Yeyette’s battle against death was a battle for love (part 3 of 3)

At the start of our relationship, Yeyette and I already agreed who should handle all of our family’s finances: her. She would handle all of my salary (my ATM card, in particular). This means that she would take care of all of our family’s expenses: food, apartment rent, electricity, water, our kids tuition, etc. I really didn’t mind that she handle all of my money because I’m not a materialistic person. All I really wanted was to read and write. That’s all. And she would take care of our five kids and everything else.

Yeyette sometimes even took care of carpentry. I just hate manual labor. When the need arose, she was the one who communicated with our neighbors, not me. There is also a belief that all great chefs are men, but not in my case. Yeyette did all the cooking, and what an excellent cook she was! The only food that I can cook are fried stuff, particularly scrambled eggs. And I only do that once in a blue moon.

With such an enormous responsibility upon her shoulders, she virtually became the paterfamilias of the Alas household. I was just a provider. Admittedly, I was not an ideal husband. Neither was I father material. When I became a father at age 21, my world stopped. I stopped growing up. Up to now, and in spite of my knowledge, I still have the mind of a 21-year-old kid. There were times when Yeyette joked that she had six children — I was her eldest! 😂

She was my pillar and strength instead of the other way around. I heavily depended on her about so many things. Knowing that I’m an introvert at heart, she did most of the dealings with other people concerning things that needed to be ironed out: documentation of official papers, groceries, bank loans, checking-in at resorts, and even hanging out with my famous associates. I only learned how to socialize because of her.

Many years ago, I asked her what really was her dream. If I had dreamed of becoming a famous writer, what about her? She had talent: cooking (her pasta was to die for). And she could act. She had movie-star looks. In the mid-90s, she won a beauty contest in Eat Bulaga! (“She’s Got The Look”). She worked part-time as a ramp model to pay for her tuition. In our Introduction to Drama and Basic Acting subject, she was on top of our class, There was one time when the two of us acted onstage back in college. Saint Theresa’s Auditorium (now Adamson University Theater) was filled to the last seat. The whole venue was roaring with laughter because of her theatrics.

So what was her answer? Despite her potential to become either as a chef or as a celebrity, she had one simple dream: to be a wife and a mother. And she achieved her simple dream with me. As mentioned earlier, she took many responsibilities in our household, but she never complained. In fact, she loved what she was doing. She was living her dream.

But I became a burden to her. I was never able to reciprocate her love equally. My frustrations as a struggling writer intervened through the years, and she (and even our kids) had a very, very hard time putting up with my erratic behavior and other eccentricities. But she persevered. For her, family was everything. Despite our weaknesses as a couple, she moved heaven and earth just to keep our family intact.

And then the pandemic came. It was during that time when she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

* * * * * * *

Immediately after the Extreme Unction, Yeyette’s oxygen rate plummeted, and heart rate became erratic. I really thought that she was going to die the moment Fr. Jojo Zerrudo stepped out of the room. But she refused to go.

About an hour after Fr. Zerrudo had left, nurses came inside the room to connect her to an oxygen machine to assist her breathing. The hospital staff tried to fulfill their promise to make her final moments as comfortable as possible. But the moment they placed the oxygen mask on her face, she suddenly woke up and struggled. She put up a semi-conscious fight against the nurses and our children who tried to appease her.

“Mommy, it’s for your own good,” said Krystal. “Please allow them to put this mask on you. It will help you breathe properly.” My sons and the nurses tried to restrain her, but it seemed that there was still enough strength in her to fight back.

Finally, after more than a minute of struggling, I told the nurses to stop. Let her be, I told them. If she is comfortable with just a nasal cannula, so be it.

After the nurses had left, another odd incident had happened. Yeyette again woke up and motioned for us to assist her to sit up on the bed. We did so, but very gently because her back was in great pain (it was that part of her body which she had been complaining the most all throughout her stay in Bacoor, Cavite, leading me to believe that her cancer had also metastasized to her bones). After lifting her back, she just sat on the bed with both knees erect (pointing to the ceiling). She then embraced her skinny shinbones with both her bony arms, then gently rested her sad face on her knees.

