Of tombs, memories during solemn Undas

Baguio City — Filipinos hold an annual pilgrimage to cemeteries on All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day, or Undas, visiting the final resting places of their dearly departed to pay their respects and keep their memories alive.

Whenever families gather at the Baguio Public Cemetery to clean and prepare the tombs of their loved ones, my heart retreats to the past and the longing for lost family members.

I remember my father, my two brothers, and my two sisters, all of whom left this world many years ago. Today, I am the only surviving child in our family.

My father passed away when I was an eight-month-old infant. Our eldest brother, Manong Juan, died shortly after birth, as did my sisters, Manang Josefa and Manang Virginia, who passed away just days after being born in the early 1970s.

Decades later, in 1997, my brother Manong Anthony was killed by robbers who targeted him for his service firearm. He worked as a security guard and was set to graduate with a criminology degree that year.

Decades have passed, yet my heart is still heavy over their absence. Through all the years of poverty and hardship that my mother, my late brother Anthony, and I endured, our father, Manong Juan, Manang Josefa and Manang Virginia were not there to share the burden.

I often thought that if only my elders had not passed away so soon, we might have had a better life — rather than struggling like the lowest of society, relying on the meager earnings we made as ambulant vendors for our daily food.

Now that I am the only sibling remaining by my mother’s side, it breaks my heart to realize that we never had the chance to enjoy life physically together as a complete family.

Yet, over the years, I have built a different kind of bond through my visits to their graves.

Standing before their tombs, I speak to them as if they were right in front of me, telling them how deeply I miss them. I have poured out my heart and wept before them during times when life felt unbearable, when hope seemed lost, and when I wanted the pain that life brings to end.

I also recall the comfort of sharing my moments of joy with them. I remember telling them how happy I was when I held my first-born child for the first time, and how blessed I felt to find a wife who loved me unconditionally, regardless of my background, who built a life by my side.

In recent years, I have felt a kind of guilt because I have rarely visited our family “garden” where my father, my brothers, and my sisters lie at rest. But this “Undas,” I hold them close to my heart, remembering them and cherishing every memory they left behind.