Easter and a Dead Brother

Easter and a Dead Brother

Mar 23, ’08 7:29 AM for everyone

Easter never had as much meaning for me as I contemplate Death and Ressureccion watching over the remains of my brother Mandy who died last Holy Tuesday.

We were two years apart. I spent much of my childhood and growing up years with Mandy. Our lives took separate paths only when I  opted to lead a revolutionary underground life, and he got married at the age of 23.

But the separate paths never affected the closeness shared by the family.  Even while raising his own, Mandy was there at the most critical times for our family, and there were many.

Many times, he would be the first to come at a phone calls notice — be it at the sick bed and eventually death bed of Tatay and later Ronnie, or at happy occassions like birthdays and graduations and other milestones. And there were many too.

But today, easter morning, what has remained of him lies still in a coffin. He was 45.

Was. Past tense. It is frightening, almost surreal to  speak of someone in the past. A person has to be. Am. Present. Here.

But Mandy is no longer here…

~ by saracho on April 10, 2009.