I woke up on New Year's Day to a phone call from my mom. I was groggy. I hadn't fully recovered from the vengeful flu that hit the NYC metro area over the holidays, and I don't remember her exact words, but it was something like "Check the chat. Oma's gone." I like to believe she was at peace. It was by no means a surprise. She was 105. This was her 106th New Year. She'd just suffered from pneumonia in late November. My titas had raised the alarm in the family group chat that it might be *time*, and encouraged all of my cousins to report to her bedside to say goodbye. Almost all of us who lived close enough immediately headed for the nursing home where she’d lived the last five years. As we arrived one by one, we would greet everyone already present, then crouch by Oma’s bedside to let her know we were there. She would look up. Squint. Who was greeting her? Most often, her eyes would light up with recognition and she would say their name. Every now and then she might confuse someone with their father or brother or another cousin. Rarer, more horribly, Oma would give a name that was foreign to us and we would laugh uncomfortably over the whoosh-hissing of the oxygen machine. Maybe we’d attempt to correct her. Maybe we’d move on. Perhaps it is vain and terribly selfish of me to make a competition of my grandmother's memory, but — my heart swelled with pride if she said something special for me, made a joke or said I love you. Eventually we’d all settle down and get to catching up, our chatter drowning out the buzz of yellow fluorescent lighting. Family would rotate in and out. There were few chairs. Most of us stood, crowded haphazardly in front of the dressers and the vinyl curtain dividing our half of the already cramped room from that of Oma's roommate. Every now and then Oma would wake up from her slumber, wave, scrutinize the circle of loved ones surrounding her, and list everyone by name like a teacher checking for attendance. “Roll call!” my titas would exclaim. I visited her often in the nights that followed. She kept telling me she was tired. That Opa was coming to take her to heaven. She told me she loved me and *magkikita tayo sa langit* - we will see each other in heaven. I told her I loved her, and *matagal pa* - that’s still a long time from now. I had never wished more fervently for something to be true. But Oma tricked us. She seemed to recover. Everyone began to breathe a little bit, relieved it was a false alarm. I visited her throughout December. She seemed strong. Around Christmas she was lucid, joking with me *pogi yung mister mo!* - your husband is handsome! We all thought she was in the clear. After one of our visits I’d texted my mom to report the good news. Oma was doing well. She seemed like she was going to be OK. I'd overlooked it, but later, once we were planning the funeral, I would remember mom’s response. Something she wouldn't dare say out loud in front of my dad. She’s saying goodbye. At the wake, one of my titas (her main caregiver) mentioned in her speech that she was heartbroken she wasn’t there at the very end. She had always prayed to be there the moment Oma left us. But my tita left at her usual time that night because there was no sign. If she'd had any inkling, she would have stayed. It simply wasn’t the plan - God's or Oma's. Oma left on her own terms. The first few days of the year were a blur. The first few days after a death are always a blur. You write the obituary. You design the programs. Someone makes funeral home arrangements. You do the wake. Everyone comes. Everyone — devoted churchmembers, friends you didn't expect to come, family through marriage you see once every few years. They tell you what a grand and *full* life she lived. They tell you about their memories and moments you'd forgotten. Subtle ways she'd shown them God's love. One of the funeral home owners, an old-school New York Italian, tells your tita, "Tell your mom thank you for coming to this country. She made it a better place." You stand up in front of everyone and tell them about all the things you loved most about Oma. You tell them you feel joy that she finally gets to rest, and in the moment that is mostly true. You try not to cry. You fail. You eat at your cousins' house. Your nephews and nieces are scattered all over the floor like the Jenga pieces they keep toppling. Your titas are tucked in the corner reminiscing. You go home. You do your best to sleep. Tomorrow is the day. The next day, you listen to your father, newly orphaned at the age of 67, give the eulogy. He is prone to lengthy speeches — clever and funny, yes, but lengthy. Still, you didn’t give him a time limit. How can you limit him in saying goodbye? He shares memories of his mother and father. One you will never forget — Opa and Oma driving home through snarled Manila traffic, stuck at a standstill in front of Malacañang Palace. Dad, then a little boy, sprawled in the backseat. Opa and Oma argued, explosively. Opa got out of the