The only authentic ending

Margaret Atwood had this to say about endings:

You'll have to face it, the endings are the same however you slice it. Don't be deluded by any other endings, they're all fake, either deliberately fake, with malicious intent to deceive, or just motivated by excessive optimism if not by downright sentimentality. The only authentic ending is this: You die. I die. We all die.

So much for endings but one such ending struck a chord in me recently that the waterworks could not be helped. This is the authentic kind of ending: Death. Now I don't personally know the deceased, but the account of her death and what happened surrounding her death is something I felt I needed to write about as I was wholly moved by it.

We all know we are to die at some point. Perhaps, it is with this understanding that we rush about in life, working to succeed, trying to make something out of our existence. Something of meaning, something that will allow us to pass peacefully in eternal slumber. While we know death to be eventual, it does come like a thief in the night. Unexpected. Mind-blowing. And this was how it was for her.

She complained of back pains but thought little of it. Life has a way of getting in the way of things, even trips to the doctor. The pain was intermittent at varying degrees. At times a dull throb, sometimes striking, but always present. Through trips back to Cebu and another to Palawan. Through conversations with her co-workers about her son's upcoming wedding, two years in the making. Through the many times she played with her grandson. Through family dinners. The pain had become part of her daily existence and still, she charged it to age. When she did find herself in the doctor's office, she was unprepared for the results: She had breast cancer and it had metastasized to her spine.

Her husband remained positive all throughout. His text messages to family read like this:

"Her liver had failed completely. But this is not the end. She looks well and the prognosis seems promising. Let's continue to pray for her recovery."

Do me a favor and run a search on Google regarding liver failures. What you will find is that upon liver failure, death is imminent only in a matter of days.

Her dying was a sight to behold. She could no longer close her eyes and her breathing was shallow. It was as if she was taking in all of the last moments of her life surrounded by family. Words were said and the tears were overflowing. Especially for her. The tears flowed along with her laborious breathing.

From her, who would have been her future daughter-in-law:

I know things were not always good between us. We fought a lot but I am here now and I promise to take care of your family.

It was over as soon at it begun. Her future daughter-in-law took it upon herself to take off all the jewelry and the fancy trappings that she so loved in preparation for what was to come. And since her body was bloated, the daughter-in-law had difficulty removing her wedding ring.

At this point, her husband took over saying that as he had put that ring there, it was just proper that he take it off.

And as he did so, he started reciting his marital vows.

In the haze of my tears, I saw the stretch in between. The whole plot of their life together, encapsulated in those vows. The things, mundane and vital, to their life as husband and wife. As mother and father. The one thing after another, a what and a what and a what.

The how and the why.

True connoisseurs savor the in-between since it's the hardest to do anything with. Trapped in an in-between, what do you do? Looking back is as painful as looking forward to the possibility of a non-future. So we stay strapped to the present, carrying our baggage, trying not to give in to that chip on our shoulders, and if we are lucky, sleeping off our sorrows.

The in-between defines who we are, how we are and what we will be. And in this special place, we can only hope and wish and perhaps pray to our gods to heed our deepest, secret desires.

After all, nothing's settled, until everything's settled.