The Wake

The wake for Rose Marie Angcoy was held the day she died. I arrived at Libas about 6 p.m. and people were starting to gather outside the tiny house where she and the three remaining children lived. There was a simple wooden casket with some beautiful orange flowers. And as children nearby watched, a workman carved out her name on a wooden cross. She was laid out on the platform that the family used as a bed with three white candles. What had looked like poverty the previous day looked simple and elegant that evening.

The wake was totally unlike anything I had imagined. By eight p.m. there were about one hundred people, many of them children, gathered around, and the began playing cards and bingo. A group of adults were teaching me Chinese Checkers. Rose Marie's children would come and look at her briefly and then go about their tasks of preparing food for the wake. It was simple--crackers and coffee--and it was if everyone had decided to have a party that Rose Marie would remember. The Angcoy children are different than many kids here. They are extremely quiet and rarely express any emotion. This morning when I left for a visit to Bontoc High School I was greeted by seven children who asked to "Bless Tatay". They smiled and my favorite friend again shouted Amricano! But the Angcoy kids stare. It was only later that I would see them smiling when seven of the eight gathered for the funeral.

Rose Marie was buried the next day. It was a simple ceremony with songs I recognized although the words were in Visayan. The casket was hoisted onto two long bamboo poles, and then the four pall bearers hurriedly carried it about a mile up the mountain as we traipsed behind. The sun was hot. It was beautiful on top of the mountain, but the heat made it hardly bearable. The next morning was a holiday. Cory Aquino died this week, and the country was closed down for her funeral. Four of the Angcoy children stayed at the payag, and one could see how Laila and her sister of thirteen, Batoy, cared for their younger brother John John and their sister Christy. It is not clear what will happen to them.