She sat on the grass on a lonely hill, as she beheld the retreating sun.
It was called the Hill of Tears, perhaps because it was where the people in Aberdeen poured out their sorrows.
The top of the hill can be reached through stairways. It takes quite an effort.
After learning about Daniel’s death from her mother and Aunt Mely when they called her up last night, emptiness best described her day.
She cried almost the entire night. It was already about four o’clock in the morning when she fell asleep.
She slept only for two hours because she had to prepare breakfast for Mr. & Mrs. Lee. Then, she had to do her usual daily tasks.
After that, she took lunch. She fell asleep due to exhaustion. It was already past three o’clock in the afternoon when she woke up.
She cooked early for dinner, and after her cooking was done, she went down to Park’n Shop for groceries, taking with her a pen, a notebook, and a pocket radio.
From there, she decided to go up to the Hill of Tears.
It was a bit cold up there, though summer had not passed.
Looking at the islands across Aberdeen, she couldn’t help thinking about the sad state of the people living in more than seven thousand islands called the Philippines – her country.
She tuned her radio to an English program for soft music, to console herself.
No music was being played, but the news about the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait caught her attention.
“Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein justified the invasion of Kuwait by declaring that the tiny oil-rich nation was once an Iraqi territory, and Iraq’s act could not be mere invasion but liberation,” the newscaster said.
“In the United States, U.S. President George Bush condemned Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, saying that it was a shameful act of aggression ordered by a ‘peanut despot’. Bush called on Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to immediately withdraw his troops or face sanction from the international community.”
Rose thought of Ida, her high school friend who had been working in Kuwait for two years.
“In London, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher called on the United Nations to rally against Iraq, saying that if nothing was done to repulse Iraqi aggression, Saddam Hussein would be even more emboldened to continue his adventurist acts. She said that Saudi Arabia could be Iraq’s next target.”
Rose plucked a wild, deep blue flower near her left foot as she listened to the newscasts.
“In Tokyo. The Tokyo Stock Market plunged today as a result of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Japan has been heavily dependent on Middle East oil for its industries. In a related development, stock markets in other Asian oil-consuming countries like Singapore, Thailand, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, and including Hong Kong, suffered a nose-dive after today’s invasion of Kuwait. It is expected that the economics of oil-consuming nations will suffer as a result of the Iraqi invasion.”
Rose took a deep breath after hearing the news.
She thought of the toll of the invasion on the already faltering economy of the Philippines, a country heavily dependent on Middle East oil.
The newscaster then played the song “Love Is A Many Splendoured Thing”.
It was among Rose’s favorites.
The song reminded her again of Han Suyin, the Chinese author who lost her beloved in the Korean War. She wrote her story in a book titled “A Many Splendoured Thing” fourty years ago, in 1950, when North Korea invaded the South.
Rose’s grandfather, then a major in the Armed Forces of the Philippines, was a member of the Philippine Expeditionary Force to Korea (PEFTOK). The Philippines was one of the countries which contributed to the United Nation’s forces in Korea during that time of conflict.
Rose bitterly smiled as she imagined a short parallelism of her life with that of Han Suyin. Suyin lost her beloved. And so did she. The former lost him at a time of international conflict. So did she. Suyin was then in Hong Kong. So was she.
The last chapter of the author’s autobiography presented herself alone, seated on the grass, looking at the mountains, and the sea, and sorrow, grieving the loss of the man dear to her heart.
Now, by mere circumstance, she was on the Hill of Tears alone, seated on the grass, looking at the mountains, and the sea, and sorrow, grieving the loss of the man dear to her heart.
She couldn’t help but start crying again.
Is life a cycle? She wondered.
Is the experience of some, bound to be repeated in the lives of others?
Is sorrow as inseparable, inescapable part of human existence?
“Mabuti pa si Aling Consuelo,” she told herself.
(“Aling Consuelo is better off.”)
