By Apparently, I can’t get a break from being sad. One of my favorite aunts passed away last night. Dra. Pacita Javellana or Tita Inday to us was already taken back by God. She was battling breast cancer and other ailments and had been confined in the hospital for almost a month before her passing. She’s my nanay’s sister, her “ate,” they’re both doctors.
Always very sweet, I don’t remember a time that my Tita Inday raised her voice at us. She was always calm, happy, and just pretty quiet but had a good sense of humor. One of my favorite memories when I was young spending my summer vacations in Negros Occidental was waking up really early so my cousins and I can go with her to our market. She would drive there to buy whatever it is we could eat, either for lunch, merienda, or dinner. Then she would buy soda and get us all chichirya. After lunch, you would always see her hanging out at the huge round table in the middle of the house reading the newspaper or answering the crossword puzzle. She was really into crossword puzzles.
I also remember that whenever she’s by the pool, she’d float, back down while she reads a book. She was an amazing woman who lived a simple and peaceful life at the farm while still practicing medicine until she got hospitalized. Her death was very untimely. It’s not welcome in my heart. It will be a while for me to get over it, to be honest. She got sick prior to nanay getting admitted and has never left the hospital since. This really sucks. The only silver lining to this is that she’s no longer in pain but this still pretty much sucks.
We will all miss her so much.
Denise J. Mallabo 