To Live With and Like the Dead
by Airi Martin
Whisper all your worries and sorrows; prayers and desires comfortably, but do not be startled the moment they whisper back.
At some point, the lengthy rope of mortality will be severed, and loved ones will persist in letting it go. Yet time will pass, wounds would turn to scars — they will go on to climb their mountains with one less knot, and this rope of yours will drop five feet below the ground in promise of eternal peace and rest, but comes the curse of immortal decay.
Those scars will be one with their skin as they learn to live with it, paying them a visit occasionally, some even rarer than a blue moon. Now only in memory, the cemetery’s working habitants will be the ones to bathe your new body in the form of a tombstone. One may question, who has the stomach to live in a place like a cemetery; work in a graveyard? Nonetheless, it is real, and has long been happening in the Philippines.
Dating back to the 1950’s, Manila’s public cemeteries first housed those met with incredibly low income as opposed to the city’s promise of high opportunities. Moreover, it is the government’s poor attendance to the less fortunate of Manila that catapulted the idea.
As time went by, graveyard habitants began working jobs around the cemetery while simultaneously living in it to create income — selling flowers and cleaning the area for instance. With this, it also becomes their duty to mourn with the families, and in a way, befriend the deceased. Although the money is little, they are able to shelter themselves and with hope, do not starve to death. As well, they no longer need to worry about bills.
With that in mind, they view cemetery living as peaceful yet lonely, as it is extremely quiet on a daily basis. Instead of fear, there is tranquility. Some even celebrate their birthdays inside the mausoleums.
In addition, a study by Lapatha and other several authors declared that the Filipino people, especially those lower than the poverty line do indeed seek refuge in graveyards. However, above all, they nestle in cemeteries for their jobs, much like the following heroes of the dead.
In rotting with the rotten
Between the living and the dead, the only difference is the body and the corpse, but both their souls are imminent to withering. In this case, the two withered together.
Mang Servillano Castro, now 76 years old, has been haunted not by the ghosts of those below the tombstones he watches over, rather, the creaking of his bones, and the passing of his own time.
“E sumasakit na [ang] katawan ko. Oo e tumatanda tayo, e,” he recognized, longing for a good rest.
For 30 years, the Legacy Memorial Park in Malolos, Bulacan served as his only home, making family with the deceased. The nights of terror were to him, nights of tranquility. The stars at twilight might have revealed the spirits of the dead, but all it revealed to him was the aging folds on his body.
The cemetery’s tiny guardhouse serves as Mang Servillano’s house. It being only the size of other people’s bathrooms, the bed had become his every area: sleeping, dining, lounging, and possibly everything. The door operates right beside his bed, with nothing more after it but a wall.
Regardless, the state of his living does not compare to the solace that runs between his wrinkles when he bravely faces the night looking around to guard those sleeping day and night below his now weak knees. His whistles became their lullaby.
Despite his love for what he does, Mang Servillano will at last, leave this home and job he had cherished for three decades. He will now be yet another goodbye to the fallen he had taken good care of; Mang Servillano will soon be a ghost of their immortal decay. After all, they are not too different: not erased, but mostly forgotten.
As he is to soon strive away with his back facing the graveyard never to come back, his head will be held high at the face of death. He has no fear, for he believes that those he watched over all these years, will be there to do the same for him in return for the favor.
With hope yet uncertainty, Mang Servillano believes that they have been indeed returning the favor, still here after so long. “Maaaring pinapatnubayan ako sa tagal ko na rito. ‘Yung paglingkuran sila.”
Mang Servillano’s life entirety might as well be defined as loving and being loved by the dead more than the living. Perhaps, his rottenness takes the form of settling in poverty and letting time pass over this dread.
His only wish is for them to continue to guide him, wherever else he could go. It is also in his prayers that they do not revere him too much to follow him out the gates.
Friends from the ‘other side’
Last luck of a lifetime, there are people who are willing to offer their living hours, days, and even years.
They might cry to your descendance like a loved one while knowing nothing of you; they will be there in the dullest times of every passing year, as you lie idly under the umber soil you once walked on. These people will not judge you of your sins, nor know of the best of your deeds. They simply will be the truest of friends.
Although his fingers did tremble in terror the first time around, Mang Ernie, 58 years old, now found peace and sees the Legacy Memorial Park as a place of escape from his problems. Here, he is free from the grip of reality — a release of his own caged spirit.
“Oo naman, masaya rito, tahimik. Kumbaga parang normal ang isip mo, parang okay lang, parang walang stress [dahil] tahimik nga rito kasi nga patay,” he commented.
For a year, he has been sweeping and maintaining the cleanliness of the only body visible of the perished, serving as the only leftover of everything they once possessed — their epitaphs.
