Potri Norania M. Hadji Jamel
“Thank you for being my wife in this dunya. I hope it’s you again in the Afterlife,” Bapa Elias whispered to Ina Oleke.
Ina Oleke knew that her husband was on the verge of death. His fifty-seven years of working on the farm left a mark on his swollen body—neck stiff and hand calloused with the scars of minor cuts. He coughed from time to time, which forced his eyes to open, and whenever they caught a glimpse of his wife, they would soften with tears. He would try closing his eyes again as if doing it would reduce his years faster than the disease spreading in his body. No words came out of his mouth, only his shaky breaths that forced their way out of his throat.
The IV tube inserted into his forearm was already removed, not because they lost hope but because they believed it was time to put their faith in Allah and trust in His mercy. But when the sun was preparing to leave, Bapa Elias joined its departure before the darkness started enveloping the rest of the day.
“It was Wednesday, the same day we got married,” Ina Oleke says as we observe the sky change its orange color to charcoal gray, a sign for us to leave the balcony and go inside the house.
As we enter the front door, a frame showing a picture of a bearded middle-aged man welcomes us. When Meranaws embraced Islam, they discontinued common practices such as displaying photos of things with niyawa or soul since it is forbidden. But in Ina Oleke’s house, a picture of her husband settled undisturbed and honored on the disintegrating wooden wall of the living room.
“It belongs on that wall,” Ina Oleke tells me after she notices my questioning look.
“He belongs in this house,” she adds before giving me the mug of native coffee. I am about to refuse because I have stopped drinking coffee, but since being offered native coffee is like a warm welcome, I just accept it and sip through its bitterness.
“How old is this picture?” I ask.
“The same age as this house,” Ina Oleke answers. “It wasn’t displayed there before, but I decided to put it up so I wouldn’t forget his face. Besides, he used to be the first person I saw when I entered this house. I wanted it to stay that way,” she adds.
Ina Oleke and Bapa Elias had been married for 47 years. Ina Oleke was supposed to marry Bapa Elias’ brother, but because the latter was minitata, or was forced into a shotgun wedding with his classmate with whom he was accused of having a relationship, Bapa Elias became the substitute groom to avoid rido or family feud.
It wasn’t a smooth wedding like other Meranaw arranged marriages; there were more mocking eyes than well-wishers, sneers more noticeable than the mamandiangs hung to color the venue, and silent greetings only to show a modicum of respect. It wasn’t what Ina Oleke imagined her wedding would be, but it was enough for her— a marriage, a husband, a new life.
During their first night as a couple, Bapa Elias was busy tuning his guitar while Ina Oleke was in their bed looking at him, confused. After his set-up, he strummed the song “Mataman Phiker” translated as “Always Thinking,” and waited for Ina Oleke to sing. It only took several strums for Ina Oleke to join, and she sang like it was her first time. She was an onor, a singer of traditional Meranaw music, bayok, which made it easier for her to find her rhythm. In the Meranaw community, Ina Oleke’s talent was well-treasured, used only for special occasions, and took months or even years to study. But that night, Ina Oleke was just a wife, singing to her husband’s tune.
“It is easy to love someone. Until we have to prepare them for their funeral,” Ina Oleke tells me as I check the Darangen books on her table.
Sarakatalmaot
Pain became part of Bapa Elias’ system. In his years of working on the farm, he barely felt the sting of the sun on his skin or the cuts that mapped through his fingers. He felt numb from physical pains, which made him confident that sarakatalmaot, or death agony, wouldn’t even stand a chance to hurt him. But lying on his deathbed, body limp, while looking at his wife whose misery painted lines on her forehead made him weak.
Bapa Elias’ relatives came to recite Islamic invocations, a way of pakasaboten or reminding his soul of Allah’s presence before the angel of death takes his soul. My father was there to lead the recitation while I was outside, helping Ina Oleke prepare the towel that would be used to rub on Bapa Elias’ body. Instead of going inside the room, Ina Oleke preferred to just pass the water basin to one of the men inside the room and leave. She didn’t stay. She went to the kitchen to prepare food, to the living room to entertain whoever came to visit, and to the balcony to let the cold breeze touch her skin, but she never went to the room with her husband in it.
