May 5, 2006 - the first anniversary of my grandmother’s death.

A year ago, we were in some mall I can’t even remember now, looking for a specific brand of jelly to bring my grandmother. We had no idea she was headed for the hospital to get checked — it seemed she needed a new catheter. I was there the entire time, but can barely remember everything that happened. Things are a bit hazy — quite surreal — even though it’s been a year. The passage of time didn’t really help much. I remember I was driving when my aunt received a call saying my grandmother had nearly fainted in the van carrying her to the hospital.

I can remember not panicking, despite the fact that my grandmother was on her way to the emergency room. Somehow, I knew it was all over, even before I reached the hospital. I remember waiting outside the emergency room, with my uncle blowing his top over some security measure the hospital had imposed. I was catatonic as they grimly announced my grandmother’s blood level dropping by the minute. It would not be long, they kept saying while wringing their hands. I just sat there, worrying about the ants. They had come from the soda can beside the guard’s desk.

Was it two or three hours before a room was found for my grandmother? I can’t really remember. I remember hating my uncle’s melodramatic complaints and murderous threats. I remember thinking that he was too engrossed in theatrics to remember that my grandmother’s life was hanging by a thread. I remember going ahead to the room, waiting for my grandmother to be wheeled in. I stood there stupidly, watching the hospital staff carry her to the bed.

I saw her heave a sigh and decided she was still alive.

I believed she was alive, though I knew it would not be long. I remember leaving with my father to buy bottles of water from the drugstore right outside the hospital. By the time we got back, the nurses were fussing all over my grandmother. She was gone they said, probably right after she was lifted on to the bed. I sat down, incredulous. I saw her breathing. I saw her, and she was alive. Just yesterday, she had been sitting on her bed as she always did, listening to us banter and chat while quietly nodding her head several times. How could she be gone?

I would be a liar to say it wasn’t expected. She had been operated on a few months before, and she wasn’t exactly young anymore. Knowing it, however, didn’t make things any easier. It was just as painful, just as excruciating as thinking about it today is.

I was in denial, vigorously shaking my head and persisting that the doctors had not even presented a flat line from the ECG yet. It’s not confirmed. There’s still hope. I was adamant, calm yet unshakeable in my belief that my grandmother was still alive. The doctors came with confirmation a few minutes later.

I couldn’t cry. I refused to. I felt a lump rise in my throat, but refused to let tears fall. I couldn’t speak either. Suddenly, it seemed that the world had gotten tired of spinning and just stood on axis, grieving the death of a loved one. I walked around the room like a zombie, repeatedly scrutinizing every single corner of the room. I walked past her several times, trying not to stare too much. I couldn’t look at her. A minute ago I was staring at her, and now I could barely glance at her lifeless body.

What came next, I can barely remember. I remember my mom asking me to call my cousin to tell him the news. It was a task I couldn’t bear. I could not find the words to tell him what had happened. In my heart, I insisted she wasn’t dead, just sleeping. I couldn’t bring myself to speak. I choked — terribly. How do you tell someone else that a part of you had died?

Everything on that day may have been a blur, but there are certain memories etched deep into my mind — probably into my very soul. It was raining when she was brought to the crematorium. I couldn’t watch and kept my eyes on the floor. I think a dam broke that day, breaking down to shreds the walls blocking my feelings. I remember staring at the tiny box in the temple — my grandmother’s new home.

It’s interesting how one can seem to move on without really doing so. I can laugh and joke now. I can go to work and pursue my studies. I can have fun with friends and family. Despite it all, every single thing that reminds me of her cuts deep like shards of glass. I cannot forget her. I cannot forget her. I cannot forget her.

There are days when being reminded of her becomes too painful to bear. I guess part of me had died with her that day.

Does she see me from wherever she is right now? Does she remember me at all? Will we ever see each other again?

I suppose moving on really is a hoax. You never really forget. Pain is forever, and time never really dulls it at all. Ten years from now, I know my grandmother’s passing will be just as painful for me as it is today. There are things you forget, and there are things you carry with you with the rest of your life.

