Is it true?
You see your entire life
Flash in front of your eyes
The second before you die?
And if it is,
What did you see?
Did you see yourself
Smiling and waving
To people who called out your name
When you won that basketball game?
Did you feel proud
Being in that moment again when
Your opponent shook your hand
After you beat him at tennis?
And what was it like,
When you relived that moment
At the altar, with that young woman
With whom you vowed “I do”?
Was it as amazing as the first time
In May, when you first saw
And then held your first child,
So tiny and fragile in your arms?
Was that October day vivid still,
Or did tears make the flashback hazy,
As to the altar, you led your second daughter,
To where her groom was waiting?
Did it make you laugh hearing
Your third daughter’s ringing laughter,
The one you always tried to copy
And made her laugh all the more?
And did it pain you again,
When your youngest daughter came home
That night you would pass away, when she barely looked at you
As she hurried to her room to work on her thesis?
Did you feel that love
That we sometimes were too greedy
To give you, yet, you know we had inside.
Did you feel it as we surrounded you
In your death bed?
Did you hear my mother and my sisters crying out your name?
And did you hear me whisper, “Don’t go, Pa. Please fight it.”
Was that why there were tears in your eyes
That few seconds before you died?
April 14, 2008 2:57 PM
(Therese is from Iligan City and teaches at the Foreign Language School of Jimei University, Xiamen, China . She was a fellow to the 4th Iligan National Writers Workshop and the 28th UP National Writers Workshop.).
