It used to be that people asked me what I think my Dad would like for a birthday present. People also used to ask me to say something about my Dad in a video presentation they were preparing to honor him on his birthday.

Since August 5, 1992, my answers have been consistent: I don’t think my Dad or my family feel like celebrating my Dad’s birthday anymore.  People thought I was being a party pooper.

For those who have been friends for a long time, they know that my brother Jonathan died on August 5, 1992. His death on the day before my Dad’s 54th birthday has really dampened all my Dad’s birthday celebrations forever.

Jonathan went to school on that day because it was a normal school day.  It was a Wednesday. I had no classes at the UP College of Law so I went to Marilao, Bulacan.  It was my husband’s aunt’s birthday on August 5.  His aunt, Irinea was the only living immediate relative of his mother, Ma. Loreto. There was a lunch at their house and I was invited. Lanly and I were already engaged to be married at that time.

After the lunch, I hitched a ride with Lanly’s aunt and uncle and they dropped me off at EDSA corner Munoz.  I decided to go straight to Project 8 for the prayer meeting instead of going back home to Mandaluyong because it was nearly 4pm.

My Mom and my Dad arrived at the church an hour after I arrived.  My brother, Doc Sam arrived almost the same time.  He came from his classes at UP.  My brother Mars was a student in UP Baguio.  My brother Paul had just finished his classes at the UP College of Law and he went home to get some sleep– law students are always sleep deprived.  My sister was working and studying at the same time (same as me) and she came straight home from work.

Jonathan woke up around 4pm from an afternoon nap.  The deal was, he would not be allowed to watch TV if he did not take an afternoon nap.  He took a nap and so he earned the right to watch TV.  At around 5 my Tita Becky called Jonathan to come down and take merienda.  Dinner at our house was usually at 9pm: the common time we were all home.

Jonathan told Tita Becky that he had learned how to fly.  My Tita Becky didn’t really listen to Jonathan’s story.  She had to make dinner.  Jonathan went back up to watch TV.  Tita Becky made dinner.  Paul was napping and so was Delle.

At 8pm, Paul woke up from his nap and started reading his cases for the next day.  Tita had finished making dinner and she called Jonathan to come down and take his dinner.  He had to be in bed by 9pm.  Jonathan did not come down and he did not answer.  Tita Becky (she was suffering from gout in those days) had to climb to the second floor and talk Jonathan into taking his dinner.

When she got to my parents’ bedroom, she screamed.  Jonathan was blue.  He was hanging from the curtain on the window of my parents’ bedroom. The curtain was looped around his neck.

My Tita Beky’s screams woke Delle and alerted Paul. They rushed to my parents’ bedroom and took Jonathan down.  Delle carried him to the corner.  She laid him down on the table used by the newspaper vendors while she tried to flag down a cab to take Jonathan to the ER at Lourdes Hospital.

In the meantime, after the prayer meeting, a member asked us to drop by the Polymedic General Hospital to visit a new member who had an emergency appendectomy.  We went there and stayed for a few minutes. We prayed with them  and then we went home.  We took the road from Libertad Market down to Nueve de Febrero.

When we got to the house, the house was ablaze.  All the lights were on, the gate was wide open, my brother Paul was staring blankly at the street.  It was my Dad who said “Something’s wrong.”

Before my Dad could come into the driveway, my brother stood right in the car’s path.  He then went to my Dad’s window and said, “They’re not here.  Dinala siya sa ospital.  Nasa ospital sila. Si Tita Becky, si Delle, si Jonathan. ” He did not know which hospital Jonathan was taken to.

My brother, the strategist of his fraternity, a deliberate and calculated thinker, was incoherent for the first time in his life. He was rattled and he was in shock.  None of us were able to get down from the car.  We went back to the Polymedic General Hospital to see if they were there.  When we got there, I got down from the car to ask if Jonathan was taken there. The Polymedic ER was quiet.

My Dad drove almost leisurely to the Lourdes Hospital.  When we got there, no one wanted to go down except me.  I went down and saw my sister.  She was wearing a different slipper on each foot.  Her face was tear-stained.  She was disheveled. She was wearing her bedclothes.  She was trembling and saying over and over to me, “Ayaw tumigil ng mga taxi.  Ayaw nila akong isakay.  Ayaw nila, ate. ”

I saw my aunt at the lobby.  She was dazed and she was not talking. She was wearing her house shorts and her kitchen apron. She had a leather purse draped on her arm.  It all seemed so funny because I still did not understand what was going on until I went inside the ER.  I saw Jonathan on a gurney.  They were trying to resuscitate him but the monitor had registered a flat line. I could not understand.

Around me, the doctors were all saying that they tried their best to resuscitate him but he was DOA.  I walked back to the parking lot and called Dad.  In the darkness of the parking lot, my Mom, my Dad and Sam were all sitting in the car, scared out of their wits and unable to move.

