There are some photos I can’t articulately caption. This photo (below) is one of them. It does not need one. It explains itself.
The moment I saw this on the jumbled cemetery grounds, it eclipsed the rest of the cemeteryscape. I t stood still on its own.
I imagined a mother’s love for a lost child. A young mother picking yellow orchids from her backyard garden beside her modest hut in an outlying farm village and then delicately arranging these little dancing yellow blooms in anahaw leaves. I imagined her slowly walking to the cemetery with this flower offering on this day of remembering. Lit a candle and recited prayers of endearment dedicated to her child. The simple bouquet adding a touch of colors now gently laid to the freshly painted child’s small cemented tomb.
She was not there when I took this photo but I can still sense from the image that love continues even though life ended maybe a year ago or two. No date only a name of a child on the tomb is visible which makes the image more timeless.
Looking at this image, I remember my father, my ancestors and the dear departed who have passed on and how I with my human frailties remained delinquent and inadequate in my remembering.
A year could cover the whole cemetery grounds in weeds growing in abandon — except for these days of All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day. The rest of the 300 plus days of the year are days when almost all of the dead are forgotten in the company of the wild flora in the cemetery invading the whole grounds.
A still life from All Souls’ Day, Bulusan Catholic Cemetery, November 1, 2014
But during these days of reverence and commemoration for those dear departed from November 1 to 2, tradition rules and there are no excuses.
Thanks God for All Souls’ Day!
Photo: Alma P. Gamil
Bulusan, Sorsogon
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