Fatima for Lourdes

My sisters and I are all "Marias", in reference to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and two of us even carry second names that are sites of the Marian Apparitions. But never did I think that this Maria Fatima would ever be blessed with the opportunity to visit a Marian pilgrimage site.  Not Fatima, Portugal, but Lourdes, France.

Lourdes is a town in southwestern France, which has become a place of pilgrimage for Roman Catholics after a young peasant girl, Bernadette Soubirous, had visions of the Virgin Mary in 1858. I am familiar with the story, although I am more familiar with the Fatima message, understandably having taken a personal interest given that I am named after our Blessed Virgin Mary as she became known after having appeared to three children in Fatima, Portugal.

Our trip to Lourdes was a last-minute insertion by my sister-in-law Ellen, who had lovingly and painstakingly put together a 14-day itinerary in France. Ellen had been to Lourdes many years ago, and she rightly thought that her Catholic companions would appreciate a visit to the popular Marian site.

It is still light by the time we arrive
at the Lourdes train station.

We take the five-hour train ride from the Paris Montparnasse station to Lourdes. The sun is still out when we arrive by almost 7 p.m. at the town, where we immediately catch a taxi (van) to Hotel Roissy, where Ellen had made reservations. The reason for her choice immediately becomes apparent as the hotel is located just some 100 meters away from the Sanctuaire Notre-Dame de Lourdes (Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes) to our delight, and even nearer the Filipino restaurant Asian Delices, to the unbound happiness of our daughter.

Someone is very happy to be eating
Pork Sinigang again.

Adequately full, the three older members of the group set out to join the torchlight procession, scheduled every 9 p.m. at the sanctuary. We leave our daughter at the hotel, walk along avenue Monseigneur Schoepfer, where we buy candles from the souvenir shops that line the street, and cross the Place Monseigneur Laurence before going down a curved driveway leading to the sanctuary.

Cesar, Ellen and I at the square
before the Basilica.

Nothing prepares me for the sight of the sanctuary. I had not even thought of looking it up on the Web, having been more concerned about practical info that had to do with flights, terminals, routes, mobile data plans, and even cuisine and language. The only reference I had to it in my mind were the baths that a friend of my mom had once mentioned, and which had evoked images of people lining up by a riverbank, waiting to be doused with healing water from the spring that Saint Bernadette had dug up by the grotto upon the instruction of Our Mother.

A view of the Basilica from the side
of the river Gave de Pau.

We come upon a vast, sprawling complex dominated by a castle-like church, parts of which glint in the setting sun. A self-avowed fan of architecture, I am overwhelmed.

My eyes dart here and there, not quite knowing where to look. I want to, but cannot, capture everything at once. To say everything is beautiful is right, but inadequate.

It is hard to describe the feeling that comes over me. I immediately think of Mommy, and I wish she was with me. She would have loved being at the Sanctuary in Lourdes. 

I somehow feel at one with all the other faithful inside the complex, and I am moved by the palpable presence of God and Mama Mary. Cesar and I thank Ellen, bless her, for bringing us there.

After praying at the Grotto of Massabielle,
where Our Lady appeared
to Saint Bernadette in Lourdes, France.

We are so tempted to dawdle and gape and feel, but Ellen hurries us to the grotto, built at the side of the Basilica by the river so we can pay homage to the love that Our Lady had shown us by appearing 18 times to Saint Bernadette so that we would believe that in prayer lies salvation and healing.

We join a short and fast-moving line of people, feeling the dampness and in places, water, that emerges from the rock that forms the Grotto of Massabielle, where Our Lady appeared to Saint Bernadette. I feel right about touching the water to my face and my hands, and I see the others doing the same.

A closer look reveals that I carry
a Lourdes Rosary, a wedding gift
in 2002.

We hurry back to the rows of people now forming behind a replica of the white marble statue of the Blessed Virgin of the Apparition, by M. Cabuchet, of Paris. Soon enough, the loudspeaker crackles and we begin moving. Voices speak in several languages, but it is easy to recognize the Rosary being recited, and I take out the blue beads that are a wedding gift from Nanay’s friend, Tita Ason, in 2002.

I look at the centerpiece medal and realize that I carry a Lourdes Rosary with water relic. One side shows St. Bernadette kneeling before Mother Mary at the Grotto, while the other side shows a small encasement in a small opening marked EAU DE LOURDES. 