The look on her face was the saddest expression I had ever seen in our entire twenty-four year relationship.

She sat like that for a few seconds, with our children supporting her. Then I told her: “Mommy, you cannot stay like that for long. You have to lie down”. I was seconded by her mother. My boys then laid her back on the bed, ever so gently so that she wouldn’t feel any pain. She didn’t protest. Once we have put her back in place, her eyes had closed. It was for the last time.

Moments later, Mómay and I saw Yeyette’s left hand gently clench into a fist. I frowned, puzzled at this new development. Both me and my son opened her hand gently. Afterwards, I saw my wife’s face wince in agony — she was already unconscious, but she could still feel pain!

After a long wait —it was like waiting for the uncertain—, we all decided that I and my children had to go home. Krystal, our eldest, would stay with her grandparents to keep watch. Yeyette’s sister Kathleen and her children had already left right after the ritual, but we were still too many inside the small hospital room. There was not enough space where we could all sit or lie down. The only bench there could fit about five sitting people. We would just return when daylight comes. With Yeyette’s recent movements, there seemed to be a flicker of hope that she might survive perhaps another day.

When the Grab car that Krystal booked had arrived, we hurriedly left the room and sprinted for the elevator (we were at the fifth floor). But once inside the elevator, the blasted door wouldn’t close. And when it finally did, it suddenly reopened. This went on for about a minute, prompting us to use the stairs instead.

Once we were outside the hospital, the Grab car wasn’t there. It had already left!

We were forced to go back to Yeyette’s room, explaining to the others what had just happened. Krystal suggested that I send a complaint to Grab. But I was already too sleepy to do so. I then took out the large brown envelopes containing Yeyette’s hospital records and X-ray films and laid them on the floor where our nine-year-old daughter Junífera Clarita and I could lay down. Not an ideal place to sleep, but all I was after was just forty winks. The rest sat had to doze off while seated on the bench. We all agreed to take turns in guarding Yeyette. Mómay and Jefe kept watch over their mother.

Clarita fell asleep at past 3 AM, but I couldn’t. It was hard to sleep on the floor. Just as I was about to fall asleep, the nurses returned with the oxygen machine. They wanted to try once more. When they attempted to place the oxygen mask on Yeyette’s face, she no longer woke up. There was no more struggling. The nurses succeeded. I went back to my bed of envelopes.

But I was restless inspite of my sleepiness. I kept on checking on my wife. She was already still, her agonal respiration becoming slower and slower with the oxygen mask. The last time I looked at her before I went back to the floor beside Clarita, I sensed a semblance of peace on her still body.

I laid my body on the floor again. Jefe was also trying to get some sleep beside Clarita’s feet. Yeyette’s parents, Krystal, and Juanito were all seated at the bench, their backs to the wall, trying their best to doze off. Only Mómay kept watch over his mother.

Just as my mind was about to travel to dreamland, I heard Mómay speak in an alarming tone.

“Mommy doesn’t seem to be moving anymore.”

I immediately got up from where I was lying down. From where I stood, I saw my wife’s face, covered in oxygen mask. I looked hard at her for several seconds.

She was no longer breathing.

“Yeyette is gone,” I declared to everyone. Her mother cried as soon as I finished my words. Almost immediately, everybody surrounded her bed. Only Yeyette’s father remained seated on the bench, seemingly shocked to what had just happened.

Clarita woke up to the tears. I turned to her in a tearful voice. “Mommy is gone.”

My boys checked on the oxymeter attached to her right index finger; it was no longer functioning. The nurses were then summoned. They immediately checked on my wife’s pulse. As already agreed, there were no more attempts to revive her.

After checking on her pulse and neck, one of them declared: “Time of death: 4:10 AM”.

It was April 25th. A full moon was shining outside. Yeyette was fond of full moons.

