For Primitivo Romero — Epitaph for an Epitaph

There is a grave in Greenhills Memorial Park that has never been visited for as long as I can remember.

Of the numerous lots owned by the affluent Roa family in Cagayan de Oro’s most well-known memorial park, five have been donated to my family because my maternal grandfather had served the Roas his whole life: three lots for two aunts and an uncle who died in a fire in the 1990s, months before I was born; and later, two lots for my grandfather and grandmother when they too passed on in the 2000s. But beside my grandmother’s grave lies a man who I’m told had also been an employee of the Roas, a man by the name of Primitivo Romero. He had been buried there at least a decade before I was born. And in the twenty-something years we’ve been visiting our relatives in Greenhills, I’ve never seen this man’s tombstone cleaned, nor any candles or flowers or food left for him.

The small children in our family are instructed to sit on his tombstone when there are not enough chairs to go around during kalag-kalag in November, or during any visit any other time of the year. His is a large square headstone, made with those small pebbles commonly found in ancestral homes and old churches, that leave many round dents on your skin when you press or sit on them too long. And the words on the tombstone are not engraved on the stone itself the way most tombstones are nowadays, but are of an older fashion: cursive letters made of silver that are attached to the stone. Over time, grave robbers have pried off the longer words, presumably to melt down or pawn off the silver. By the time I thought to keep a record of the epitaph for posterity, these were the only words that remained:

__________ Romero _____ Nov _____ _____ _____ 27, 1984 _____ time goes by _____ we miss _____ more your _____ wife, Glo _____ daughters, _____ and Nica

I would not have known his full name — Primitivo Romero — had I not asked my mother, who at some point had also worked for the Roas. The dates on the stone are loose and have been rearranged, so the only way to know the man’s dates of death and birth for certain is by taking time to look at public records. I remember having seen the name Chuchi once on the grass beside the tombstone; that must have been his other daughter.

“Romero” and “daughters” are relatively long words but for some reason the grave robbers left them behind. Maybe the robbers were chased off before they could finish their looting. Maybe they had a smidgin of respect left for the dead; maybe they wanted family members to still be able to identify Primitivo’s grave. In any case, my mother tells me the wife Glo and the daughters have long migrated to the United States, and they have not returned since.

The idea of having one’s epitaph effaced to the point of being forgotten is terrifying; the idea of being the one to forget a loved one after they pass on, slightly more so. This man had a story that never made it to a history book, and by now there is a strong chance that nobody is still alive who actually knew him. Still, every time we visit Greenhills I let myself imagine Glo and Chuchi and Nica lighting candles for the girls’ father on special occasions. But just in case, whenever we have candles to spare, I always ask that we leave one on Primitivo’s grave.

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This is the second post in my samtang wala nalimtan series — a writing exercise I want to undertake as quickly as possible in the next few months because I am afraid of forgetting.