car to hail a cab. Oma, who did not know how to drive, asked your dad "Do you know how to drive this car?" before getting into the driver's seat herself. Opa got back into the car and drove them home. You listen to the pastor proclaim that we should rejoice because we all know that Oma had longed to meet her Creator. Then you drive to the cemetery and you shiver in the frigid winter air as the staff lower her into the ground. You toss a flower. You go eat with your family - Oma's three children, 11 grandchildren, 19 great grandchildren, and all the in-laws everyone collected along the way. You are the menagerie of her life. You finish your meal. You hug and kiss each other goodbye, and everyone goes their separate ways. Most of them don’t live far, you will see them again mere weeks or months from now, but what this last goodbye means is *now it’s permanent.* *Now we go back to normal.* *Now we grieve alone.* The next day you wake up and it feels like a little bit of color left your world permanently. Eventually you go back to work and you have to deal with all these people and requests and they are exactly the same as they were Before. You realize everyone else’s world has continued spinning on its axis, even as you stall, mired in disbelief that yours must spin on as well. I must continue every day with the chasm of her loss inside me. I look to the literature to understand what I am feeling. [[Joan Didion]] writes about [[vortexes that remind you of what you lost]], the random little things and moments that make the absence felt. They are everywhere. I find myself humming Que Sera Sera because Oma used to sing it all the time. I check my calendar for May to schedule some PTO and see an event for her birthday. May 3. My mother-in-law hands me a plate of mango cut into a flower, and as my fingers unfold the fruit to make it bloom, I am 16 again, sitting at the kitchen table as Oma slices up a mango, a pear, an apple for us to share. I shovel for the umpteenth snowstorm this winter. I wonder what she must have thought of snow the first time she saw it, immigrating to the United States after more than 60 years in the Philippines. After raising a family, after burying her husband, after having lived a *full life*, she danced in the snow for the first time. I think of her in quiet moments. I think of her for no reason at all other than *I miss her*. Three months later I am stunned that even after 105 years, after more time with her than most people ever get to have with their grandparents, after having prepared myself ever since she entered the nursing home — it *still* hurts this much. When J was putting together the photo montage for the wake, he had asked me the night before if I had any video. Anything where her voice could clearly be heard. I have ***tons*** of photos of Oma dating back my entire life and a portion of hers. Some of my scans are from 60-year-old woodcuts. But video? Specifically — video that isn't of her blowing out birthday candles while everyone else sings "Happy Birthday"? I had ***two***. I could not believe I only had two. All the years and laughter and *I love yous* and I had almost nothing meaningful on video. I scrolled vigorously through my voicemails — surely I have audio? Anything? All I had was a single voicemail from six years ago where she’s complaining about me not answering the phone. Why couldn't I just answer the damn phone? [*Debí tirar más fotos*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9T_MGfzq7I&list=RDv9T_MGfzq7I&start_radio=1). I should have taken more photos. I should have taken more videos. I should have called her more. I should have told her I loved her more. And I think I did do all those things as much as I could, but was it enough? What do I know about her, really? When she was a young girl, did she dream of becoming a civil servant for the city of Manila? Or did she just fall into that? Was she afraid of what her grown children would find when they made their way to America? Was she excited when she was finally able to follow them? Did Oma know that decades later she would eventually return to dust halfway across the world from where her husband was laid to rest? Did that trouble her? Did she know how much I loved her? I remember sitting on the bleached white wicker chair in her bedroom. Her first bedroom. She was still upstairs then. I'd be reading a book, or doing my homework, or cheating on my Kumon sheets. Oma would kneel next to her bed, her hands clasped together over that dusty blue and white floral comforter, and she would pray for what felt like hours. She would pray for her family's continued health, for my wayward cousins to find jobs and settle down, for all the church members who had requested prayers that week, one by one, every single night. She would meet me at the bus stop after school. Two blocks from our house. We would walk down the hill together and she would ask me about my day. It was good, always good. I don't remember if I ever