* * * * * * *

One night during her wake in Abra de Ílog, Mindoro Occidental, or just a few days after her death, I was at the balcony of her ancestral house, lying down on a mattress with the full moon shining down on me. I was trying to process Yeyette’s final moments at the hospital. Her oxygen level already lowered right after the Extreme Unction, but she didn’t die as everybody was hesitantly expecting. The protest against the oxygen mask, the sitting down on her bed, the clenched fist and wince of pain… what did that all mean?

Finally, it dawned on me: she was fighting death!

My dear wife didn’t want to die. She fought until the end.

But she didn’t want to die not because she was afraid of death, as most humans are. She didn’t want to die because she didn’t want to leave us.

My daughter Krystal recalled that during her mom’s follow-up check-ups in South City, she always cried to the doctors. She was pleading to them to heal her because she still has a family to take care of.

She didn’t want to leave our five children to me, on my lonesome. Because she knew that I couldn’t take care of them on my own. She had to assist me in taking care of our children. And she had to personally take care of me because she knew that I cannot live on my own without her.

Yeyette’s battle against death was a battle for love. Her love for us was so intense, it would have shamed the sun. But God had other plans. For some reason, He had to take her away from us.

And what about the faulty elevator door and “the Grab that got away”? Did God will it too that we all stay with Yeyette ’til the very end? I am sure that was the case.

* * * * * * *

These past few days, I’ve been sending out audio messages to Yeyette’s closest friends, relating to them her final moments. Because I believe that they had the right to know. Being her closest friends, I also poured out to them my heart and soul. I wanted to share my grief with them. Upon admitting to them that I am not father material, one of them replied: “…God is just giving you the chance to prove to Jennifer (my wife Yeyette’s real name) that you are now responsible and father material to take care and support your children this time.”

* * * * * * *

A few hours after Yeyette passed away, Fr. Zerrudo sent me a reassuring message.

“Be at peace. She is in heaven. Ask her for a sign.”

Up to now, I haven’t asked her. I still do not have the spirit in me to do so.

A mi amada Yeyette, ruega por mi y por nuestros niños. Amén.

Yeyette’s battle against death was a battle for love (part 1 of 3)

The burly doctor led me to a cozy room, almost like a living room, with a sofa and a homely table surrounded by white walls decorated with a dark painting or two. The incandescent light overhead further enunciated the whiteness of the room, but its artificiality forebode whatever little hope lay ahead.

She bade me sit down on a stool. I couldn’t see her entire face because of the surgical mask, but the look of concern in her eyes betrayed what I was fearfully anticipating.

“Sir, I had wanted to tell this to your mother-in-law, but she seemed to be in denial”. My mother-in-law had been crying inside my wife’s hospital room. “¡Lumaban ca, Yeyette!” were the only words she could utter repeatedly beside my semi-conscious wife who by then was already breathing in gasps, her mouth wide open, as if running out of air. “She seemed to be in denial, so I decided to just talk to you.”

Deep inside, I already knew what she was going to tell me, but I would like to hear it from her. And definitely, she would be revealing more.

She took in a deep breath before commencing. “Your wife’s breast cancer is already at stage 4, and it has metastasized to other parts of her body. She now has cancer in her brain and lungs. And her heart problems have returned.” The doctor was referring to my wife’s ordeal last February when she had an emergency procedure to remove abnormal amounts of liquid in her heart.

The doctor also signaled to her throat, meaning to say that my wife’s cancer had spread to that part too. No wonder she couldn’t swallow well her food. That is why my wife weighed only 28 kgs. She was literally skin and bones upon admission earlier that day.

“I have handled many other patients that looked similar to your wife’s, and I can say that hers is terminal. I am sorry.” The way she said those three final words were not rote. The empathy was real. Somehow, it made me feel grateful.

I was then struggling to fight off tears. “I understand, doc. I am open-minded about these things. If there is really nothing you can do, I won’t take it against you,” I said, my voice starting to crack.

