There are photos of my family at church which are older than I am. Looking through the albums, the church book-ends one era to another for my family: my parents in front of the church that sponsored them here, my middle sister’s baptism ceremony, my oldest sister’s confirmation ceremony, my own baptism, marriages of my uncles and aunties. There are even a couple of photos of me dozing off in the pews when I was four that my dad thought would be particularly funny.

Looking at the pattern of images taken of my older sisters and relatives, I watched them grow up as they were documented during their first baptism, eucharist, confirmation, marriage, funerals and the cycle begins again but with their own children.

There are lapses as time passes, however. One nephew wouldn’t have a baptism, another aunt wouldn’t have a marriage. Eventually, examining my own memories in front of me, I realize I don’t have a confirmation memorialized. 

It was no coincidence though; I left the faith a long time ago when I realized I was gay. The contradiction in my parent’s faith and my sexuality was only the cherry of the reason; the bulk of it built up from years of understanding my own sense of existed. I always hated being given instructions.

There were fights. There were long nights and dreadful car rides. Yet I was stubborn and fiercely committed to what I believed was right. I remember my dad telling me he left monastery training as a teenager to be with the woman he loved — my mom — and I’m essentially doing the same. Eventually, they gave up. I haven’t been inside of a church since early high school. 

Though looking through the album again, I see there are less photos of these life events in general (aside from my own) even though I know there are more little nieces and nephews who go through them. Hell, there are less family photos altogether. These eras are lost.

Perhaps they no longer felt it was significant to document every precious moment and the novelty of comfortable luxury of the United States in comparison to their war-torn Vietnam had worn off. New realities were terrifying though exhilarating at first but soon became tomorrow’s drudgery. However, even if it was partially that, I also realized my parents haven’t gone to church in the last four years. When I used to come home for Christmas, they would tell me, “Meet you at Midnight Mass, we are going to go first to get seats and you can catch up” and I would intentionally disappoint their expectations. But now, not even that happens.

I didn’t notice for the longest time. As I’ve gotten older, however, I begun to wonder why they stopped going. I stopped going because I lost my faith and I know why. But I wonder what they lost to make them stop. For once, I felt uneasy about the situation.

Knowing that something they did for over 50+ years, across war, violence, devastation, oceans, continents, jungles, trauma, resettlement, life, and death was suddenly stopped worries me. It must have been something quite catastrophic and lately, I’ve noticed my family crumble apart particle by particle from the inside out. The rooms are cold. The walls echo. Things are dead here. We’re hollow.

I’m starting to see this, and I’m starting to mourn it.

I can’t lie. Looking at the photos, I felt a familiar warmth emanating from them that was long extinguished and its comforting glow reignited what I hadn’t noticed was even missing in the first place. I remember seeing my first Nativity scene and the excitement that came with it, I remember watching my first Lion Dance show and my eagerness whenever January came to an end, I remember sitting in envy as my older sisters got to take part in the Eucharist alongside my parents and awaiting the day I no longer served to save their seats.

How will I hold on to these feelings when they’re gone? When they’re gone, will they be comforted? Or will they thrash through everything in a journey of fear until the very end?

The second scenario terrifies me. The only thing terrifying than experiencing their loss is experiencing their loss without having the warmth that we had in those photos.

Was it my leaving the church that my parents stopped going as well? Or what was it which made them stop?

Sometimes, I begin to think I should believe again, if only for the comforting fact to know that my family will be taken care of with just as much love as they took care of me. Then, perhaps, I could not fear loss as much as I do now.

rosary — you rose me. by the soft hymns of gloria in excelsis deo and the oakwood pews of the diocese of st. maria goretti, you are the wafer and wine of my boyhood memories. though seein the parents while growin up wasn’t always a guarantee, sundays in the pews was a few-hour consistency with my mom and my dad and my sisters sittin all around me. and in the hours of trials and tribulation, between my mom’s fingers would a rosary be threaded, countin down those hours with a repeated call of a prayer, a silent whisper: save him …

a prayer, she sighed, to a son of a higher divinity. because damn, though i wish i coulda saved her (those eyes showed how life weighed on her), i knew the savior(saved-her) to whom she prayed wasn’t in me.

and it wasn’t long til she prayed for me too.

because as i grew older and my mind saw the lies behind policies and philosophies that launched bombs and marked atrocities, i became more critical of intersected stakes that hang around my nape, becoming more individual in the separation of my church and my (inner) state. new eyes blessed me to see where i had been colonized and i prayed to a new divinity: that of hymns and the pews of my own mind.

rosary — eroded me. declared sinful the very essence of my being.

and though my mom’s tears shed as i refused the savior these Bibles bled (seein the bleedin these words left in human bodies instead), i remained for years without a god, spiting my earthly creators in searchin through the pages of my own holy book yet fully read.

yet in reflection of my past and these symbols, i come to a greater understanding of what made me and today i pick up my rosary again. but not out of some fear of mortality did this body become holy.

hardly.

for though you hang around my neck, your dogma doesn’t leave me hanged. no, i don’t mean disrespect but rather than a ball and chain, i wear you in memory of the struggles my parents overcame. for in the hours of my own trials and tribulations would this rosary would be threaded, countin down those hours with repeated memories of their struggles forever embedded.