I still remember the day I found out. I was about to eat lunch when a friend contacted me. “Something happened,” were her words. She sounded faint and empty, she couldn’t tell me on the phone—things like these, you say in person. She told me in front of the chapel, everyone was there—her best friend, her roommates. The pew was cold, a few of my friends were huddled in a corner, silent tears slid down their cheeks. I was numb. My world halted, there was no sound, no movement, no feeling. It was like being hit with a blunt object, at first there’s nothing, it’s your brain and body figuring out what’s happening. Only once your body properly orients itself do you recognize the pain. That’s when you scream.
The next few days were a flurry of classes and conversations at her wake. School became toxic for me. After receiving news of a girl who had passed within the Loyola Schools grounds, she, no, her death, became the hottest topic amongst students. Her demise had become a spectacle, a tragedy, an intrigue. In the days following her death, she would be known as the student who died. They covered all the bases: Her year, her course, her accident, where her wake was, and when she would be buried. Strangers talked of her with much authority, most without a dreg of remorse.
This was going to pass, her story would soon become news fodder. She would soon lose her place as the most discussed topic on campus. As her body slowly rotted, so would the knowledge of her death. She would no longer be the poster girl for tragedy, pain, and loss—she would no longer be a part of the collective imagination of the community. I was both thankful and bothered.
They would never know her, nor would they ever try to. That’s the thing with these incidents, we never get to know them, only their demise. We only know that their bodies had ceased to work, that breath did not escape their lips. We believe that our sorrow will give solace and our words will give support. We believe that it’s okay.
We don’t know that it hurts when their name escapes stranger’s lips. That talking about them with a sense of detachment, with an air of professionalism—a lack of emotion—makes them ache. When they becomes less the person we once knew, when they morph into words, updates, and gossip, it makes one guilty. Guilty, because these people may never be remembered for the life they lived, but for the way they perished.
I don’t want this for her.
She smiled very peacefully. She was the slowest one in our high school tennis team, I was second. She studied psychology, but she got into the Ateneo under the theater arts program, her second choice—she put it there for fun. She talked slowly, melodiously, and constantly. She spaced out a lot, she also made us laugh a lot. She never saw the worst in people, even though it was glaringly obvious. She accepted without restraint and talked without malice. She was an incredibly dedicated friend, and one of the nicest people that I’ve had the pleasure of meeting. She had a tendency to give up when it came to physical activity, but when she tried out for the rowing team, she ran and finished the course. Her brother was there, he remembered her smiling after she finished the run. That was her last smile, the smile she used too much, the one everyone fell in love with.
Her name was Niña, she smiled too much, laughed too much, and loved too much. She wasn’t just a girl who died, she never was.
Niña, this is for you. I’m sorry I never came to the tennis court that night.
