Fallen from Grace

It seems like just yesterday, when i posted about somebody's death. But if a lot of people were saddened with Jerome's death, nobody was for my poor old Aunty Grace's.

On our way home from the airport, two weeks ago, my mom told me she was dead. She died the day before i arrived. i asked my mom where the wake was being held. "Angeles, Pampanga, " came the reply. She didn't know anybody in Pampanga. She wasn't from that place. i found myself dozing off in the backseat of my cousin's car headed towards Angeles. We found the wake - empty, save for three househelps giggling in a corner. There were four wreaths - one from her adopted daughter's family, one from her sister-in-law's family, one from the funeral parlor, and one from her insurance company.

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She was a character. she was described as an attractive and powerful woman, her face always made up , her hair high, and always dressed in a balloon skirt and high heels in the 60s and 70s. Sepia pictures displayed on her dusty table showed her in parties with the distinguished and elite people of the town.

She was mean. No househelp could stand her long. She accused one of stealing and clipped her hair bald. i heard of others being bruised before being sent away. A cousin of mine who stayed with her for some time never got married as Auntie Grace would frighten all her suitors away. Relatives feared her.

She was scary. My mom told us this story a long time ago. She had a fight with Auntie Grace in college and while coming out of the campus, she was dragged into a car by two unidentified men. Luckily she escaped. She somehow connected that incident with her fight with the old lady but didn't give out details.

But i never knew that mean old lady. The Auntie Grace i knew was a funny, frail old woman whom i always kid around. When her adopted daughter moved to Manila, the old lady was left alone in her house. The thieves knew of this and kept robbing the house that she literally sealed herself from the outside world out of fear. On her door she wrote in scrawny letters with a piece of chalk: "Beware robbers! High Tech Security Gadgets around. You are being watched by a secret camera."

Every week after school i'd check on her, fearing that she might have fallen down her stairs and was already decomposing without anybody noticing. Or maybe murdered by a robber who wasn't fooled by her door warnings. Oh but she was deaf! She wouldn't hear you if you called her name. From the outside, you'd think the house was deserted. I would throw about 3 or 4 stones against her window before she took notice. then she'd yell (to which i'd say to myself, oh she's still alive). She'd look out to see who was throwing stones at her house and would be thrilled to see me stading by her gate. Then she'd rush downstairs and start unlocking her door with her bunch of keys. there had been more than 5 bolts on that door.

I'd stay for some chit chat and then she'd ask me to play the piano for her. She was good player until her arthritis got to her fingers. She thought i was a prodigy (she exaggerates) and volunteered to give her piano to me when she died. She told me to take up Music at the Abelardo. A few years later, her house got flooded and, to my dismay, ruined the old piano. Good thing i had already stolen most of her pieces.

i was the nephew she liked most. she didn't like a lot of people.

Then the stroke came. And then the fractured hip. And the burden she caused her adopted daughter's family. And a lot more stories of pain and suffering. The once powerful and feared lady was reduced to a cripple.

And then finally death. Maybe she had been praying for it to come. She went silently knowing that her passing away would ease many tired hearts. She made a lot of enemies. i doubt it that she had friends. It is sad that she was buried in a place where no one cared for her, or knew her for that matter. But what is death anyway? "Death may be the greatest of all human blessings," so says Socrates. Maybe it was for my dear old Auntie Grace and the people around her. And in her passing, no tears were shed.

i don't think she will be missed by anyone but me.

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my first metion of aunty grace on this blog was this.

and then the hip replacement.