EVANESCENCE

Unlike the characteristics that I use to mask myself, our house roofing is the opposite to it. Made out of tattered steel and nipa palm, with one huge blow of the typhoon wind, everything would be flown away to our neighbor’s backyard. The only way to keep our house together is to make up a contingency plan for our roofing. Together with my mama and papa, I’ll carry sacks of soil (that is almost the same size as my body) up to our roof until we cover some parts of it since we can’t place a lot over it, or else everything would all break down. Aside from that, we’d use carabao rope that we’d borrow from our farmer neighbor to tie all corners down. 

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But the real strength comes in the moment I would hear the whistle. It’s not the whistle noise made out of our childhood toys or even the one made by those dirty drunk men whenever they see a girl walk past them. It’s the ear-piercing, high-pitched, eerie whistle of the typhoon. It actually happens whenever a strong force of air passes by certain objects, and in our case, it would be from the trees and houses around us. I even remember back then when I was still a kid, I would get scared whenever I would hear it as I thought there was some kind of ghost going around our house. What made it more scary was the fact that there was no single light open because even our candlelight would sway every now and then because of the strong wind blowing. There would even be times that the “ghost” would bang on our flimsy door made out of tattered wood until it broke and fell over. Later on, I realized that the true ghost wasn’t what I had in mind. Not the one who whistles every after five seconds. Not the ghost who walks around our house. Not the ghost who bangs on our door, nonstop. The true ghost was nowhere close to any of that as it was actually what was left behind. 

“There is always sunshine after the storm” is one famous line that almost everyone knows. People take it positively, since in some aspects, it actually is a motivational quote. However, for us who actually experience the worst of all the typhoons in a year here in the Philippines, this sunshine is the type of sunshine that we always have prayed for to not come again. Supposedly, the sunlight shouldn’t pass through our house if it’s a normal day. However, after the typhoon, the inside of our house would be well-lit as if we had the sun placed right above us. Instead of appreciating the light that was given to us after days of gloomy mornings and pitch-black nights, it only breaks our hearts because everything becomes so clear. All the wall cracks would suddenly appear. The wet clothes and document papers that my mom would seal on a huge plastic bag would also have traces of water. But the most heartbreaking one would be us getting blinded by the sun as we look up, as the shade that we thought was the most secure, was nowhere to be seen. Despite all these, we need to, or should I say, I need to be strong, partially for my family but most of it is for myself. 

If you’d ask me what’s the human feeling that I hate the most, my only answer would be pity. I hate it so much because it makes my eyes water with our flooded home in front of me. Definitely, it was the worst feeling for me because as much as I wanted to encourage my family and myself with some motivation, it made my stubborn throat block the words I wanted to tell them upon seeing their tired faces. Pity has always been, and will always be the feeling that I wish never existed, at least for me. It breaks me, which shouldn’t be the case, because I’m strong, I should be one. In times like this, I hate to admit to myself that I’m weak because it’s not the way it's supposed to be.

One thing I realized in life, it’s pretty common for people to feel relieved after a challenging day. In this case, I can use my neighbor as one example. There’s this one moment when she stepped out of their concrete, 2-story house the day after the typhoon when the rain had stopped pouring, the first thing she wanted to do was to go for some furniture shopping. Another neighbor is out as well talking to other marites in the neighborhood as they eat the pomelo that fell off the tree. But for us, it’s a different story. We don’t have the privilege to relax as we need to move the banana trees that fell off in front of our gate and mop the floor inside our house as our parents do the fixing for our roofing. All of these should be done very fast or else the darkness will catch up to us. 

But honestly, my pity for my family and our situation goes a long way. It doesn’t stop there. Instead of fixing my broken self, it only grows in me. Days after all the fixing and recovering, there were nights that I would pretend that I was sleepy so I would lie down in the farthest corner of our bedroom right after our dinner. Caught in my breath, I would feel the swift constriction in my throat as I saw the light that entered our house through the holes in our wall that came from our neighbor’s well-lit house powered by the generator. Meanwhile, my sibling would be at our table having dinner, struggling to pick the fish bones because of our flickering candle. Pity is what I would feel again and it breaks me over and over again.

Whenever I tell people that I’m from Bicol, I usually get questions like “Malapit lang kayo sa Mayon?”, “Mahilig ka sa maanghang?”, “Kumakain ka ng bicol express?”, and the newest one is “Do you know Catriona?”. Of course, I would enthusiastically answer all their questions as if I were hired as Bicol’s tourism representative. I think, it’s in our nature as Filipinos to be proud of our country, especially our hometowns, which is why our direct response when people would ask us is to tell them all the good things about it. If I reflect deeply on myself, the Mayon, Chili, Bicol Express, and Catriona are all just words that are templated in my mind like a draft email that is ready to be sent anytime to someone who asks for a response. For me, Bicol wouldn’t be Bicol if I didn’t have my heart shattered after the casualties were declared at times during the Mayon volcano eruption. It wouldn’t be the Bicol I know if  I didn’t have myself broken by seeing my family struggle because of the typhoon playing around us. Yes, I’m an Oragon, a strong, tough, and brave person, as they say. However, why do I feel like the definition of Oragon gets blurred now, I’m not even sure if I still recognize myself as one, because even I hate to admit it, I’m broken inside.