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This is the blog of Ian Rosales Casocot. Filipino writer. Sometime academic. Former backpacker. Twink bait. Hamster lover.

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Wednesday, December 31, 2025

entry arrow11:59 PM | New Year's Eve at Mother's

I made sure I spent some time with mother tonight for New Year’s Eve. She hasn’t been well since her hospitalization more than a week ago, but she’s fine. At least that’s what the doctors say. She’s 93, and tonight she kept asking me the same questions: “What happened to me?” Your blood pressure shot up, it was very high. “Why?” Because you ate a lot of lechon at ___’s party. “Did I collapse?” A bit. “Where?” At home, two days later. “Thank God, it wasn’t at ____’s. What happened next?” You were hospitalized. “I was? Oh dear. Where?” At PolyMedic. “That’s in Sibulan. Why are you here?” Because it's New Year’s Eve. “It’s New Year’s Eve? Wala lagi handa?” We do have handa, there’s some lechon over there. “That’s a small lechon. That’s not real lechon.” Then she proceeds to identify everyone around her. Dennis. Daisy. All her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Also Cypress, Daisy’s sister. She asks about her dearly departed daughter-in-law, Efeb, who died two years ago. When we tell her she is gone, she says, “Sayang.” She asks for a head massage, and complains her food is bland. She enumerates all her sons, asking where they all are, which reads: are they here with me? We tell her Alvin is dead, Rocky can’t walk up the stairs, Edwin is in Switzerland, and Rey is in America. We do this many times. But she knows a lot of other details. Like the name of my nephew Dale’s new girlfriend, and that a cousin is from Kidapawan. But her short term memory is loose. “What happened to me?” she asks again after a few minutes, and I find myself tireless in repeating the same exact things, laughing at some of her silly responses. “Are you staying with me tonight? Please don’t leave me,” she says as we prepare her for early bed time. I won’t, I’ll be here, I lied. Tell her I’m just here, I tell her caretaker Gigi, as I later prepare to come back to the apartment where I live.

Happy New Year, everyone!

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