“For now, we can only accord her palliative care,” the doctor said. “But should we still go ahead with the procedures that your wife requested?” She was referring to an endoscopy and others that Yeyette was supposed to take. I said no. What for if she was already on her way out? The doctor nodded in agreement. “But in case her heartbeat stops, should we still revive her? Should we still use defibrillators or CPR?”

“No.” I was more surprised by the swiftness of my response than the directness of her question. “I don’t want her to suffer anymore. My only request is for you and your staff to let her pass away as comfortable as possible.” My voice struggled not to break. I couldn’t tell anymore if I was making the right decision. My mind was in a daze. Just a few months ago, I moved heaven and earth to raise more than a million pesos to pay for the expenses of her heart surgery. That traumatic experience was still lingering at that very moment I was speaking with the doctor. What if I tell them to try to revive my wife? But that might cost me millions again. Besides, didn’t the doctor say that Yeyette was already terminal?

“Should I be the one to tell your family members about what’s going to happen?” the doctor asked.

“No. I will do it.”

“OK.” For a moment, I thought the doctor was going to cry. But she just clasped her hands together and said her apologies again.

“No, I understand the situation perfectly. You did what you could.” She then led me on my way out of the room.

* * * * * * *

My wife was confined in Asian Hospital and Medical Center from February 22 to March 16 due to cardiac tamponade. A few days before she was discharged, an oncologist approched us and told us that the real cause of her cardiac tamponade was the recurrence of her breast cancer, the ailment which she had been fighting since the start of the pandemic, or some four years ago. Suspicious nodules were found in her lungs. A lesion on her left skull was also detected.

The oncologist said that she should undergo another six rounds of chemotherapy the soonest possible time. But Yeyette decided to rest first for a month or two. She said she couldn’t do it soon. She had wanted to gain some weight first. I believed her. Because she was already a pile of skin and bones. But the oncologist was insistent. He said it was only a matter of time before the cancer cells start to spread; my wife was adamant and confident that they wouldn’t. I didn’t disagree with her. It was her body, after all. Only she can really tell and feel whether or not she should go for it or not.

Upon her discharge, she was brought straight to her mother’s house in Bacoor, Cavite. We all agreed that she stay there for a month or two in preparation for her chemotherapy.

But that didn’t happen anymore.

* * * * * * *

In the afternoon of April 24, I received a message from my mother-in-law. She said that Yeyette was again confined, this time at South City Hospital and Medical Center, also in Bacoor. Since her discharge from Asian Hospital last March 16, my wife had been making frequent visits to that hospital in Bacoor. There was even one time when she was brought there in an emergency — she collapsed at my mother-in-law’s as she stepped out from the bedroom. Little did we know that she was already dying during the time that she was supposed to prepare for her chemotherapy.

Our son Juanito also received a message from one his cousins. He was told that her mom was already suffering in the hospital. For some reason, those alarming messages told me that this could be it. Yeyette’s time was up.

Just before twilight, My wife’s nephew Allen picked us up on his MPV from our place in San Pedro Tunasán. They had come from the hospital. With him were his girlfriend Jackie and sister Kate. I asked Kate her assessment of her Tita Yeyette. Will she survive? Kate could only answer me with a sorrowful gaze.

We arrived at the hospital just as the sun had set in the horizon. Upon entering the hospital room, I saw Yeyette in her most weak state. She could hardly move. When she saw me and our children, I could have sworn that she attempted to smile. But she couldn’t.

She also couldn’t talk anymore. She had lost her voice. The look on her eyes was a mix of both sickness and sadness.

At past seven in the evening, she lost consciousness. It was then when her agonal respiration began.

