of nowhere, carrying
baskets of wine or fruit and sending cards that read: “We offer our deepest comforts.” So many people came to
the house to comfort my heartsick Lola, and I could not count the numbers of masses we attended; how many
candles we lit; how many friends that told me that my Lolo was in a better place. I wondered if Lolo really went
to heaven. When I saw the flowers hanging on the knob of his crypt, I knew that he did.
I was along when I saw it. There hung a humble bouquet of baby’s breath that was so small and plain
that it disappeared behind the extravagant flower arrangements that spelled out Lolo’s name. What drew me to it
was the small card attached to the thin ribbon that held the flowers together. There were names written on it–the
names of Lolo’s other children. Below theirs was Remedios’ signature. Remedios–the woman who did not
come to Lolo’s funeral, the woman whom he had four children with, the woman Lolo loved.
In that moment, I could see Remedios pacing restlessly by her phone, waiting for somebody to call the
moment Lolo got his stroke. I could imagine her hysterical in the arms of her children, begging to see him as his
brain engorged its memories away. And I could imagine her sneaking timidly into the crypt; attaching the
flowers to the knob and slipping away before anybody could see her. Remedios mourned[18] alone.
I could have pulled out the flowers, torn them up like her cocktail dress and her letters and her pictures.
But I could only think of Lolo, how he carried his other children the way he carried me as I balanced gingerly[19]
on his shoulders when he walked me down the shore. How he pointed out the horizon, teased me for being
scared, and said “You can try to swim so far and never touch the sun,”–I realized that it was not because Lolo
did not know how to love, but it was because he loved too much.
I left the flowers there, retreating back to the pew[20] as my family lit more candles and prayed. I thought
of his father walking out the door, the Japanese soldiers tugging at his sister’s hair; his nonchalant[21] mother
smoking on the porch. It was then when I stood up, joined my family and prayed.

Vocabulary builder:
1. (n.) a room under a church in which people are buried after they have died
2. (adj.) covered with decorations; covered with fancy patterns and shapes
3. (v.) throwing with extreme force
4. (adj.) tall, thin and awkward
5. (trans.v.) to make a clothing stiff by using starch
6. (n.) a Japanese alcoholic drink
7. (v.) to cause something or someone to move in a quick and sudden way
8. (adj.) strange or unusual; different from what is normal or expected
9. (adj.) sure to happen or is bound to happen; incapable of being avoided
10. (adj.) being clotted or congealed; to gather together or form into a mass or group
11. (n.) the act of distending or enlargement from internal pressure
12. (v.) to make a continuous low humming sound
13. (n.) a short period of time during which something is done or happening
14. (adj.) continuing without pause or interruption
15. (v.) stimulate or persuade someone who is reluctant to do something
16. (v.) make a gesture with the hand, arm or head to encourage or instruct someone to approach or follow
17. (adj.) very strange or unusual
18. (v.) feel or show sorrow for the death of someone, typically by following conventions such as the wearing of black clothes
19. (adv.) in a careful and cautious manner
20. (n.) a long bench with a back, placed in rows in the main part of some churches to seat the congregation
21. (adj.) feeling or appearing casually calm and relaxed; not displaying anxiety, interest or enthusiasm

References:
For vocabulary builder: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/
Martin, M.G.P, Guevarra, A.U., Del Campo, E.I., & Perez PhD, M.S.Q. (2016) Beyond Borders Reading Literature in the 21st Century, Phoenix Publishing House, Inc.,
927 Quezon Avenue, 1104 Quezon City

3 of 3 Student Copy/ Handouts by Mrs. Rose Emmanuelle D. Garcia

This document is created solely for academic purposes and not for reproduction.