Farewell,Tina Q.

At noon last Sunday, July 27, the family lost a beloved member. Our older sister Babsy’s eldest daughter, Tina Quirino, passed away peacefully, in Eugene, Oregon, at age 51. She is the first in our immediate family to die from cancer.  She was a teacher, an artist, a dancer, a naturalist, and an advocate of many  causes that we were not aware of until they surfaced recently in messages of sympathy from her friends. When she was diagnosed in the United States two years ago, she tried natural cures, then chemotherapy. Last May, we were overjoyed to hear her oncologist declare that she was in remission.

I was visiting her in Eugene when the good news came. Tina was full of plans. She wanted to play tennis again, and she did. She wanted to travel to Denmark where, she had read somewhere, the happiest people in the world live. And she also wanted to do the walk to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, and perhaps come home to the Philippines for a visit.

But a month later, the cancer was back, and it was particularly virulent. She was told she had just weeks, or at most, months, if nothing was done. We were devastated.

Tina applied for an experimental procedure, but her cancer didn’t fit the profile the lab was looking for. She did whatever her doctors told her to. But, as she went through the motions, she was preparing herself and everyone around her for her eventual departure.

She changed her profile picture on FaceBook to one of her standing before a painting of giant wings, so she looked like an angel. She made peace with everyone, spent time with her mother and connected with her siblings and other loved ones. We had frank and open conversations about her illness that she lightened with her characteristic humor so that we’d all end up laughing.  When she was not being light and playful, she was wise and philosophical. And she ended up comforting us when we could not hold it together.

At the hospital, she delighted her doctors and nurses with her happy disposition, dancing and singing in the Emergency Room, and thoughtfully sending thank you notes to her caregivers.

She practically ordered me to visit her when I was in California and I’m glad I did. We shared her room, took a long walk, chatted in the kitchen, and from our beds, talked way into the night. My last memory of her is at the airport in Eugene, smiling happily and jumping up and down as she waved goodbye as I went through security.  Even then, in spite of the good news from her oncologist, I feared it would be our last time together.

Three days before she died, Tina called for a priest, went to confession and asked for the last rites. After the priest left, she told her Mom happily, “I now have my boarding pass.” She was ready.  She gave her mother instructions on what to do with her mortal body, that it should be refrigerated for three days, since that’s how long it would take for her spirit to depart, then cremated. Part of her ashes will be stored in a crypt in a church in Quezon City where her father is buried, another part will be thrown into the ocean, and the rest will be buried in Eugene.  And after the funeral, she decreed, with her usual flair, there should be a party!

Last Sunday afternoon, our grief-stricken Manila family got together for an impromptu potluck. We just had to be together.  From Eugene, Tina’s sister, Gina, joined us on FaceTime for the equivalent of an e-wake. And, as always happens when we are together, no matter what the occasion, it became a raucous, irreverent affair where we exchanged family stories about the funny, playful, loving person Tina was. We watched old family videos, one of which was directed by her brother Louie that had Tina in costume, all made-up, and dancing wildly while lip-synching “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” by the Temptations, backed-up by her sisters Gina and Lisa, and cousin Monica. 

It may have been a bit early, but I am sure it was what Tina had in mind when she ordered us to party after she was gone.

Tina and her siblings – Joey, Louie, Gina, Anna and Lisa Quirino – are the first grandchildren in the family. They are the children my sisters and I took care of. I learned about childcare from baby-sitting them, and parenthood from tumbling with them through their difficult growing-up years. They were my “practice children”, and Tina was, for all intent and purposes, my first daughter. 

My tears began falling unbidden two days before Tina actually left us when I was gripped with the dreadful feeling we would soon lose her.  But even with the foreknowledge, it still hurt so bad when she left.  My “practice first daughter” is gone and a bright light has been snuffed from my life. But thinking of Tina will always bring a smile — how she danced and sang when she was happy, and how infectious was her playfulness; how strong she could be in her convictions and how vulnerable she actually was when she let go; how protective she was of her siblings, and what a cool, crazy and caring older cousin she was to the younger kids; how precociously funny she was as a child, who kept us entertained until the end, when she was sick and in pain; how deeply introspective she actually was, and how much heartache she bore, but tried to shield others from. 

When my older daughter Monica was small, she said that when she grew up she wanted to be as beautiful as her cousin, Tina Quirino.  She chose her model well.  That’s our Tina, a beautiful person with a wild, crazy, playful and generous heart. Farewell, sweet angel.