* * * * * * *

It was hard to recall the way I walked back to my wife’s room after the doctor told me of her hopeless condition. Was it in small strides? Did I try to suppress my steps to at least rehearse what I was about to say? It was as if I’m floating in a dream. I couldn’t believe it was all happening. But in a few moments, I found myself inside her room. Yeyette, still with mouth agape and eyes closed, was surrounded by our five children, her parents, and her sister and the latter’s children. Beside Yeyette’s death bed, I called their attention and explained to them in as clearly as possible what was about to happen to their beloved family member, she who was filled with so much laughter and song and positivity during her healthy years.

“So I guess this is it,” I said, with my voice unable to suppress its sorrow. “We should now whisper to her our farewells.” Her mother started to wail. Everybody broke down. I was struggling hard not to.

I just couldn’t believe that it was all happening. My soulmate of twenty-four years, my pillar, my strength, my frenemy, my old friend, the wind beneath my wings, my endless love… was about to leave me for Eternity (TO BE CONTINUED).

Jennifer Perey de Alas: 1976–2024

^{I will love you till the end of time.}

Jennifer “Yeyette” Perey de Alas, my beautiful wife of close to a quarter of a century, has joined our Creator last April 25. She would have turned 48 this June 11.

Cancer was the underlying cause of her death. Her breast cancer, the ailment which she had been battling since 2020, metastasized to her brain and lungs. It also caused pericardial effusion (antecedent cause). But the initial cause of her death was pneumonia. The cancer cells in her body already weakened her immune system.

She was buried in her captivating hometown of Abra de Ílog, Mindoro Occidental, together with the remains of her beloved grandparents and other relatives. It was her final wish.

Shortly before her demise, I was able to contact Fr. Jojo Zerrudo, the same priest who married us on 13 September 2013. She was already on the throes of death, already unconscious. But the moment Fr. Zerrudo was to give her a small piece of the Eucharist (Viaticum), she suddenly opened her eyes to receive It. It was a miracle.

A few hours later, at 4:10 AM, April 25, she gave up the ghost.

But she didn’t want to die. About an hour after receiving the Viaticum, she still regained some semblance of consciousness, fighting off nurses who tried to connect her to an oxygen machine. Moments before her death, I saw her left hand clench into a fist.

She was literally fighting death.

Yeyette didn’t want to die not because she was afraid of dying. She didn’t want to die because she was afraid of leaving us, of leaving me alone with our children. Because she knew that I am not “father material”, that I couldn’t do it on my lonesome. Her fight against death was borne out of love for us. She didn’t want to leave us because she loved us so much. Her love was so immense it would have outshone the sun.

My beautiful wife, the mother of our five children, was gone. We promised each other that we will grow old together. But cancer broke that promise…

Twenty-three days have passed since Yeyette joined our Creator. I have been weeping every single day since she left. And today is by far the most difficult day of my grieving (and to think that it’s not yet even a month of her passing). I have cried so many times even without the slightest provocation. There was no need for a song nor a picture of hers to well up emotions. Like Taal and Mayón, I just break down without warning.

After my night shift, as I was saying my morning prayers in front of our “altarcito”, I felt a heaving inside my chest, and broke down afterwards. In between sobs, I uttered aloud, that may she appear to me, even if just for a brief moment, ridiculous as it may seem. I clutched the Mass card sent to me by her dear friend Fritzy Barredo and read its text while weeping.

I was nonplussed when my intellect suddenly questioned the existence of the afterlife. For a moment, my faith suddenly wobbled down and lost its ground. In my desperation to hopefully embrace her one day, I started looking for answers, for a semblance of reason that there is hope that I would be able to do so. Somewhere out there, is she really waiting for me and our children? Are souls indeed real? Is she really watching over us? Does she miss us? If Heaven is a place where there is no more pain nor sorrow, how does she feel now seeing me in anguish down here? Does she and many others who have departed throughout the centuries still have the same human emotions? Or are they now enjoying neoteric ones that are hitherto unknown or inaccessible to mortals like us?

Yeyette had a puppy love who died years ago. Are they together again as lovers? When my life ends, will I see them together, or will she have to choose between us? She died at 47. What if I reach the age of 90? What if her children outgrow her? How will we end up together in Heaven?