I wasn’t supposed to notice her elusion until she was asked by one of our relatives to enter the room, and she refused, saying she was busy with something even though she was not. We were sitting outside, silence joining us with the few flies that noticed our loneliness. I watched Ina Oleke as she busied herself humming random bayok. I watched as a tear escaped her eye with the news that her husband had left the dunya, the world, the universe, and everything that accommodates life.
Karigo
Ina Oleke entered their room— it was surrounded by relatives looking at her with pity, but all she noticed was how small her husband looked in their bed. Bapa Elias made the bed as a gift to his wife. Since Ina Oleke was a bit taller for ordinary beds, he decided to customize one and give it as part of her betang or the wealth given to the bride.
He was calm, as if he didn’t pass through death agony. Ina Oleke took a fistful of cold water and rubbed it on her husband’s face to close his eyes and mouth. We looked at her as she began wiping her husband’s hands; no signs of crying, only a wife that carried the responsibility of her husband’s funeral.
We left the scene so the wife could clean her husband, a practice shouldered by the immediate family member. Minutes later, Ina Oleke notified us that the body was ready for the general bathing or karigo. Since they didn’t have children to help with the bathing, her husband’s siblings assisted Ina Oleke with the process. They turned Bapa Elias’ head toward the qiblah, or the direction of the Kaabah, the holy shrine of Muslims, and rested him properly on the floor. When the bathing was over, a white towel was used to dry the body as they carried Bapa Elias back to the room. Bapa Elias’ siblings were left to wrap him in an onong, a thin white cloth for the dead while Ina Oleke was watching at the corner.
The first time she saw her husband in white was when they got married, but with the nature of her husband’s work, he barely had white clothes in his closet. It was also Ina Oleke’s idea to avoid white colors so she wouldn’t have a hard time doing the laundry. But as they wrapped her husband with the onong, Ina Oleke realized she would never have the burden of washing it.
“It was the first time that I looked at him with guilt instead of amusement,” Ina Oleke tells me while we finish our native coffee in their living room.
Katibaw
Meranaws are known for being clannish people, which shows when a relative dies and the katibaw or attending the burial rites and extending condolences to the immediate family happens. Our uncles and aunts in Manila booked flights home to extend their financial and emotional help to the immediate family of the dead. Visitors brought mamis (Meranaw delicacies), and some even got a carabao to be slaughtered after the burial.
When we were in the kitchen to assemble the food on the tabak (brass trays), comments like: “What will happen to her?” “It’s sad that they didn’t have children” and “Ina Oleke would be in the most desperate situation” were among the gossip the people called “concerns.”
The gossip only stopped when Ina Oleke entered the kitchen to help us. Some male family members brought the dead body to the mosque to perform the kasambayang, or prayer for the dead, and since women were not allowed to join that, we were left in the kitchen to prepare food for the men.
Ina Oleke was busy slicing the ginger, and her presence brought total silence to the scene. She was known to be timid, an unusual feature for an onor because although her job was to sing at events, entertaining the audience was a default part of the process. And I couldn’t imagine how she did her shows without communicating with the staff first.
When the men arrived from the mosque carrying the doyondoyong (bed for the dead) with Bapa Elias’ body, we took the tabak out from the kitchen to serve. More relatives were coming, and after seeing the body of Bapa Elias, they would go straight to Ina Oleke to extend their condolences. Ina Oleke never said a word; she would only nod and proceed to the kitchen to check if the food was enough for all the visitors coming.
“People thought I didn’t love my husband because of my lack of expression,” Ina Oleke tells me after offering me a dodol, a dessert made from coconut milk. She was to serve it with the native coffee but forgot to do so.
“But love is when death knocks on our door, and I’m willingly sending him off,” Ina Oleke adds.
Kalebeng
Bapa Elias used to thank Ina Oleke for being his wife in this dunya. Dunya is an Arabic word that encompasses everything this world possesses—the stars, moon, nature, calmness, and agony; it constitutes what our senses witnessed and what our souls wondered about. It doesn’t equate to the word universe, as it sounds more diminutive than it deserves, and surely, it’s not limited to the word existence as it’s too short. Dunya is broader, more complex, and poetic in form.
As my father wrapped the face of Bapa Elias with the onong and tied both ends, we were surprised when Ina Oleke suddenly asked us to leave the room for a minute. Some relatives were hesitant to go, but my father requested everyone to do so. When I was about to leave, Ina Oleke held my hand, a sign that she wanted me to accompany her. As everyone left the room, I expected her to cry her heart out. But all she did was stare at her husband, who was completely wrapped in a white cloth. I asked her if she wanted me to untie the top part of the cloth so she could see her husband’s face for the last time, but she just shook her head.
