It was an easy question. I've been, at that time, preoccupied with my death and the purpose of my life. I imagined it to be mainly about my death-- how its fruit is at least one sinner's conversion, a believer's repentance, or anything along the lines of His glory.
That dream has been granted to my aunt, and I've been designated as repentant. A gift for her first birthday with the Author, this serves as her very own Wiki page.
Teresita Sadaya Lubid (December 6, 1964 - November 21, 2013)
She was my father's younger sister, either the fifth or sixth of eight siblings. Yes, even that I don't know about her and it is a very great regret. She was born 49 years ago (I didn't know this until she got sick) on this day (I never remembered this until she died). 26 years later, I'd share the same birth month and we'd hold celebrations together with a family friend, in time for my father's Christmas vacation. Those kainan, I realize only now, were special-- perhaps the ones with the most items to be celebrated. Yet I went and never paid attention.
She was a great cook. She prepared those meals. When her right axillary lymph nodes got clogged, resulting in right side edema, I realized she wouldn't be able to cook anymore. The last of her dishes I ate was months ago, I don't remember it very well. Every year, she cooks for my birthdays, too. My father asks her to, and then my mother pays her for the ingredients because she refuses payment for the labor. Last year, she didn't accept the payment, saying it was her gift to me. One time she even bought me a cake. Maybe it was even more than once. I wouldn't remember because I didn't pay attention.
She was a housewife. She married a man who'd had his eyes on her since elementary. He pursued her when he was in college, if my memory is accurate, and she accepted him because she saw my father in him. At least that I got to ask. My father was everything she thought a husband should be and she advised me the same standards. Her husband loved her very much and my last moments with her was a testimony of it. She must have loved him as well since whatever career she could've gone into was was given up to stay at home. But that I wouldn't know since I postponed asking about her college degree, or whether she did have one, when she gets well.
All they had was a son, barely out of high school. Of all male paternal cousins present every occasion, I used to find him the most gentle. She loved him very much, never subjecting him to what she knew would cause him distress. When she was in PGH, she knew the place would stress him out so she didn't make him attend to her. She supported his interest in music and encouraged him to play for their church fund-raising concert rather than stay with her at home. She didn't want her illness to keep her son away from his activities. I guess that thinking stems from her experience with taking care of her mother. Her mother developed thyroid cancer, perhaps, when she was about her son's age, depriving her of her adolescent life.
She was the caretaker. Aside from her mother, she took care of the half second cousin who attended to her when she got sick. She might have looked after her younger siblings, too. She also took care of a lot of my cousins and she was "Mama Terry" to them. And it was only her that my father trusted with his authoritative instructions. She was most like him among the siblings in appearance and in character, according to her husband. I never noticed.
The first time I truly paid attention to her was when I heard she had breast cancer. I didn't believe it until she got admitted in PGH and I visited. She looked undeniably sick. Had I granted that prayer request, my prayer would've been primarily about keeping her faith, that the Lord use her illness for that purpose, that she draws near Him, that He holds her through the ordeal, and secondarily, healing from cancer.
Aside from the birthday month, we share the same quiet temperament (in her own words, "nasasaktan na hindi pa nagsasalita"), astrological sign, sense of pride and taste for eggs. Friendship was a subject very dear to her. But that's about all I gathered. Wasn't even able to ask her favorite color.
As a child, I wanted to keep my hair long like hers. All the years I've known her, that was how she kept it.. But when we last met, it was short. She answered before I even mustered up the courage to ask, it was for chemo. So I assumed she wanted to get well.
The circumstances of her death, however, is a bit complex and still too sore for me to share. I never looked into her coffin; I couldn't. I content myself with the thought that she did love Jesus and that is enough reason for Him to grant her eternity.
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