BY IRVIN RIVERA

It seems like the more you deal with death around you, the more you hear that phantom sound of a ticking time-bomb- the sound that signals unease, the sound that makes time seem more delicate, more valuable. It’s that ticking sound that makes you feel like any second could be your time and that you should rethink your priorities, reevaluate your decisions and really figure out which things are important to you. It gives you the opportunity to think about the what ifs if you die- what will happen to your drafted documents? What will happen to your unfinished shoots? How about your dreams and aspirations? How are you in that department? What’s your legacy going to be like? How about your unfinished businesses? But the thing is, you can never really get it all done. It’s an insatiable, continuous flow that can never be done, so why do we bother about these things in times like these?

Another death, especially if it’s someone you know and love, stops you in your tracks. It fucks up with your schedule and it shakes you up a bit, no matter how solid you think you are. My uncle, Tito Boy, just died a few days ago. 

Although he was the eldest out of all the siblings from my dad's side, I still haven’t figured out the real reason why everyone calls him “Boy.” I grew up with him. And as a child, you follow the established rules of the household. You don’t really question some seemingly mundane things. You just go with the flow. 

See, when someone close to me dies, I try my best to do some form of retrospection. It’s my own way of coping, I guess. I did that with my grandma when she died back in 2018, but it took me a while to process things. There’s work that gets in the way, the emails, work, the prior commitments- there are a lot of these human things that somehow makes you tend to shove off your emotions in a box and label it with BRB on a bright yellow post-it note. 

Anyway, I remember growing up with Tito Boy and Mamang, my grandma who passed. They pretty much both raised me as a kid when my dad was active in the military and my mom was working overseas as a nurse. There was a lot of yelling at their prime. It’s nothing bad nor serious. That’s just how they show love and appreciation, I guess. There’s the usual “BOOOOOOOY” coming out of Mamang's lungs that would usually wake me up. That signals their time to cook, do their household routines, and meet their “jueteng” peers. Jueteng, a form of small town lottery where you guess numbers, has been a habitual pastime in my family. We live in Nueva Ecija, on a street adjacent to acres of rice-fields. There’s not much to do there - no nearby hills or mountains to climb, no nearby rivers or ocean to swim, no tourist attraction. It’s a small, unassuming farming town that will get the name “Science City” at some point in the future. 

The highlights of my memories with Tito Boy included the smell of smoke from the burning of palay (rice husk) from the rice farm, the seemingly endless crowing of roosters, the barking of neighborhood dogs, the sound of little neighborhood children running around the pebbled perimeter of the house, the smell of his Marlboro reds, the bottles of beer, and endless nights of watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Charmed and The X Files with him. He’s my pop culture uncle.

He also watches a lot of basketball, although he doesn’t play the sport at all. He doesn’t like going out. He barely goes to the market to shop for ingredients and food. He barely goes to the mini store across the street. He prefers to be at home and is literally a hermit. 

One time, I remember him mentioning his belly button and his baldness to be the cause of his seclusion. As a kid, I curiously asked him why, and he said that he’s somehow ashamed of it. I know, a very smh moment, if you think about it. But I believe that he clung on to that insecurity throughout his life because he never really got a job, he never really ventured out in the world. I never understood that. He’s actually insightful and smart, but he gave in to his insecurities and drowned himself of alcohol.

The world never ceases to reach out to him though. We would encourage him to visit us in Manila, but of course he would refuse to travel. I remember whenever we would give him new clothes, shoes and things, he would just keep them neatly wrapped in boxes and bags, and never use them. He said he’s reserving the nice things for a nice occasion. He never really got to wear them. 

He nearly died years ago back when I was in college. Because of too much alcohol consumption, he got a stroke. He was pretty much a vegetable back then. His tongue was tied, he couldn’t walk, he couldn’t talk. It was awful. Back then, I really thought that was it for him. Back then, my college self thought I was already adult enough to deal with these heavy emotional things in life, but I’ll experience greater heartbreaks afterwards. 

Tito Boy survived and was able to regain his strength. He was able to walk, talk and yell (though not as loud) again and banter with Mamang. They were a tandem. Well, they live together in the house where I was born and grew up in. Him and Mamang raised me and I am grateful to them. 

The news of Tito Boy’s death came to me the moment I woke up on the day when I needed to work. I have a shoot and I have to segment my feelings like how I segmented my feelings a few years back when I got the news of mamang’s death. Mamang died when I had to do voice over work and any tinge of emotion could be heard in your voice. I had to box those emotions for a bit until I got to travel back home to see her funeral. 

Tito Boy’s death, and the days leading to it, has been stressful to me and my family. It’s a crazy-ass situation where all the scheduled things you need to accomplish in your calendar gets muddled with the unexpected. Part of me feels shaken, as I try my best to be organized, but of course, in my priority list, no matter what happens, it’s always family first. Family, being the people I value and love, whether it by blood or not. 

Throughout my life, I’ve learned that the work, the emails, the prior commitments could wait for a bit. If they can’t, then it’s just not meant to happen. You have to attend to what you deem is important first and deal with your activities accordingly. You don’t manage time; you can’t really manage time- you manage your activities and your expectations. 

I've already accepted death as something inevitable, so I am really at peace with Toto Boy dying. At least he won’t be in any more pain. But something that I couldn’t just shake up from my head was how hard it was to be sick in the Philippines. If you get sick there, and by sick I mean really really sick, and you happen to be poor, your chance of survival is really low. My dad’s narrative of Tito Boy’s hospitalization journey to his death was the heartbreaking part. It’s how the hospitals handled him, how he wasn’t really properly treated and how even after his death, the top priority, of course, is still money. 

At this point, I am managing my feelings and letting it sit for a bit. I am not taking a full break, but I don’t think tending to your emotions is bad. As humans, we need it. We need this sort of introspection. We needed some quiet and alone time to process feelings on our own.