COVID-19 Chronicles: Patrick's 1st Death Anniversary

13 December 2021

A poignant day for the three of us as we visit Patrick's columbarium on his First Death Anniversary.

Ordinarily, in Filipino culture, it's customary for relatives to visit their deceased relatives during "Undas" or All Souls' Day (Nov 2). This usually happens after Halloween (Oct 31) and All Saints' Day (Nov 1), all considered regular holidays so that relatives can go home to their provinces.

Since technically, most of us are still in quarantine, and kids aren't allowed to be out and about, we couldn't go and visit Patrick during Undas, so this is the first time we're visiting him since he died.

There's a certain level of anxiety as we all went out. We've never been out in almost two years!  

This time, we're taking a jeepney, an LRT, and a tricycle (optional) to get to our destination. 

Of course, as seen in our pictures, even if you're outside, you're still required to wear masks. 

We took them off for a few minutes just so we could take a picture with our faces visible in the frame hahaha

Although we're smiling, we do feel sad when we think about our new sad reality. Patrick's gone on ahead, and we're missing one member of our small family. It suddenly dawned on us that we're no longer complete. That we can no longer go on drives in Stanley, our family car, because Patrick was the only driver :) That we're going to have to re-learn using public transportation, and learn about new routes and available options to get to where we need to go. 

Anyway,  we headed home afterwards.  But we had to stop and eat at Bacolod Chicken Inasal in SM San Lazaro for much-needed nourishment. :) Dining out was really exciting, and it was still calm and peaceful as there were no other diners around.