And just like a true friend, Mang Ernie confessed his feelings for those who had passed away, especially ones who are still young. “Minsan [ay] nanghihinayang ako sa buhay nila, siyempre marami pa ‘ka kong mangyayari sa buhay nito, e wala, e. Talagang hanggang do’n lang ang buhay niya, e. Nakakalungkot din talaga minsan.”
He recalled encountering people yet to experience the glees and despairs of life being buried down the muddy ground, as it shoveled everybody’s hearts including his to agony that no wage will suffice to pay, not with a poor income.
He also took note in noticing how some of them are no longer visited by anyone for so long, that the grass around thickens only to creep over their epitaphs. “Katulad ng mga ‘yan, mga nakabaon na ‘yang mga ‘yan, ‘di man lang maipaayos. Minsan walang dumadalaw kasi. Medyo nakakalungkot din naman.”
As now a friend to these dead, he sometimes speaks to them in hopes that they will listen, but not respond.
“Basta parang iniisip ko na lang, o ayan, ha, ‘pag ako’y nawala, e [w]alang mag-aalaga sa inyo, kaya medyo kailangan e, gagabayan n’yo ‘ko. Kailangan ‘yun bang magpag-usap pa rin sa kanila.” Mang Ernie gathers, as they might just be sitting somewhere, listening. And if they are, goodness and a longer life would actually come upon him.
With the same stories, 55-year-old Mang Edward Cortez and 37-year-old Oliver Estrella quite funnily live through the dead as well. Nevertheless, every dust they swept away, they did in homage — for home and homage, that is, as the only way for them to serve food on the table is to work under the wings of death, or its very proof and reminder on land.
Mang Edward, although finds irony in his line of work, still assumes that those who have passed away are his friends in need of care. “Siguro nakatingin sa akin tapos [sinasabing] ‘A, ayos, a, malinis ang puntod ko.’ Dapat ginagalang ‘yan at inaalagaan.”
Oliver, on the other hand, views his job as the only way of survival. “‘Pag walang patay, patay ako, wala akong kita.” After all, his income might be smaller than the grains of soil he spades.
With hilarity and pity battling on his eyes, he also remarked that he would not be buried in Legacy Memorial Park where he currently works at, but rather in public cemeteries where, despite graves being stacked and jammed, is much more reachable by his money.
It seems even in dying, he will be serving those above him. He pondered, who would take care of him there the way he is doing?
Oliver blinked his way back to reality, and reminded himself that this death is only to bring him to a much better place of no violence and cruelty. To the four of them, the living world is much more hell than hell is.
“‘Yung mga buhay hindi mo alam [ang] mga iniisip nila sa kapwa, ‘di ba? ‘Yung mga ‘yan, gumagalaw, kumikilos, makakapanakit. ‘Di katulad nila, ayan na sila, tahimik na sila,” said Mang Ernie, upright and frank.
This belief of theirs might as well be the one true hauntingly lingering around: fear the living more than the dead, for they are capable of inflicting more pain than the silent and already in deep slumber. The living are capable of walking over you.
Living could be more torture than dying; more a damnation than death. To them, the dead are not to be feared, but to be taken care of, as they were once living people like themselves, with stories and loved ones whose hearts broke for them.
They, too, once denied the thought of death, yet now colder than the air at night. They were daughters and sons, fathers and mothers — they played a role once in a billion lives. Therefore, Mang Edward and Oliver call on the people to display their respects to both the dead and to their works simply by not walking all over their graves or leaving the cemetery in filth.
The living with the nerve to do evil still alive on their bodies could not be much worse than the eerie but dead.
May the living act like the living
As described by Mang Ernie, it is often that people shamelessly walk all over the epitaphs, completely disregarding and dishonoring the wholeness of those buried below it. “Minsan ‘yung iba, makikita mo, talagang tumatapak, minsan natatapakan, walang respeto.”
With the upcoming All Saints’ Day, it is guaranteed that these walkers would only multiply, not only making their works harder, but further increasing the windows of disrespect.
Even so, in Mang Edward’s eyes, this day is a happy day, as it reminds people of this scar they kept so long only to forget, which is a win to the deceased. For at least once in a vast year, they are finally remembered.
Mang Edward reminds, “E mahal mo ‘yan sa buhay, e, halimbawa magulang, inaalagaan ka no’ng bata ka pa.” These tombstones people walk over are in truth, housing bodies with stories of life before they became mere corpses.
With this, they all ask visitors in commemoration to be much more mindful of their actions — the dead might no longer be around, but respect is something that shall never perish.
Having worked so close to the far gone, they also wish to remind the still living to not fear death, as there will be ones that will accompany you and possibly decay their ways to their own demise alongside you.
With them, in death solitary, you are never alone.
Airi Martin is a freshman staff writer of Pacesetter. She is a first-year industrial engineering student from the College of Engineering.
