Top Secret Files of a Mental Fugitive, Exposed

Both of my grandparents are dead and buried.

Yes, they're my father's parents and they just got recently buried. To be honest, while what happened to them was indeed sad, everyone saw it coming, actually. Well, perhaps grandpa's demise was a surprise for me because he died the day after his wife was buried, but I didn't cry at their funeral, not because I didn't care for them since I practically grew up with them, but maybe because we saw it coming. They were getting weak at each passing day then and my grandma was deep into dementia during her last living days. It would be a great inconsideration of nature to keep them living in that state, so nature did take its course.

But I don't want to talk about those things because it would be both useless to do so. But I do want to talk about what I've observed at the wakes and that is some of our cultural practices regarding funerals. We Filipinos have a lot of superstitions regarding these things, and we have tendency to follow them out of tradition.

First, do not sweep the litter out of the door where the wake takes place. We, instead, are supposed to sweep it into a dustpan and take it directly to a trashcan. Not doing so will, according to superstition, make the soul of the dead think s/he is being driven away and then someone's gonna be dead after the funeral. If this sounds like an easy task, it is, except that we tend to bring a lot of snacks into the wake like corn nuts or the messier watermelon seeds. We bring snacks because we eat those while keeping vigil at the wake and feed them to the people who want to stay for a while to offer condolences. And of course, the people who keep vigil, aside from the immediate family of the deceased person, are various relatives. Because it was my grandparents who died, all their children kept vigil on their bodies, which meant us and our uncles, aunts and cousins. The ones who arrived to offer condolences are the brothers and sisters of our grandparents, including their offspring. So we expect a lot of litter in funerals, especially watermelon seed skins.

Second, when the coffin of the deceased person is finally being brought to it's final resting place in the cemetery, do not look back. The reason for this is supposedly the same as the first I mentioned: Someone's going to be the next. In addition to that, right when the coffin comes out of the funeral home, church or house where the wake too place, take a couple of clay pots, put a few coins in them and fill them with water. Then, when the coffin comes out, drop them right in the floor in front of door where the coffin came out. Same reason. This usually doesn't happen anymore due to people realizing that these are just superstitions, but I saw it happen in my grandpa's funeral, mainly because he died after my grandmother was buried and nobody likes dying, especially after a funeral.

Third, just before the coffin is laid to rest in a grave, if there are any little kids who are close relatives of the dead such as grandchildren, make them go over the coffin. This is to prevent the soul of the deceased person from showing up to kids on the night right after the burial. This is one of the most frequent and most recognized superstitions regarding burials in the Philippines, but this didn't happen both the funerals of grandma and grandpa, because nobody's a little kid anymore, as we their grandchildren are all teens and adults.

And fourth, but not the final because there are perhaps many more superstitions out there that I do not know anymore, bring all the remaining food and snacks eaten in the wake to the cemetery. After the burial of the coffin, consume such foodstuffs immediately and do not let the food leave out of the cemetery. I don't know the rationale (He he, rationale in superstitions.) behind that, but that's actually the most satisfying one in all the practices, since we get to eat all the sandwiches, snacks and drinks we had at the wake and share it with the people who went to the burial. And while there's a lot of food left uneaten, there's also a lot of people who came at the last ride so it's a good deal.

The funny thing is, regardless of people knowing that these are just baseless superstitions, people still follow them because they say "nothing will be lost if we do" and "the elders say so". Well, I dunno about that because, while my country is practically Catholic, we still follow these old traditions because they are traditions, some of them rooting back in the pre-colonial era and all having no theological and scientific basis.