Minutes later, a sob broke the silence. I looked at Ina Oleke, and gone was the expressionless woman. She was kneeling on the floor. She knew the body shouldn’t be stained with tears, so she moved her head to the side, giving me a clear view of her crying.
“Prilay akongka nikulay, pakapipiyaanga den a ginawang ka ow,” Ina Oleke whispered to her husband. She asked forgiveness for her shortcomings and told him to rest in peace before we called the people in again. I knew she wanted to stay longer, but delaying the burial is considered a dishonor to the dead.
Five men carried the body toward the grave and placed it in a carved pit. They uncovered the face of the dead and made it kiss the earth before they put the dingdingali or bamboo above the body. After the body was covered with the dingdingali, the assigned men came out of the grave and began layering it with soil. Every layer was a wall between the living and the dead. And as I looked at Ina Oleke, standing around five kilometers from her husband’s grave, as women were not allowed near it, I couldn’t help but think that she must have wanted to run towards the graveyard and hug her husband again, for the last time. She was unconsciously marching toward the grave, and I had to stop her by holding her hand firmly.
The Imam’s (Muslim scholar) recitation of prayers concluded the event. Many relatives returned to the house to eat, while some decided to leave as they had other work to do. My parents left for work and asked if I could stay with Ina Oleke to help with the kanggawii, a seven-day celebration for the dead. I agreed after seeing Ina Oleke helpless by the number of insinuations from relatives asking her to get married again.
Ina Oleke was beautiful—her wrinkles highlighted her chinky eyes, and her skin was smooth as if she had soaked her skin in milk instead of laundry detergents. Her voice was also a plus; Ina Oleke had enough patrons willing to ask her hand in marriage. But she didn’t want that.
“Love is when death is just a pause, a breather, a preparation for our eternal escapade together,” Ina Oleke says.
Kanggawii
Many relatives flooded the living room the first three days after the death of Bapa Elias. Those who couldn’t attend on the burial day were expected to come on either of the seven days of the celebration of the dead. The conversation usually revolved around the good deeds that Bapa Elias had done for them and how Allah would surely accept him in heaven. Ina Oleke knew how her husband deserved all the good things in this dunya and the hereafter.
In the years of their marriage, Bapa Elias never questioned her job and her infertility, which was strange among Meranaws. First, most Meranaw men are possessive; they think they have all the right to possess their wives—women have to be modest, and other men are not allowed to glance longer. But in Ina Oleke’s job, hiding from men and not exposing her beauty was impossible. So instead of getting agitated, Bapa Elias would join her on the stage; he played the guitar while she sang. Second, Meranaws were not exposed to romantic love but to a procreative one. Women were expected to bear many children for the sake of clanship, but in the case of Ina Oleke, she couldn’t even have one.
Ina Oleke thought that her husband would leave her but what she got was an assurance that if they couldn’t have kids, they would compose many songs instead as their legacy. She didn’t believe her husband at first; with the relationships she witnessed with the other relatives, all she could think was, “I am still lucky if he decides to marry a second wife instead of divorcing me.”
“So how do they expect me to remarry after my husband’s death?” Ina Oleke asks as she removes her veil, exposing her bald head.
Many datus asked for Ina Oleke’s hand, and some relatives were all for it. So to stop their “delusion,” she decided to cut her hair. She asked me to buy a blade, which I thought would be used for other purposes. But she surprised me when she came out of the bathroom bald. I immediately called my parents that time, making them rush to our province. After what happened, my father told their relatives to stop forcing Ina Oleke to remarry.
“She is a woman of her own. Let her be free,” I remember my father saying to his cousins. After the incident, no one dared to ask Ina Oleke about remarrying again. Her bald head was enough protest that no one dared to refute.
“I thought you would only do a bald head for once. Why do you keep shaving your head until now?” I ask Ina Oleke while I gather the used utensils and place them on the kitchen counter.
“It reminds me of my loyalty to my husband,” Ina Oleke answers.
It had been four years since Bapa Elias died, but his presence is still so strong that before Ina Oleke and I would sleep, she would sit in the living room and look at her husband’s picture.
“Thank you for being my husband in this dunya. I hope to meet you again in the Afterlife,” Ina Oleke would say before turning off the lights in the living room so we could sleep.