“Honey, nobody dies of a broken heart,” my friend, a jaded journalist, likes to tell people who come to her with tales of breakup and separation.
But I’ve always felt that it was possible, that a heart can shatter into a million pieces no matter the brave front you show. This was the case of my godmother, Jane Server Banzhaf. When her husband Hans passed away two years ago, Jane, already weakened by emphysema, grew progressively fainter, a wisp of her old, chain-smoking, coffee-drinking self.
Last Sept. 27, my sister Evelyn, brother Dennis and I visited her at the ICU of Asian Hospital. Jane’s youngest child Yammy was keeping watch. I lost count of the tubes connected to the patient whose chest was the only part of her moving. Everything was still. Her eyes seemed pasted shut, the eyeballs unmoving. We hoped that she would wake for a few minutes. She never did.
Back home my brother gave his prognosis to my mother who is very attached to Jane and who considers her not just a favorite niece but another daughter and dear friend. When Jane entered widowhood, my mom kept her company on some weekends—they’d eat together, watch TV together, sometimes play mahjongg and sleep on the same bed. Dennis, a doctor, said Jane was being kept alive by the whole enchilada of life support. Mommy whirled as though struck by a blow. By that time I had let Jane go, wishing her what a poet called the peace of all things.
When the confirmation of death came Monday, I was prepared. Telling Mommy was a different story. She broke down and was nearly hysterical. It was sometime before she quieted down. She had hoped for a miracle.
Jane was cremated that same afternoon. In the evening my siblings, daughters and I rode to her home in Ayala Alabang to pay our respects. Her jolly older brother Shorty arrived at the same time as we did. He brought my hand to his forehead, and everyone chuckled. “Why are you laughing?” he asked. “My sister has just died.”
Earlier, he told Evelyn and her husband Obet, “Please don’t wait until I’m in the ICU before you visit me.” The humor and the truth in that statement weren't lost on us.
In this old picture are Jane, who was the middle child, her brothers Shorty and Fritz and their mama, Nazaria.
But I’ve always felt that it was possible, that a heart can shatter into a million pieces no matter the brave front you show. This was the case of my godmother, Jane Server Banzhaf. When her husband Hans passed away two years ago, Jane, already weakened by emphysema, grew progressively fainter, a wisp of her old, chain-smoking, coffee-drinking self.
Last Sept. 27, my sister Evelyn, brother Dennis and I visited her at the ICU of Asian Hospital. Jane’s youngest child Yammy was keeping watch. I lost count of the tubes connected to the patient whose chest was the only part of her moving. Everything was still. Her eyes seemed pasted shut, the eyeballs unmoving. We hoped that she would wake for a few minutes. She never did.
Back home my brother gave his prognosis to my mother who is very attached to Jane and who considers her not just a favorite niece but another daughter and dear friend. When Jane entered widowhood, my mom kept her company on some weekends—they’d eat together, watch TV together, sometimes play mahjongg and sleep on the same bed. Dennis, a doctor, said Jane was being kept alive by the whole enchilada of life support. Mommy whirled as though struck by a blow. By that time I had let Jane go, wishing her what a poet called the peace of all things.
When the confirmation of death came Monday, I was prepared. Telling Mommy was a different story. She broke down and was nearly hysterical. It was sometime before she quieted down. She had hoped for a miracle.
Jane was cremated that same afternoon. In the evening my siblings, daughters and I rode to her home in Ayala Alabang to pay our respects. Her jolly older brother Shorty arrived at the same time as we did. He brought my hand to his forehead, and everyone chuckled. “Why are you laughing?” he asked. “My sister has just died.”
Earlier, he told Evelyn and her husband Obet, “Please don’t wait until I’m in the ICU before you visit me.” The humor and the truth in that statement weren't lost on us.
In this old picture are Jane, who was the middle child, her brothers Shorty and Fritz and their mama, Nazaria.
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