Today is the first day of the Misa de Gallo - Christmas is in the air! Amidst the joyful atmosphere, this day brings back sad memories. This was day the day my mother was killed 21 years ago - by a gang of holduppers whose members turned out to be military men.
To mark my mother's death anniversary, I went out for lunch in a Thai restaurant. I just imagined her presence while eating alone. I celebrated a memorial mass for her in the community chapel.
My mother, Nicole, would have been 80 years old today. She was just 59 when she was felled by a gunman's bullet after coming from the bank.
I wrote this poem during the wake:
Elegy for my Mother
My heart turned to stone
as I watched you gasped
for the last time
your eyes blank
and blood oozed from a hole
in your head made pointblank.
My eyes couldn't even shed a single tear.
Numb, numb, numb,
this was the only way
I could survive this madness.
What used to be
mere newsreports and statistics
have finally hit home.
"This is God's unscrutable will"
Some pious people consoled me.
"Praise the Lord!"
But I do not believe in a God
who can mastermind the murder
of a helpless mother.
What a blasphemy --
to make God the prime suspect
for the crime committed
by men who were supposed to maintain
peace and order.
This is the will of a rapacious regime
that has spawned an army
of thieves and murderers.
Mother,
I cannot imagine you now
as a mere pile of dust and bones
in a dark and lonely tomb.
I cannot regard you
as a mere memory.
Mother, I can neve believe
that a bullet could annihilate
everything that you have been
and will always be.
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