I am filled with love and gratitude, and I pray with all my heart. I follow the singing, waving my candle during the chorus of Ave Maria, and the Laudate Mariam. Not once does my tireless candle go out, not even when I try to warm my fingers over its flame.

Our fingers are near freezing
at this point. 

It is cold. The temperature reads 13 degrees Celsius, and while a sweatshirt, two jackets, a wooly cap and a hood protect me adequately, my fingers are near freezing. I had not thought to bring gloves.

But we plod on, and when the people way ahead of us reach the end of the esplanade and go round the curve to head back for the Basilica, we come abreast with them and see how the candles light up the darkness. 

More so, when we also do the same and face the Basilica, framed by a string of candles held by pilgrims standing on two great ascents in the shape of a horseshoe overlooking the square. I do not know when it was projected on the main spire, but an image of Our Lady appears, hovering above all of us gathered at the square.

We all end up at the square in front of the Basilica for the final blessing.

Too soon, it is over. There is a final blessing in Latin, and we leave the square, forever changed. 

Note: Photos by Ellen, Cesar and the author

A Birthday (written August 22, 2019, finished August 22, 2022)

My heart aches when I think about Mommy. So I try not to.

But it’s hard when her birthday is coming up. Last year, her birthday came up a few months after we buried her. I honored her birthday wish that we gift two (2) kilos of rice to a stranger in need. My sister felt the same so I lugged sacks of rice to a nearby orphanage and to our church for the parish’s feeding program.

A 2015 picture of my mom,
Evelyn R. Luab

Now, her birthday is a few days away and all I feel is resentment. She is not around. She is never going to be around. She is gone. What does it matter if I give away rice or not? It will not bring her back. Nothing will bring her back.

I go to Sunday mass in the chapel I visited almost every day for all those days leading to her death. At first, there was just sorrow. Now there is hurt in my heart. I had put my mind and heart into asking the Lord that she be healed. Once I decided to ask for a miracle, I went into it with complete disregard for the rational. I chose to dismiss all arguments against it and just asked with complete faith and trust. 

A miracle, after all, is the impossible. If I rationalize it, why even ask for one? Why even doubt? I had everything to gain, and just myself to lose. 

Mommy died on February 28, 2018. I tried to understand God’s decision. I know He could have granted me my dearest wish, but He did not for reasons I actually understand and try so hard to appreciate. I bring back images of her as she was nearing her end so that I can appreciate His taking her from that kind of life. 

So I pray for her every day. I ask for her eternal repose. But beyond that, I try not to think about her. Every time I feel a thought of her coming on, I dismiss it.  It is a struggle because I miss her every day, several times a day, too many to count. I don’t want to open that door. I don’t want to remember all that love, because it brings so many memories that I really have to ignore or I might come to a complete stop, wondering if I will ever be that special again.

A mother’s love is all-encompassing. She sees everything, yet loves regardless. In her eyes, her children are special. I share that special space with my sisters. There are days, though, when I feel that space has all but dissolved with Mommy gone.

It’s the year 2022 now, and once again, it’s August. Mommy’s birthday is coming up. I am no longer angry or hurt or resentful. I am just sad. So there is hope. There will come a day when I can actually celebrate her birthday with love and joy blocking out all these other feelings that I cannot describe.

So Mommy, I am truly glad that you are with God, and that you are free of all earthly pain. Try not to be sad that I, that all of us, still miss you. It’s your fault. It’s hard not to miss a lifetime of being loved, the way you loved us. 

I imagine your eyes widening at this before breaking into that infectious laughter of yours. Of course, I am being silly. Laugh, Mommy. Happy Birthday from your silly daughter.

No goodbyes

I did not say goodbye to Mommy.

When the men were about to seal her tomb, her immediate family lined up to throw flowers into the compartment that would be home to her remains.

But I had distanced myself, watching from under a Sampaguita tree on the rotunda nearby. I had slipped away, unable to bear any more grief even as the tears would not stop flowing. I could not see clearly. I felt a heaviness that threatened to crush my chest and arrest breathing. 