I explained to my Dad that he had to go in there.  He demanded to know “Why?”  I explained to him that he had to see his son. “What for, is he dead?” And I couldn’t say.  I had no words.  I grabbed my Dad’s arm and led him to the ER.

When we got in there, my Dad wailed out Jonathan’s name.  He took Jonathan in his arms and hugged him.  A sound of saliva going down the boy’s esophagus startled my Dad.  He said, “Doc, is he still alive?  Is my son still alive?”  The doctors tried to explain.  My Dad was inconsolable.  “Naku, Dios ko, bakit po?  Bakit po?  Bakit po ngayon pang gabi?  Galing pa naman kami sa church?  Panginoon, bakit po siya?  Naglilingkod po naman kami, bakit po siya?”

I tried to talk to my Dad about the autopsy.  The head of the ER unit took me aside and explained to me that they could not release the body to me unless and until an autopsy is authorized.  I must have nodded.

I tried to talk to my Dad.  I went to the cashier’s office and got a copy of the bill. I asked my Dad for money.  I paid the bill.  My Dad and my sister Delle were hugging each other. I waited for the hospital staff to wrap the body and I accompanied Jonathan’s body all the way to the basement, to the morgue.  I remember saying “Don’t be afraid of the dark, Jonathan. I’ll come back for you.”

We all went home after my Dad signed the authorization for the hospital to release to body to the medico legal officer.  I remember going back to Roosevelt Avenue to the Tres Amigos funeral homes to ask if the autopsy had already been done and I was told that the autopsy was still going on.

I went back to Mandaluyong.  I was with my Dad when we chose a casket. When we got back home, the table was set for dinner but none of us could eat.  My mother was desperately trying to call my brother at his boarding house in Baguio to tell him to come home.  My brother was still out when my mother first called.  When my mother tried again, my brother was already asleep.  My mother left a message with a roommate and with the landlady for my brother to come home.

At midnight, Bro. Boy Aguinaldo and his family came to the house and they brought a crema de fruta from Goldilocks with them.  They wanted to be the first to greet my Dad a happy birthday.  When they got there, they were shocked.  I was the only one who ate the crema de fruta.

The next morning, the school bus service stopped by for Jonathan.  I got on the service and I took the ride that Jonathan took everyday on his way to school.  When I got there, I spoke with Jonathan’s teacher.  I spoke with the principal.  I spoke with Mrs. Adelina Duarte.

I think I still went to my classes at the UP College of Law later that day only to tell my professors that I would not be staying for class because my brother had just died.  I remembered I wanted to look for Prof. Merlin Magallona.  I needed to talk to him to tell him that my brother had died.  I took Jonathan with me to my class in Public International Law because I wanted to take Jonathan to ride in the roller coaster at the UP Fair.  The Sunken Garden was just across from the Malcolm Hall.

Jonathan was outside looking at the fair from the balcony of our classroom.  Prof. Magallona came in and sat at the teacher’s desk and he began taking roll.  Then Jonathan came in.  Prof. Magallona said “My goodness, are they accepting younger and younger students each year?”  He then addressed Jonathan “Are you lost, little boy?”

Everything else was a blur. All I remember was crying all the time. All I remember was lying down in my pajamas on the sofa in the living room listening to Enya and to Julia Fordham.  At night, all of us slept in one room.  I was walking in a daze. I went to my classes but the words of the cases I was reading swam before my eyes.  I could not think.  I could not concentrate.

I’d be walking feeling like my old self on moment and then a sudden thought flashes through my mind; I see Jonathan’s face and I dissolve in tears.  I thought I was losing my mind. This went on for weeks until one day I took all of Jonathan’s things and started cutting out his drawings, his favorite books, I started collecting photographs of him and I began making an album for him. It was the outworking of my grief. When I finished the album, I thought the hole in my chest would finally heal. It did not. But the pain from it did not stab me at all hours anymore. My grief became manageable. It became a pain I lived with; a pain I could keep folded away in some box in my head and only took out occasionally.   As with all pain that I lived with, I am  often oblivious that I carry around the grief until days like August 5.  It is then that the grief comes back with a vengeance, hitting me with full force.

I remember the boy as I remember the pain.  I remember his presence.  I remember his laughter.  I remember the emptiness that his death has caused.  I cannot think of Jonathan without a mixture of joy and pain that I never thought was even possible.

Thankfully, August 5 passes and becomes August 6. August 6 is my Dad’s birthday.  It’s a cause to celebrate. God has added one more year to my Dad’s 73 years.  But the happiness of celebrating his birthday is tinted with wistfulness.  I cannot be overjoyed by August 6 anymore because to get to August 6, I have to survive the memories of August 5.

So to all those who will work hard to prepare for a celebration for my Dad’s birthday celebration on Sunday, we appreciate your thoughtfulness.  We thank you for celebrating his life with us.  But please understand why we the joy can’t be unalloyed — the joy is checked by the pain. At best, every time August 6 comes around, life is always bittersweet for us who remember Jonathan….