Not one moment of our time together shall be forgotten. There is just too much to remind me of her, too much pain to deal with sometimes. With reminiscence comes pain, but I do not pray for deliverance. I will never be able to accept her death. I will never be able to stop grieving. I will never be able to move on. These are not the things that I pray for. I do not need deliverance from this misery. I welcome the pain of remembrance. I welcome it! Lift not the grief in my heart — I do not need healing.

All I need are the memories of our life together, and the realization that death does not lessen the love I have for her.

She will be with me forever.

Most people underestimate the power of a mentor to change lives. I don’t usually subscribe to the entire “Oprah/self-help books” crap. In this particular occasion, however, I can’t help but wax nostalgic when thinking of one of the greatest influences in my entire twenty-two years of existence. Certainly, a lot of people have greatly contributed to the person that I am today. Most everyone that I have come across has left some sort of imprint on my soul – some so negative that harsh bleach will be required to scrub off unpleasant memories. There is one particular person, however, that I shall never forget, even as I momentarily step off the path that he had influenced me to pursue.

He probably doesn’t even know that he’s one of the greatest influences in my life. Save for a particularly gushy text message, I’ve never really told him how I really felt. Two years. Day in and day out, save for Tuesdays and Thursdays. Even after graduation, I was one of the few students who maintained steady contact through text messages and the occasional visits. It wasn’t really necessary. Most students don’t bother to keep in touch with their college professors after graduation.

For me, however, he was a lifeline.

Or a hotline of sorts at least. He was always there, reliable and always straightforward. At times, I swear I can detect slight desperation in his voice as I needle him for no sensible reason. He was never polite or patronizing in his words, which is probably why I like talking to him so much. I remember how infuriated I was the day he refused to take my side in a fight. He was genial, as always, smiling his rather irritating smile that seemed to signal a profound mystery he still refused to reveal. I have to admit I really hated him for that at that time.

What I didn’t know, of course, was that he was secretly fighting for us, rooting for us. For me. As he would all throughout the two years that I had labored under his tutelage. He was honestly frustrating at times, as he did have that rather “know-it-all” air that irked an egomaniac like me. He appeared to have all the answers in the universe, but was unwilling to divulge them to ordinary mortals.

I have no idea if he was loved. It seemed he was quite popular, or notorious, depending on how you looked at it. He wasn’t specifically special, either. He was rather infamous for his droning voice and sloppy grin, plus the corny jokes he would drop from time to time. I was never a special student to him, either, or so I believe. I was asleep in his class most of the time — definitely not the sign of a diligent A+ student. Whatever he thought of me, though, or thinks of me today, is no longer as important as how I think of him.

Carlito Dalangin is the man that shaped my life. He probably has no idea, but it is his example that has inspired me to become a teacher. Though I may be no nearer to my goal today than I was after graduation, I know that someday, I will be a teacher, a mentor, just as he was to me two years ago. Just as he is to me to this very day.

He has shown me the thanklessness of teaching. He has shown me the bitterness of living a modest life as a professor. Certainly, he has never vocally encouraged me to become someone like him. In the two years that I studied under his guidance, he had never mentioned my future as college professor. I am sure that he, like everyone else, would rather I enter the corporate world to earn big bucks.

Despite all these, all I remember is the joy of having a mentor, of having someone who believed in me when I had nothing impressive to show. I was nobody, and am still nobody, when he saw me and believed that I would someday become somebody. He believed in me when it was pointless to do so. He believed in me when the rest saw me as just another class card.

A new soap opera claims that it’s a teacher’s obligation to believe in his students. Growing up, I was met with a lot of disbelief and suspicion. My teachers saw a bum who could’ve done better. There was the recognition of potential, but none saw the possibility of me ever maximizing it. He, however, did. He had faith in me, though he never did speak of it to me directly. He had no reason to do so, but he always believed that I would make it.

The proudest moment of my life wasn’t the time I got my diploma from a priest. It wasn’t acing my first interview either. The proudest moment of my life is hearing him tell my parents just how good a student I was.

It was all I needed to hear.

Someday, I will be a teacher. Not an educator or a lecturer, but a teacher. Someday, I will have students, and I would like to do for them what he has done for me.

Change lives.