asked about her day. She would ask me what *meryenda* I wanted - oreos - and we would sit down at the kitchen table and eat together, dunking cookies into milk. We watched a lot of TV together. Old Hollywood films like *Gone with the Wind* and *Ben Hur*. She would tell me about her favorite actors. Clark Gable. Natalie Wood. She’s the reason I know that Grace Kelly became a princess, or that Elizabeth Taylor's eyes looked violet in a certain light. We watched Filipino teleseryes and I pretended not to have massive crushes on Jake Cuenca and Gerald Anderson from *Tayong Dalawa*, and Oma adored little Santino and his relationship with Jesus in the ridiculously Filipino, ridiculously Catholic *May Bukas Pa*. We would watch the New York Yankees. We would laugh when she'd realize mid-tirade - *tangengot!* - that the second time she was yelling at Jeter, it was only a recap of the play. Much of my childhood was quiet. I was an only child. Oma and I shared a lot of that quiet. I stood in front of the coffin, alone with her while everyone was in the other room, thinking this would be the last quiet time we’d ever share together. My eldest cousin, *Kuya*, joined me. The two of us were a lucky pair — the only ones who got to have Oma to ourselves. Him in the old country, before everyone was born. Myself in the new country, almost thirty years later, after everyone else had grown up. All my cousins on Oma's side are much older than me. Kuya and my mother are only a few years apart in age. When I hear my cousins' stories of how they grew up under Oma’s careful eye I sometimes feel envious of their nostalgia. I yearn for their good old days. How simple things seemed. I reconstruct their memories from photos, and picture their faces forty, fifty years younger, the wrinkles smoothed out, the pounds not yet put on. Everyone tangled around Oma and our titas at the dining room table in their Pasig home. The table is overflowing. Fried eggs. Sticky tocino. Fresh rice. Is the sun shining outside? Is rain pouring down? Is the heat pleasant or oppressive? Are the dogs barking to greet the day? I do not know. Their voices clamor over one another in Tagalog as they argue about why Kuya gets an extra hot dog. What a joy it must have been to grow up together. Their deep-bellied laughter is much the same decades later, as we sit with their children underfoot at my tito's kitchen table. My cousins’ Oma was very different from my Oma. *Barrio parly!, she would exclaim, as everyone packed into her house.* There was a fierce exuberance I rarely got to see. To me Oma was reticent, a quiet observer. Formidable still — always — but more like a moon influencing the tides than a sun holding everyone in its orbit. I thought of Oma and me as tentative, not fully understanding one another, not knowing how to show affection. *Hindi naman ako niyayakap nito,* she once said. This one doesn't really hug me. We never said we loved each other. That came much later. I am thankful it came. I don't know why it came, really. It feels like at some point a switch just flipped. But I think one day I started reaching for her, and she reached back. I remember coming home from a rave — Blasterjaxx at the Hammerstein Ballroom — at 5 AM on a Sunday morning. Valentine's Day. Half in love with the world, half strung out, I showered and crawled into bed with her. It was her second bedroom. Dad had moved her downstairs after a fall. It used to be mine. When we first moved into the house, my parents had painted it blue and yellow because I'd said my favorite color was the color of the sky. Oma stirred as I slipped into the sheets. She didn’t ask questions about where I’d been, just asked if I wanted to come to church with her. I agreed. The worship music hit different that morning. We celebrated her 99th birthday on a family cruise. Oma and I were both wearing the family t-shirts I designed, deep blue ocean and a cheeky pink Bermuda triangle emblazoned with the phrase "Oma's family goes to Bermuda!". My dad wanted to take a photo of us and I grabbed a giant bottle of Veuve Clicquot from a nearby restaurant for us to pose with. I asked her if she enjoyed her birthday. Her words? *Best*. *Birthday*. *Ever*. The day everyone came to move me out of my college dorm, we sat in an elevated sandwich shop and she wagged her finger at me and told me *wag kang lalayo!