this story originally appeared in the philippine daily inquirer on November 1, 2001.
I have written about ghosts before-ghosts of past memories left behind by loved ones who have died. In 1999, I wrote about the death of my uncle who had schizophrenia during most of his adult life (the effects of which I’ve had to grow up with).
I didn’t think I would be writing about the ghosts that haunt my family-memories both happy and sad that culminate in death-again, this soon. But last April 6, my cousin Rob took his life. And now, I am compelled to write.
Let me tell you about Rob, my family, myself.
Rob was only 30, the eldest in his family and among us cousins. My lola only has 12 grandchildren and Rob was like a kuya to all of us. Though his family lives in the United States and we’ve been together only three times in our lives, the fact that we are family links us in a strong bond that transcends space and time.
Rob was young, intelligent, good-looking, sensitive and, like the rest of our family, he apparently had a streak of intensity, an intensity that can take you to such highs (like the highs of passion and idealism) and then plunge you into the corresponding lows when things don’t work out.
It was this intensity that drove him to do the things he did in his life. He studied Economics in college (and occasionally excelled in it, too), went to Honduras to serve in the Peace Corps, wrote poetry in Spanish, worked briefly in a bank, loved his family and truly loved his girlfriend. He was the quiet, dependable, responsible kuya who felt deeply, perhaps too deeply for those around him, and who envisioned grand dreams that one day were supposed to turn into reality.
He left his job in the bank to put up a business, a dotcom. But that venture didn’t work out for him, and this was eventually the reason he chose to take his own life.
But, all that is immaterial now.
Cut and dried on paper, that was my cousin’s life. However, it could have been anyone else’s in our family. It could have been mine, in fact.
When I found out what happened, of course, the first question to enter my mind was why. It always is why.
You hear about these things all the time: someone’s friend, someone’s daughter, someone’s nephew, someone who went to the same school as you. But, it never strikes this close to home. Now, the reality of suicide has struck our family and for those of us who were left behind, the questions remain. The struggle to come to terms with the whys goes on.
Rob’s youngest sister, Ange, said in her eulogy: “We question what propelled him into a downward spiral of unhappiness. Could we have predicted it? Could we have fought his battle?”
My answer is this: No, we could not have fought his battle for him. That was his, and it has been fought now. Perhaps his life ended too soon, too drastically, in the manner he chose. But now, we have our own battles to fight. And most of it is to try to understand why, to see the purpose for his untimely death, to intuit the meaning of why something like this had to happen in our family, and to realize that ultimately we are not alone in our battles.
Speaking of battles, I have been fighting my own battle against depression some time now. For the longest time, I couldn’t understand what it was I was going through, why I was the way I was. All I knew was that my family and I were not “normal.” We were definitely not typical and average. Intelligent, creative, gifted, driven, passionate, temperamental, anxious, weird, intense bordering on insane-call it what you will but that was who we were. That was who I was and still am.
All this time, it has been some sort of a struggle to understand and accept my family and myself; to let go of all the baggage, to find balance and just be happy. Now, in the face of my cousin’s death, the reality of the chemical imbalance that affects our family and the need for enlightenment about such conditions are beginning to sink in even more.
The battles we fight are not external. They are not in Honduras, not in far-flung places of Peace Corps or JVP missions, not on Edsa, not in Mindanao, not in the environmental advocacies of NGOs. Not just there. But here. At home. In our families. In our cubicles in the office. In bed at night when your mind races, questions, and you’re trying to find peace and fall asleep. The battles are internal-in our hearts and minds. These are where the battles are raging. We don’t have to look beyond the here and now.
So in the midst of this, life must go on.
Two days after Rob’s burial, my cousin Ange took part in a school council debate. She was running for council president of the University of Maryland. I spoke to her on the phone and asked, “How could you do it? How can you go on?”
She told me, “Life must go on. Rob wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.”
And so it does. On Monday, I have a deadline for an article. We all have to go to work, maybe pretend that all this is not happening, maybe slow down from the overwhelming experiences of the past several days, months, years. Maybe get off the roller coaster for a while.
I know I will immerse myself in work again to momentarily forget the battles that are raging within and to force a semblance of normalcy in my life.
But every now and then, they will pick at me and I know that my inquisitive mind will question again, and I would know when it is time to move on, to heal.
My mind will tell me that perhaps, there indeed is hope for healing no matter how tortured our individual existence may be. It will tell me and others that life must be affirmed and that NOTHING, no matter how painful, is worth killing yourself for.
Maybe my heart will come to believe this, too, as it has had so many times over, these past years.
I want to tell my cousin that his death, though utterly tragic, was not in vain. There have been major changes and realizations. The Peace Corps and the Office of Management and Budget based in the White House for which Rob’s sister, Tina, works has allotted a fund for the place where he served in Honduras, in his name.
My own personal experiences have been validated. I now know that I am not alone and though I didn’t know my cousin very well in life, I feel I know him more now.
I also know that these experiences have made me wise, resilient and strong.
Maybe my family will organize a support group for those who are going through depression and post-traumatic stress from suicide. Maybe we will become closer to God. Maybe we will finally work toward our own healing and be instruments of others’ healing too.
So many things are waiting to be accomplished and there is hope and meaning in tragedy if you only care enough to look.
The night we found out about Rob, a friend and I tried to talk to him. We asked, “What was your message? Why did you do it?” His answer: Do not forget me. I want to go back to a place where I made a difference. Be more demonstrative of love.
With his death, it seems my cousin has truly made a difference now. We all pray that he has moved on. I believe that if those of us who were left behind continue to hope and work for change in our lives, he will move on.
