September 27 2021 (Monday)

Hello again my dear readers, (asumera lang po na madaming readers😁) This story was a sequel to Granny but the main character was my two Uncles (third degree) Their story will flow on how they end up to their tragic and sudden death.

A little info about them. They are both farmers and so masipag in their line of work. They always helping my father plowing the rice fields, clearing and making the muddy soil ready for planting rice. My parents was so grateful to this two even though when the older Uncle gets married to my ninang he never stop coming to extend help. Granny also frequently asked this two for a various occasion for help, weather to fix things for her, to carry something too heavy for my granny to do so, especially transporting the harvested and dried rice to her granary. They are like a son to her, granny and in return to their help she gave them more than the salary for the day plus a take home food or fruit for their family. Granny treats this two brothers as her own son.

The typhoon that hits us physically and emotionally

If you happened to read my introductory article I mentioned there that a super typhoon hits our province that time and some of the Barrio people went up to granny's house for temporary refuge. During the typhoon, hard rain falls nonstop accompanied by wheezing wind. I can heard the roof banging by tree branches, some trees are uprooted already. In the morning I can clearly saw the overflowing river downstream with muddy color like ovaltine from where we standing while watching some animals galloped and run away to higher part of the mountain to saved their life from the vigorous and rising current of the river. Papang (that what we called our father, ang Mamang for our mother too) told me to go back at granny's house to prepare rice coffee for the people inside. I called my best friend then to help me prepare for the coffee and willingly came and help me lit the local stove for us to boil water with the toasted rice grain. Then suddenly, an old uncle came in hurriedly ( infact we called Uncle and Auntie to all the older guys and gals in the Barrio) and exclaimed to my father.

"Martin was nowhere to find, Aw- as was also missing"

Every person in the house was half mouth open because of the news, actually I'm not aware that my two Uncle are missing since yesterday afternoon while the typhoon hits hard. I asked my father what happened but was not able to answer me because he hurriedly grab his rain coat and together they banished in the rain. My mother told the story by then, the younger Uncle was asked by her mother to find their carabao in the nearby mountain yesterday and according to my mother the Uncle was hesitant to go because the rain and wind that time was already hard but their mother keep on blabbing and was angry to his son. Then the son finally went up to the mountain to stop her angry mother, after an hour the son was not yet coming back and the typhoon is now hitting hard, the river starting to rise up and the night is coming too. So the mother ask his other son (the one that married to my ninang) to follow his younger brother to checked what happen. My ninang was hesitant to let her husband go because of the situation. It was soon to night that time, darkness was starting to eat the light plus the hard rain and wheezing wind was dangerous already. But the husband told her to just check his brother on the other side of the mountain and come home immediately later. Time passed by, darkness was reigned over the light. The weather was bad already as heavy water flows with mud from the mountain top raging down all over the Barrio. That the time father started to bring my little siblings to granny' s house and asked everyone to evacuate their house temporarily. Some family's goes with him but some choose to stay. According to my father the muddy flowing water was almost high up to his knees that makes him walked slowly. And yet the two brothers was still not home.

BAD AND SAD NEWS

Me and my best friend decided to follow father down to the Barrio, and we took the trail to the school way back. Upon arriving there, we saw some guys digging in the landslide below the mountain. I asked one of the guy why they are digging and he answered.

"We aren't sure if one of them was buried here because we saw one of their raincoat near the landslide. We just tried our luck to find them and dig here, some of the boys already roamed to the river banks, and some also goes to the mountain to search for them. We just hope for the better now"

As he says that I can see sadness to his face. No words was came out from me instead we hurriedly run down to the houses and found that the mother of my uncle's was hysterically crying inside their home, I also heard my ninang crying out loud into their house just opposite her inlaws. Some says the two brother was already dead. Maybe they were flushed out by the flood when crossing the creek that divided the Barrio from the nearby mountain where in they found the rain coat. Time passed by, the digging was finished but they found nothing, those men that went out in the mountain to searched was arrived and found nothing too. Untill the last group arrived who roamed in the river bank finally arrived and they found nothing too. They said it was hard to search now in the river because it was still high and dark because of the mud. They decided to continue searching when the water level will subside and clearer little bit. The next day two groups of men were bound to searched the two missing person. The first group will trail along the river banks while the other will hike the mountain to go further in the river. And finally at the third day of the searched they found the lifeless body of the the younger brother stuck to a piece of a dead tree along the river far away from the Barrio. Upon the arriving of the corpse you heard a lot of crying from the family, even me was crying also that time. I can't say a word as a child to comfort those bereaving family. The wake was just a day or two before we bid our final goodbye's.

Almost after a months somebody from the nearby municipality found a corpse along their river banks, it was very far already from our place, that was where the two big rivers meets up and flow downward to the main river of the province. Officials and friends went up to checked the corpse and found out that it was the elder brother that is missing. They brought the corpse home and another wake and sorrow succumbed the family. Granny that time was very upset in losing those two guys in an instant. The grieving mother can't accept the fact that she already lost his sons in just a matter of time. It was so tragic to lost someone important to you just like that.

Just my thought.

Maybe if the mother didn't nagged his son about their carabao the incident wouldn't happen. Maybe her two sons are still alive. There's an speculations that the older brother was first hit by a rock which dropped down from the mountain during the landslide then flushed with the mud flow then maybe the younger one saw what was happen and tried to help his brother but unfortunately smashed with the landslide too and the muddy water flushed them down to the river which is very high already that time because of the typhoon.

"Life was so short, we don't know what will happen next. So better do good and live our life to the fullest."

I hope you enjoy reading this article again. And before I bid goodbye for now I just wants to extend my sincere Thank you! to all who upvoted my first article. Thank you! and thank you always!

Your comments and likes are always very much welcome.

Note: Lead image was from unSplash