Whenever my brothers and sisters get to meet, which is not often, our talk gradually gravitates to who among us nine living siblings (a 10th sibling – the fifth child in the family – died in infancy during the Second World War) would be the first to go. The dramatic me would say, maybe I? But really, who could tell? Nobody. And then it happened. Last Monday, our sister, Abigail, or Gingging, or Aba, crumpled to the ground as she was walking towards a neighborhood store to buy a bottle of Coke, and she never stood up after that and was bed-ridden for a week. Then she went away. She had diabetes for several years, and died of complications.
She was the sixth child. We had always thought of her as the favorite — next to our oldest brother Nell, for the firstborn son is almost always the apple of the old folks’ eyes, no? But she was loveable, bright and cheerful, and always tugged at Papa’s trousers wherever he went – to the lumberyard he owned, to the Chinese stores to edit ledgers, to church and social functions. And Mama sewed her dresses with matching bags from retazos left over from the clothes she made for school teachers. She was the brightest kid in the family, graduating as Gingoog Institute high school valedictorian, and she was the band majorette too, and had a tiny waistline. And she was the most industrious among us five sisters, sweeping and scrubbing the floors till they shone, and very neatly folding Mama’s and her clothes in their aparadors.
Her strict penchant for orderliness could have been a clue to a future illness that she would fall into, but who among us would have known that? The summer after her graduation, she was all set to leave for Silliman for a business ad degree. She was a scholar, she would make waves, she would carry on a legacy that our brothers Nell, Warto and Lem, and, ehem, sister Domini had woven before her. But something happened, and this might have caused her more than physical trauma.
This is what happened. One evening, while she was dressing up on the second floor of our house for Sunday evening vespers, she heard a disquieting noise from outside the dark balcony, and she was so frightened that she rushed out of her room and sprinted down the 14 steps of the stairway. When Papa lifted her up, the creaking of tiny cartilages in her right ankle could be heard. Her leg would be in a plaster cast for months. She could not go to Silliman then. She stayed in our house, and when she could walk, even with a leg wrapped with plaster, she would sweep the floor clean and shiny and make arrangements of the African daisies our younger sisters picked for her from Mama’s garden.
At Silliman, her expectations of popularity were dampened. She was only a drop in the bucket in a sea of brighter and prettier school valedictorians, and her limping from her terrible fall lost her her chance to become a band majorette. Perhaps her loss of self-esteem hurt her unknowingly. All of a sudden, she changed, from a quiet, unassuming girl, to a more aggressive coed seeking popularity. She wore eye-catching fitting Banlon sweaters and tight leggings and had her hair dyed red; me, a conservative newspaper manang, could not believe it. I asked her to dye her hair black immediately, which she did.
In Manila, she tried applying for jobs – as flight stewardess, as a book-publishing agent, and finally landed one as an account executive of a large broadcasting network. She was good, she got big accounts. The first thing she did when she received her first pay check was to buy our mother household appliances, which I had failed to do with my meager salary. And she was generous to a fault — especially with friends. She was extravagant. But somehow she got into a fight with her immediate boss who refused to let her go on a staff cruise to Hong Kong which she had so eagerly looked forward to, and withheld her commissions. Her installment payments could not be met. She became very anxious. A boyfriend betrayed her trust, something that made her very despondent. A marriage failed. She began to paint, representational themes, mostly, which surprisingly sold well in a popular art gallery. But by this time, she had a breakdown. She had schizophrenia and we took her from one doctor to another, from one hospital to another, to the Nasal Halfway House, where geniuses and classical pianists with mental or emotional problems were regular boarders. But, as someone said, a schizophrenic breakdown makes one like a vase that is broken; one can put the pieces together, but the cracks will not disappear.
So we let her stay in our house in Gingoog, where our sisters Louella and the miracle-nurse Milagros, and our youngest brother, Greg, took care of her, and could not resist giving in to her craving for food and soft drinks, because food made her happy. She said she could not paint any more. Some of her paintings hang in her siblings’ homes, more treasured now that she’s gone.
I guess some friends would say, why tell such a personal story about your sister? My answer is simple: so many schizophrenics live in halfway homes all their life, and do not enjoy the caring and attention of their families in their homes. It might help for families to spot the early symptoms of a relative’s inability to cope with life’s tensions and disappointments, and seek help from specialists.
It broke my heart whenever pictures of her came to my mind: of her as a happy and bright and generous and loving daughter, sister, and friend. I wish we had shown that we had loved her very much.
Our sister in Australia, Jocelyn, wrote this eulogy:
To my dear sister Ging:
I am sorry that I could not be there to say goodbye, Sorry that I could not see you for the last time.
If I had wings, I would soar like a bird just to be there with you.
You were my idol, my model when times were better.
I admired you because you were bright and beautiful.
I used to steal your makeup to look just like you.
You were always there to answer all my needs.
We had some good times and bad times.
If you remember, I was about 8 years old when you hit me with a broom because I was not as organized like you. But papa was on your side because you were his girl. And I forgave you for that.
I am so sad that things changed in your life.
You still had that beautiful smile the last time I saw you, which was last year.
I love you and I will always remember you, my beautiful Abigail. – Yenyen
* * *
My e-mail:dominimt2000@yahoo.com