Seeing Death

It took me a while to tell anyone this because I was completely unnerved: I saw Kamatayan (the Filipino personification of Death) in the ICU. He just stood there, in the left corner of my room, wearing a black hooded robe and wielding his scythe. I was surprised, and "Ngee!" was the word that my brain came up with.

At this point in my hospital stay--after nine days in a coma and major surgery--I was just beginning to understand how close I had come to dying and contemplating how strong my will was to live. I had fought well, I'd been told by doctors and my loved ones, but I remembered nothing of this fight.

And now, here was Kamatayan, in the room with me.

"Is this for real?" I tried to rationalize. "If this is real, then other beliefs about dying must be real as well, right?" 

Beliefs like when one is about to die, family members who had gone ahead would come to get you. But where were Lolo Lino, Daddy, and Uncle Jessie? If I was going, I wanted to be going with them. 

Then, I realized I didn't want to be going at all. Not this way. Not yet. 

To fight, I decided not to sleep that night. And the next. And the night after that. I'd sleep only when there were people with me, during daytime. I'd look at the clock and congratulate myself once the long hand moved past midnight. It was a new day, another day I was alive. Take that, Kamatayan.

When I was afraid, I prayed. I called on God and all of my favorite saints. Even St. Michael the Archangel. I couldn't recall any specific prayers, but I called on all of them, making a litany of their names: Jesus, Mother Mary, Padre Pio, St. Jude, St. Therese, St. Benedict ...

On the third night, I felt a man's gloved hands gently hold my face and heard a kind but assertive and slightly amused voice say, as if I had bugged them enough, "Here's your damn miracle." Then an angel came and covered me with his wings.

Kamatayan was gone. 

A few weeks later, I told a friend what I had seen. She asked me, "Are you sure it wasn't a nightmare?" 

I'm almost always never sure of anything, I've come to realize, if left to my own devices. But these past months have given me the gift of faith. Faith that is sure even when things appear uncertain.

Some time after that, I told another friend. I said I probably was just dreaming, but then I was also lucid and there was this matter of my staying awake. "Well, in liminal moments, everything is possible," he said. "Trust your vision." 

So, I trust. And keep faith.

And now, I can tell this story and laugh because the first thing I said, seeing Kamatayan, was "Ngee!"