On one occasion, my niece came up to me with a deep thought thrusted in the look on her face. She was quietly approaching me as I was just sitted on our monobloc bench in our backyard. She rested her head on my lap for awhile until the moment when she finally broke the silence. As if talking to herself, she suddenly uttered. “I don’t want to grow old.” There was the sound of melancholy in her voice. So I asked her why. With her beautiful, big eyes in low gaze, Noelle simply answered me with an obvious worry in her voice. “Because I am scared to die…”
From that very moment, I was caught in silence. How can one so young and tender like Noelle managed to entertain such deep and complicated thoughts. How could such subject occur and play in her innocent mind? When did she start to be so conscious about growing up?…getting old?…and dying?
I could not recall how old I was when I actually passed the stage she is experiencing. But I know how it all went in my case. I can still remember how the house looked like back then- a bamboo-floored house with nothing but a wooden sofa as our only furniture. It was a perfect home to raise six children. It was big enough to allow kids to run around without having to worry of broken ornaments. In the afternoons, we would all line-up lying on the floor for our siesta. I couldn’t trade my spot for anything in the world then. And that was in Nanay’s arm. Perhaps, my head was still small to perfectly fit under her armpit. That was my comfort zone whenever fears would start crawling in my head.
I couldn’t recall an occasion in my youth where I fancied so much about growing up. The truth of the matter was, it was too early in life that I became conscious about not wanting to grow up. Early on, my thought about growing up was only secluded on its association with death. And the moment that thought would haunt me, I would move closer to my Nanay- as if selfishly claiming the remaining space between us. I was a chick struggling for the warm comfort under the hen’s feather. That was the moment when I didn’t want to let go. I just wanted that afternoon to stand still. I just wished to remain that way…to just be little… to just have a tiny head so I can be allowed to rest on her arms.
With school keeping her busy now, Noelle must have forgotten her feared thoughts already. That night, I tried to explain to her in the simplest words I could unravel on things about growing up and passing away. She had enumerable questions from her innocent mind. But knowing her, I know she is too intelligent to not understand. Unaware of it, she will grow- as she’s been growing day after day. And in her own ways, she will be able to find answers to all her questions and discover shield to protect her from all her fears.
