oldest cousin EXPIRED.

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Today, the 8th of December, is a holiday of obligation or a special holiday for the Roman Catholic church. It is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Sadly, it is also the day our oldest cousin died at the National Kidney Institute. Manang JRV had chronic kidney disease- end stage, and she often underwent dialysis for several years now. When she and her sister, Manang M, visited us here, she was ashen-color but she was so jovial and funny. When my father and later my mother died, she was so scared to come to our house because she was afraid of ghosts. I remember a few days after my mother was buried in 2009, she came to our house but she was trembling; she did not want to go to our comfort room to empty her bladder so she squatted near the side door and voided there. I and my sister played pranks on her like, “manang JRV, Mama is standing beside you”, and she would run away shouting at us. One vice that she cannot stop even when she was on dialysis was her smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. She did not mind if the cigarette may be one reason why her immune system went down. The news of her demise was messaged to us by our kid brother who was in the international airport to fetch her daughter, who is here for her Christmas vacation. Later, my oldest brother also told us the news, and then our cousin here who posted a picture of our dear cousin. Now that Manang JRV is gone, she won’t be scared anymore. Maybe her mother, our auntie B, went to her when her breath was at its last. Or maybe our beloved parents were with auntie B in taking her out of her corporal body. Rest in eternal peace, Manang JRV.