Or was April 25 really the end for her, that there is actually no soul and that she is nothing more now but just worm and ant food? That after all these years of defending and living my faith, I am actually believing in a systematized delusion? Quoting from a short story written by my friend Joe Bert Lazarte: Yeyette will never be back no matter how many billions of years will pass, even if all her flesh bleeds dry and turns into dust right at this very moment, and all matter in the universe implodes into nothingness…

I wept again and started to question my disbelief. I struggled to get up, to prepare for another day. The corner of my eye caught our altarcito. Spiritually embarrassed for this brief interlude of skepticism, my thoughts started to wrestle between belief and disbelief. I am sure that this is just a phase, that all those who had grieved before me experienced the exact same thing, that all my questions have been answered before, and that I just haven’t encountered them yet. Who am I to question a faith that has been defended and developed by minds far greater than mine?

Catechism teaches us that “Heaven is the blessed community of all who are perfectly incorporated into Christ.” There, Yeyette and I will no longer be husband and wife. Simply put, we will not be exactly the same as we were in this world. Our existence will no longer be about us, it will all be about adoring God for all eternity.

But I do not want our love for each other to end. So here I weep again…

* * * * * * *

EMBRACE ETERNAL
(written a few hours before her interment on May 3)

This afternoon we inter you
in your beloved Abra de Ílog
together with the bones
of those who reared you.
Though you left me shivering
in this sweltering heat
(your favorite season)
I will be steadfast with the
hopeful thought
that the warmth of your embrace
will always be with me
as I sorrowfully soldier on
in this Valley of Tears.

Pain and death (Holy Week musings)

During yesterday’s grueling 16-hour bout with abdominal pain (which I suspect is caused by gallstones), I was forced to give emphasis to my mortality once more. On my sickbed, I had creepy visions not only of death but also of what lies beyond it: the firmament, purgatory, the pits of hell, or probably sheer nothingness — the dead end of all reality. I tried to grasp if there ever really was a thin line between pleasure and pain, and what on earth was it really all about. In my delirium, I thought of people working hard just to spend thousands of cash to make themselves physically appealing to others, with all such activities proving worthless when one is already at the death throes. I thought of people (those who are privileged) who spend thousands or even millions just to fight off disease, only to die afterwards.

What’s that line again in Metallica’s “Fight Fire With Fire”? Oh yeah: “We all shall die”.

I often tell my wife that I am not afraid of death. With all the discomforts that I’ve been feeling and the continuous sorrow that I experience from time to time (the kind of sorrow that lingers like a vise-grip), I no longer am. What unnerves me, though, is the pain that comes right before it (blessed are those who died in their sleep). Even the very thought of it already depresses me. Here we all are, enjoying the finest/simplest things in life, but at the end of it all, those pesky mistresses of Death called Pain await us with seeming glee, fluttering above our dilapidated bodies like buzzing flies but with giant pitchforks ready to feast on the living wits out of us. Another Metallica line comes to mind: “We hunger to be alive”. Yet most of us don’t live for a higher purpose beyond the usual raising of families or just the sheer need to keep those eyes open to enjoy what there is to be enjoyed.

All this makes one ask the age-old question: what’s this life for, really?

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That is why I have so much respect and admiration for those who were martyred in the name of faith: Peter the Apostle, Stephen the Protomartyr, Joan of Arc, etc. Even the Son of God had to humble Himself by becoming obedient to death (Philippians 2:8). They have mastered and conquered pain. Not that they did not suffer from it, but they had full grasp of what they were going through, AND that they had to go through it. Amidst the flames that engulfed them, the whippings they had suffered, the beatings, the stoning, and all kinds of cruelty that would have tamed even the likes of Quentin Tarantino and Eli Roth, there lies a blissful realization, but a realization that only the mind of a fervent faithful can comprehend.

I know that not all of us will become martyrs, but sooner or later, we will face pain, the inescapable precursor to death.

Are you ready for it?

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