* Don't go far. We were sitting together in the backyard on a humid August day when I told her I'd finally secured a decent job. Once my first paycheck came in, I’d treat her to a meal, making good on a promise I’d made her years before. Her face lit up. When she smiled like that there was a twinkle in her eyes. “Uy! Blowout!” she cheered. Then she asked if we could invite my parents, and my aunt and uncle, and my other aunt. Fondly, exasperated, I agreed. As a teen I’d begun praying she would live long enough to be present for my milestones. When I started high school I prayed she would live long enough to see me graduate. When I graduated high school she was 94, and I prayed she would live to see me graduate college. When I graduated college she was 98, and I prayed she would live to see me find a good, stable job. When I got my first "big girl job" she was 100, and I dared to hope she might live to see me marry. When M proposed, she was 102. When we set the wedding date for two years later, I agonized over how far away it was, and prayed Oma would make it. On our wedding day she was 104. Was it selfish to want her to live longer, suffering from old age the entire time, just so I could have her with me? “I am happy,” my dad says to me one day, a few weeks after the funeral. I’d dropped by for lunch — shrimp and birria tacos in takeout containers on the folding tables in front of us. We are sitting on the same couch we once sat on with Oma. He is in her spot. “I mean, *I’m sad*, of course, because she’s my mom, but I rejoice that she's free from her body. She doesn't have to suffer anymore.” Dad and I are kindred spirits. The two of us need to talk, to make sense of our loss, to process our grief through words, so we do it together. But today I shield myself. I don't want him to know I don't feel the same. I am relieved she can rest, *of course*. But how can I find it a triumph to have an aching emptiness where I once had a pillar? I don’t want to accept that she is truly gone. I want her back. I want to see her again. I suppose the difference is that he has faith he will see her again in heaven. I am not so sure. The faith that Oma so dutifully instilled in all her descendants is…not quite lost on me, but perhaps not as firmly rooted. Not as certain. What Dad and I do share is the guilt. In her final years we left her in that place to be taken care of by people who don’t love her, in a system that is indifferent at best. I felt vaguely sick every time I saw her misspelled name on her wheelchair tags. I know most of her caregivers did their best. I know we all did the best we could with the resources we had. None of us were equipped to give her the care she needed. We visited as much as we could. We brought food. She once fed me, now I fed her. I sliced her grapes, peeled the skin, cut up her *lumpiang sariwa* into manageable bites, picked out all the vegetables I knew she’d have trouble chewing. We played dominoes to entertain her. She left us all in the dust. I am ashamed that I dreaded visiting her. I never wanted to tell her when it was time for us to go. If left alone Oma would always stubbornly attempt to get out of bed, risking a fall. So when we would leave, we had to park her in the hallway — where the aides could keep an eye on her. There was not even a television to help her pass the time. I hated watching her wave goodbye from her wheelchair. I would walk backwards, waving back and returning the kisses she would blow us, until we were in the elevator, out of sight. I feel guilt that I couldn’t be there every day. I feel guilt that I grieved her while she was alive. Even when sharp, she was a shadow of the titan I knew her to be. I’d already prepared myself — any day, it could be any day now. Did she feel loved? Did we do enough? Did I do enough? For years she would ask *kailan kayo kakasal?* - when are you two getting married? I marked the passing of time with my answers. *Soon, Oma, soon* gave way to *September next year!* Then it became *later this year!* and I would show her the wedding invitation I’d carefully pinned to her corkboard. Finally — *we're married already Oma! You were there!* Startled, she’d ask *ano?* - what? I’d show her a picture on my phone. She would touch the faces on the screen with her crooked fingers and her eyes would widen as she recognized, in order — me in a wedding dress, my husband, herself. *Ako yan?* That's me? I didn’t know our Christmas visit would be the last time we'd go over this well-worn script. After we reminded her we were already married, with her present, she turned her head away from the phone, toward me. Oma tilted her chin ever so slightly upward, her eyes found mine, and hoarsely said— *Maligaya kayo.* I don't remember what I said. My throat had tightened. I held back tears. Perhaps to her I looked a bit dim-witted. Perhaps, struck as I was by her clarity, I didn't say anything at all. But she said it again, stronger this time, with a gravelly timbre. *Maligaya kayo.* The room fell away. I'd forgotten where we were, who else was there, the noises, the light. It was not important. All that remained was Oma and me, the force of her gaze on mine, and the iron in her voice reverberating inside me. After a few seconds suspended in time, I heard my dad ask *ano?* What did she say? *Maligaya kayo.* She never said things like that. I grasped for the meaning. In English it means something like *be happy*, but that falls a bit short. Happiness is fleeting. Temporary. *Ligaya* is more profound. ***Joy***. Be joyous. Live joyful lives. Live a joyful life — together. We will, Oma. We will.