Unlike the movie, there aren’t any murderous ghosts or deals with the devil for how we practice pagpag. Even though I’ve explained to Ma multiple times that pagpag is a superstition that’s practiced during wakes, she applies it to every visit to Pa. It simply became routine that we never go straight home after the cemetery. We always pass by the nearest McDonald’s, Jollibee, or convenience store after seeing Pa. If my dad’s friends visit, we go to Gloria Maris.
The sun finally shows when Ma pulls up to the road leading to the Memorial Park. Ever since I can remember, there have been the same flower vendor stalls lined up outside, with names like Lily’s Flower Shop, Cesar’s Flower Shop. We enter the park and drive through the sprawling lawn covered with graves and flowers until we turn the corner toward Pa’s lot.
Pa’s old coworkers from the warehouse business usually arrive a little before noon, but this quiet time early in the morning—we save this moment for our family.
Ma sets up the altar in front of the grave while Achi and I prepare the flowers and the incense. Once we’re ready and take our places around Pa, I start leading the rosary prayer. Mere seconds in, my sister can’t resist butting in. “You recited the Joyful Mysteries.”
“Yes, and you’re interrupting.”
She interjects again. “It’s a Sunday. We should be praying the Glorious ones.”
“No,” I argue, not giving in. “It should be Joyful.”
“Where’d you get that information from?”
“Jesus,” I deadpan.
Ma sighs and urges us, “Let’s just get on with the prayer.”
By Achi’s head tilt, though, she’s for sure thinking I’m wrong. It really pisses me off that my sister thinks I’m incapable of doing anything right.
I carry on with my prayer leading, while Achi shoves her phone in my face. My stomach sinks when I read that Joyful Mysteriesaredesignated for Saturdays.
God. Why does she have to be right every single time?!
“Achi, you’re ruining the mood for the prayer.”
“I just want to make sure you’re leading it right,” she argues back.
“Well, it’s hard to lead people who never follow.”
Ma then snatches away my pamphlet and consequently my duty as prayer leader. Achi and I resume standing there on our best behavior through the whole rosary while Ma leads the novena. Even in her silence, I can still feel Achi gloating that she caught me being wrongagain.
We finish the prayer and Achi lights the candles on the altar while Ma passes me three incense sticks. When Ma showed us how to use incense years ago, I overheard Achi ask if it was ironic that our family attended Catholic Mass and used incense. I didn’t know what ironic meant so I chimed in that we weren’t ironic, we were just Chinese Filipino.
I light the sticks and bow three times toward Pa. His date of birth and death are written in golden script with his name:Antonio Simon T. Ilagan.
This part always makes me nervous. When Achi and Ma bow and do their prayers, they always linger in front of Pa’s grave, looking like they have so much to say. I don’t even know the whole story about the day Pa died.
When Ma picked me up from school instead of Pa that day, I asked where Pa was. My mind still remembers how Ma’s kneewas shaking and how her knuckles looked pale as she gripped the wheel. Ma took a long time to answer. Even back then, I was scared to ask more questions. She stayed quiet until a butterfly with black wings landed on the hood of the car.
“Nika, did I ever tell you why butterflies are so special?”
Ma continued explaining. “Some believe that butterflies are actually the souls of our departed loved ones. So whenever you see a butterfly, that means someone you love from heaven is saying hello.”
Later on, Achi was the one who broke the news to me that Pa was gone. She said he got sick—and that it was fast so it wasn’t painful. She and Ma were so busy afterward that they didn’t have time to explain further.
Ma wipes the corner of her eye, then meets my gaze. “You doing okay?” she asks, gently rubbing my arm.
I lie and nod.
She sighs and does the sign of the cross before tapping Pa’s photo on top of the altar. “I thank God every day that I have you and Jackie.”
It makes the heat rise in the back of my throat. “Yeah, it could’ve been so much worse,” I joke. “You could’ve had sons.”
Ma keeps pushing her agenda to make me cry. “I mean it,” she insists. “You two always come first.”
It was a nice moment.