I felt, rather than saw, my sisters look around for me and I shook my head, crumpling my handkerchief into my mouth to stop my sobs from becoming audible, even as they shook my body. A friend I’d last seen in high school put an arm around me, which brought me back and gave me enough control to mutter a miserable “thank you”. 

Mommy would not have approved of such behavior. She was made of iron. When Daddy died, I barely saw her cry. Instead, she entertained visitors, and attended to and gave directions on what needed to be done. She was tireless, strong and there.

I was fine when I rushed home upon learning of her death since I was immediately thrown into a whirlwind of things that had to be done. From the airport, I went straight to the funeral parlor where I took over from my sister and oversaw Mommy’s body being transported to the chapel where her wake would be held. 

I remember my first sight of her. It was her and yet, not her. My mommy did not look anything like this thin, stern-looking being whose hair had been flattened to her skull and whose cheeks were painted red, making her look grotesque. I frowned and tried fluffing her hair with my fingers to make it look more natural. I asked those attending to her to reduce the redness on her cheeks and her lips. 

No tears threatened to flow in my determination to make her look as she would have liked. There was nothing I could do to disguise how thin she had become just before she died so I was just relieved that Mommy had insisted on a closed coffin. 

I felt lost inside the chapel. I’d never organized a wake. When Daddy died, Mommy took care of everything. Now, it was her wake and I had no idea what to do. Our eldest, overcome by grief and fatigue, showed up at a hospital emergency room instead of the chapel and I was alone. Our youngest was busy with life and family.

That night, it was just her body and me, but I did not feel her presence. After my friends from the newspaper left a little after midnight, I prayed and wondered if I really wanted her to contact me. And what I would do if she did. I tried but could not sleep so I started collating all her photos to show at her wake. The morning light had already filled the room by the time I was done.

After that, my sisters and I went through the days, fumbling through the wake. We were lost. Our rock had gone. We made do, but I think we did not do as good a job as Mommy would have done. I certainly did not. I failed her when I refused to deliver the eulogy at her burial mass, not knowing she had stipulated it in her will. I could not have done it anyway. My sister, Tina, was amazing. She did it for all of us, and she did a great job.

So many people came to pay their respects and kept us occupied. It was only during the nightly celebrations of the Holy Eucharist that I would weaken and allow the tears to roll down my face to unload the grief that I somehow kept at bay. I looked over at my sisters with their heads bowed, and they were doing just the same.

I didn’t know where Mommy was, only that she was not there. I could not feel her. I don’t know what I expected. All this talk of Heaven was comforting, but all I could feel was this total, overwhelming loss. I could not find her, even if she was bigger than life in the stories of her former students and friends. She was lost to me, never to be found.

She was not there when they started sealing her grave, so I did not say goodbye. How do you say goodbye to someone you so badly but cannot find? How do you cut off someone who’d already left you? How do you stop being a daughter when your mother dies?

I had no answers, so I did not say goodbye.

New school

(Part of an ongoing account started on March 13, 2020 of how the spread of COVID-19 in our country and our government’s response has affected our lives.)

I feel sad.

I am preparing for the enrollment of my daughter for the schoolyear 2020-2021. She’s transferring because her old school does not offer her track of choice. Like all schools during this pandemic, her new school offers blended learning - a mix of online and offline methods.

Illustration by Bianca Bagnarelli
for The Economist

We know, though, that we cannot realistically expect face-to-face learning to resume any time soon since a vaccine has not yet been developed. This means she will have very limited interaction with people her age.

I feel sad because my daughter belongs to a generation that will grow up without all the perks (and disadvantages) of spontaneous social interaction in a physical setting.

Quarantine classifications and interventions

(Part of an ongoing account started on March 13, 2020 of how the spread of COVID-19 in our country and our government’s response has affected our lives.)

Everyone in the Philippines is under quarantine, whether it is Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ), Modified ECQ, General Community Quarantine (GCQ) or Modified GCQ.

The Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) on the management of Emerging Infectious Diseases took back its announcement on Tuesday that areas deemed as low-risk will no longer be placed under any form of community quarantine starting May 16.

This, after the local government officials of these low-risk areas expressed fears of a surge in COVID-19 cases, should all restrictions be relaxed.

So that’s it. Effective May 16, Metro Manila, the Province of Laguna and Cebu City will be placed under Modified ECQ.