one of my godfathers, tito ogie, died today.
he was one of my father’s brothers and, my mother alleges, his closest sibling.
she texted the family group chat saying, “Tatay’s super sad” with a crying emoji (the single tear one, not the over-exaggerated one), and it made me sad.
you never want to think about your parents hurting, but sometimes it can’t be helped.
i had plans to meet up with james for dinner, but i headed over to my parents’ place afterward just to be there, if anything, and maybe lend a sense of comfort and support. sometimes just being there can be enough, and it felt like one of those times family should band together.
my parents weren’t home when i got to their place. my mom had taken my dad out to do groceries to find a sense of normalcy, and then i think they went to tim hortons after, where i imagine they talked about everything.
weirdly, they bumped into my sister and john while they were out. apparently orpah had gone to pick up some stuff for them and was planning on bringing it by the house later.
“what were you picking up for them?”
“food and snacks, the thing i always get people when they’re sad.”
apparently my mother had just mentioned john in random conversation when my dad spotted him in a parking lot, and i’d like to believe tito ogie’s spirit had a hand in that happy coincidence.
i was playing video games when my parents got back. my dad seemed normal, if maybe a little down. my mother says that time heals all wounds, and for my dad it only takes a few hours.
he went to his computer and started watching videos like normal, but later, a little before i left, he talked with me and omri and said he was sad.
the last time he saw tito ogie was in 2003, which was 18 years ago. he’d been in china when we were last in the philippines in 2012. my dad said he was sad because he was hoping he’d get the chance to talk to him again, and i thought about the different ways life might pull people away from each other.
i can’t even imagine not seeing one of my siblings for 18 years and then never being able to see them again. it’s a devastating thought to me, and i wonder if my dad felt the distance of the years. so much can happen in that span of time, and it’s hard to believe anyone can stay very much the same through it all. i wonder if they felt a bit like strangers to each other, or if in the end, all that mattered was that persistant familial love.
it’s strange because even though i didn’t really know my godfather very well, i still kind of feel the loss. i was just a child the last time i saw him, but i remember him being a kind-hearted, vibrant and generous man. i have vague memories of my siblings and i running around his house (or was it a workshop?) and gawking at all the sculptures and woodwork. it was really quite beautiful to me as a child.
i wonder about the intricacies and complexities of his life. he was my father’s only gay sibling so i feel a sense of kinship there. i wonder about his joys and sorrows, his proudest moments and his buried secrets. what had been his greatest hopes and fears, and had he been happy with the life he’d made for himself? there are so many parts to him that i will never know. i wonder what exactly makes up a single human life. maybe one day i can piece a few things together from stories told across a table. i’d like to think we live on in the people who love and remember us.
on my walk home, my eyes stung as if i’d been crying, though i think it was probably just from the cold. still, there’s something about death that makes things sullen and heavy, and i thought about the trajectory of my own life, and about the people who i wish were still close but who life and circumstances (sometimes of my own making) have driven from me.
sometimes i think about reaching out, being honest and laying everything on the table, but i worry it would be redundant, and i know that when you force things, they often break. but anyway, that’s a conversation for another time.
all i know is that tonight got me thinking about how you should stay close to people if you can. bridge the distance whenever possible and don’t let silly things get in the way, because you never know when it’ll be too late.