The Thin Line

Author: By Sapphire Soul

Photo by: Dwane A.

“The line that divides the darkness and light is almost imperceptible.”

Unstable Footing
I had to face the fact that I had miserably failed in my first conscious magickal attempt as I watched my father’s coffin being lowered to the ground.

He was too young to die. In perfect health, he played tennis every day, was not overweight, didn’t smoke, and rarely drank – and when he did, he never drank more than 2 bottles of beer at a time. He loved to eat vegetables and fruits, never liked burgers or beef. For healthy people, I knew cancer was supposed to take years, especially when caught early.

I was wrong.

At the hospital two weeks earlier, people came to visit him. I was by the window trying to cross-stitch a flower pattern. Even as he lay on the bed unable to move, I firmly believed he was NOT going to die. I had asked everyone I know to please pray for his recovery and every waking thought I had, every prayer was for him to get better. Why were all these visitors telling us to tell him that we were letting him go?

“Sigé na, you go to your father’s ear and whisper ‘It’s all right, we will all be ok here, you can go to Jesus, He will take care of us’ ”

For five whole minutes that was all someone said to me. Over and over. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. Just felt the heat blaze to my eyes and stared back at the well-meaning lady on cancer remission. That is so fu**ing easy for you to say, my eyes said. I will do no such thing.

“She is not ready, it’s all right.” I hear her tell my Mom. I went back to my flower pattern. With several sleepless nights in a row of fighting for his life, and all they could say was give him up? My patience was wearing thin.

But before I had simmered down, along came another visitor who had the rare insensitivity of talking about me as if I wasn’t there, looking straight at me while saying in a loud voice to someone “kawawa naman sya, ang hirap sigurong magbantay” (poor thing, it must be hard on her taking care of someone) like I was a zoo specimen and I couldn’t get what they are really saying.

I closed my eyes to stop it from coming out but it did: a whisper, a prayer, a dark wish from inside, reverberating through my exhausted body. Why did you have to make sure I heard that? So you could appear all kind and sympathetic to everyone around? Am I supposed to thank you now for your pity? Hypocrite! YOU WILL KNOW what this feels like.

There and Back Again
The hospital was about a kilometer behind me when I finally outran my rage. Oh Goddess what have I done? Where did that come from? And where the heck am I? I couldn’t see beyond a meter from my feet as I walked; I kept my head down to avoid meeting people’s eyes, and having them see mine, watering with rage and frustration. I simply followed the sidewalk, and ran/walked for several minutes.

Wiping my eyes and looking around, I realized my feet had taken me to church. The only place I could sit quietly and be alone, with no one to tell me how I should feel or what I should say to a dying man who means so much to me.

Should I now confess all my sins in a desperate attempt to clean my soul? Would my prayers be better heard from a heart made more pure? Can wishes and promises be unmade? I sat and stared at the inverted sword that was the symbol of all Christianity and collected myself.

Then he died, and was buried.

I took comfort in the fact that since my prayers and spells don’t seem to work, what made me think that that dark wish will manifest itself?

A month later, that visitor’s parent had a heart attack. For weeks, she knew what it felt like to take care of a critical parent: the late nights, the frantic race for medical supplies, the uncertainty, the guilt. And I couldn’t do anything but offer to listen if she needed to talk.

There was nothing to say. Her parents seldom exercised, never liked vegetables, and loved greasy food in fiesta servings. People said it was bound to happen.

The Other Side of Sunset
As darkness overtakes the light this Samhain I am reminded of the delicate balance between the good and the bad in all of us. Though it happened years ago, the incident made me deeply aware of the dark side of our nature. A wrong intonation at the wrong time can trip me over the edge, with consequences that can haunt me for the rest of my life… did I help make that happen or was it really just meant to be? I will never know.

My father’s grave is covered now; I planted rosemary at the gate. I take care of the candles and the incense; Mom takes care of the flowers. We put a bench where it’s nice to watch the sunset, and it’s my favorite place to hang out: sitting on a bench beside a rosemary bush near my father’s grave, watching the sun go down and waiting for the stars to come out.


About the Author: A claustrophobic Virgo, SAPPHIRE SOUL is a licensed forester and is currently working as an information officer for an agro-forestry research org. Because of her eclectic mix of beliefs ingrained since childhood, she sees no contradiction between Catholic and indigenous belief systems (as well as Wicca), and have found a way to seamlessly blend the two in her life.

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