Aling Consuelo told her on the phone that her whole family was safe, and their house was miraculously spared from the earthquake.
She looked at the grass. They covered the earth.
“I am the grass, let me work,” wrote the poet.
The grass. They would soon cover the resting place of the man she loved.
She took her pen and wrote an untitled poem on her notebook.
It was addressed to Daniel.
Here I am,
alone on this hill,
sitting on the lowly grass,
suffering the pain,
grieving your loss,
drinking my tears…
I wish to grasp your hands,
I want to touch your brow
which I once kissed,
I long to be at your side this very hour,
but I’m so far from where you sleep…
Here,
on this hill where I suffer the pain,
where I sit on the lowly grass
drinking my salty tears,
I think of you more than you think of me,
I long for you more than you long for me…
Do you know what it means
to really long for you?
Can you take this sorrow
which is slowly killing me?
Do you feel my pain,
my loneliness, my grief?
No… for you are now asleep.
No ill can trouble you now…
But the lowly grass
feels my maddening ache,
for here,
on this hill of tears
where I sit alone and grieve,
even the grass bleeds.
It was a short poem.
But it poignantly summed up how she felt that moment.
She closed her notebook and placed it on the grass. She looked at the mountains, no longer bluish, darkened by the clouds which struggled to hide the setting sun.
Again, she thought of her country, the Philippines. The land her grandfather had served with sweat and tears. The land her father had served with his blood, with his honor, with his life.
Poor land. So rich with God’s bountry. So poor with its leaders, with its people.
Killings. Communist insurgency. Coup d'état. Crime. Drought in Mindanao. Typhoons in Luzon. Corruption. Nepotism. Cheating in elections. Wanton exploitation of its natural resources. Destruction of its forests. Mismanagement of its economy. Arrogance and ineptitude of its leaders. Then the July 16 killer earthquake. And now, the coming oil crisis.
People speak of fate. Of the sign of the comet in the dark Philippine sky. Perhaps, a disastrous crossing of the stars.
But deep in her thoughts, in her heart, she knew it was sin – the sins of the leaders in both government and private sector, the sins of even those who lead the flock, and the sins of the people who call their nation “the only Christian nation in Asia”.
Ah! Divine judgement. How pure! How sharp! How terrifying!
“Lord, forgive us. Please forgive our people. Please heal our land…” she said in prayer.
“And Lord, take care of him whom I have loved. I know he is happier now with you, for there in your kingdom, he will no longer experience grief, or man’s ill-will, or pain. You know I miss him… Lord, I love
him. Thank you for sending him into my life, even for a brief time.”
She wiped her tears with her palms, tears which would soak but could hardly wash away the lucid but painful fragments of the past, the torpid scars of love’s happiness and grief.
It was darker now.
Half of the sun was already buried in the sleeping mountains.
She looked at the sea, and envied its calm, the calm which she wished she possessed in her hours of sorrow, amidst life’s tumultuous rage and endless inconsistency.
Then, an afternoon breeze gently blew by her, as if reminding her that Someone above whose compassion for the broken is full, and whose mercy for the downtrodden is rich and overflowing, was watching over her in her sadness, feeling the way she felt, bearing the cross of humanity, bleeding like the lowly grass.
THE END
Began in Quezon City, Philippines
August 3, 1990
Finished on the Hill of Tears, Aberdeen, Hong Kong
October 22, 1990, 9:44 p.m.
Authors note: Chapters 1 to 8 of this novel were written in the Philippines, chapter 9 and 10 in Hsinchuang City, Taiwan, and chapters 11 and the last chapter in Hong Kong.
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. . . DEDICATION . . .
“I dedicate this humble work to
Trygve and Borghild Bjorkas
whose commitment to God’s work
and whose compassion for
less fortunate Filipinos are exemplary.”
Norbert L. Mercado
“I am the grass,
let me work.”
A POET
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. . . REFERENCES . . .
Even The Grass Bleeds Page 13
