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.

Easter Sunday musings

 ^{_{“La Resurrección de Cristo“, tempera on pine wood board by Juan Correa de Vivar (circa 16th century).}}

I had an awfully difficult Holy Week. Instead of reflection and devotion, it was a week filled with anger, hurt, and even rage. 2024 in the first place didn’t start out right for me.

In January, I forever lost contact with the man whom I considered not only as my mentor of many years but also as my very own father. All because I was trying to answer his plea for me to help him from his manipulative and paranoid son. In the end, his son painted me as the villain. And I am forever banned from seeing him again.

Last February, my wife almost died. She had heart surgery due to a complication caused by her spreading cancer. We were charged more than a million pesos for it. For three frantic weeks, I desperately begged for financial help. I did receive plenty of aid from countless kindhearted people, most of whom were total strangers to me. But I didn’t receive any help at all —not even a simple consolatory message— from those whom I expected to be there for me. My father’s immediate family members and many close friends and associates totally abandoned me in my hour of need. So I swore to myself to never communicate with them ever again.

And just this month, or a few days ago, I was disrespected and humiliated by an alcoholic cousin-in-law when I defended his battered wife (my cousin) and his son (my nephew) from him and his hooligan cousins and friends. I really wanted to beat him up but couldn’t because of several circumstances: I was hopelessly outnumbered, his uncle owns the apartment unit where my family lives, etc.

Each time I tried to reflect on the significance of the Paschal Triduum, the abovementioned incidents became a difficult hurdle to overcome. Each rosary bead was enunciated with spite within me. Each waking day was met with rancor and resentment, and all nights filled with unrest.

I wanted revenge. I wanted retribution.

My sane mind tells me to forgive them, as God forgives me from my sins. But hatred always triumphs over my better judgment. My lame excuse: I’m only human.

To make matters worse, the spiteful emotions brewing inside me were compounded with grief and fear as I am faced with the scary thought that my wife is slowly dying.

I am not the type to question God for my fate, why the abovementioned incidents happened to me in monthly succession, nor to wonder what plans He has in store for me. For sure, He did not cause my wife’s cancer, nor did He want strife to occur between me and other people. For sure, He had wanted nothing but the best for me — for all of us. But I find it illogical to have an implicitly determinist view of God’s relationship with us mere mortals.

He gave us all freewill. But freewill has its ramifications. Those ramifications were what caused the ordeals that I had to face and endure. The only problem is how I overcome the negative feelings inside me to receive the graces that He is willing to give me through fervent and incessant prayer. This past Holy Week, I think I failed in that division.

Of course it is not too late. Because here I am writing about it and sharing it to you. I may be battle-weary but have never lost faith, and I am confident I never will. I am certain, too, that I will face more trials and tribulations for as long as I live, “mourning and weeping in this valley of tears”. Such is life, as they always say.

If there is anything I learned from all of this… I guess anger is really a gift because it reminds me of how truly weak I am, that I am not a great person, and that my anger signals me that God is just there waiting for me to have Him take full control of my emotions.

I am a forgiving person, but right now I am not ready for it as I am severely battered and bruised. But I will allow the hopeful notion that “time heals all wounds” to take its due course and see if it works. With God’s grace and guidance.

Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ suffered more than I did. The hurt that I felt was nothing more but a slap on the wrist compared to what he went through. Yet there was not a single drop of anger in Him. That is what I —or we— need to learn.

¡Alégrate! ¡Jesús ha resucitado! ¡Feliz Pascua de Resurrección!