‘Maybe it was time for her to go’

When all the signs pointed on Wednesday to the fact that her 15-year-old daughter Emilyn was dying, Marilyn Villanueva had just one wish: That God would take her first.

Since Dec. 31 when a bullet struck Emilyn in the head, leaving her comatose, Marilyn had been convincing herself that her firstborn would survive.

“I kept telling the media and myself that my daughter was doing OK. That she would make it. I had to because doctors told me that she might not. What am I supposed to do as a mother? Accept that?” Marilyn told the Inquirer at  Emilyn’s wake on Thursday.

“I mean, how do I convince myself that my daughter is dying? I wanted to give myself some hope. You see, when I rushed Emilyn to the hospital and saw doctors intubate her, it felt like the end of the world,” she added.

For three days, Marilyn and husband Emil Calano stood by their daughter’s bed at the Jose Reyes Memorial Medical Center’s (JRMMC) surgical intensive care unit. Between them, it was Calano who cried more often.

Marilyn, meanwhile, would lace her hand with Emilyn’s and whisper into her ear: “Fight my child. Come home to us. Wake up child, you’ve been asleep for too long.”

She said that every time she would talk to her daughter,  tears would form in Emilyn’s eyes. She also felt that the teen was pressing her hand back.

“I know that she was fighting to live. I’m her mother, that’s how I know. But maybe, it was really time for her to go,” Marilyn added.

At 11:45 p.m. on New Year’s Eve, Emilyn was watching a fireworks display with her cousin beside the Oreta Sports Complex on Sacristia Street, Malabon City, when a bullet hit her in the top of the head.

The site where she fell was just meters away from the Malabon police headquarters and city hall. It is also steps away from where her wake is being held, beside the sports complex.

Health Secretary Paulyn Ubial said that a stray bullet killed Emilyn because the bullet came from above. This is being disputed, however, by the police which claimed that a resident, Renato Sy Jr., tried to shoot barangay watchman Patricio Muñoz over an altercation. He missed and the bullet hit Emilyn in the head because the girl was texting with her head bowed.

Amid conflicting reports, the National Bureau of Investigation has launched a parallel probe, conducting an autopsy on Emilyn and extracting the bullet from her brain to determine the type of firearm used.

On Wednesday night at the JRMMC, Marilyn and her husband closely watched a machine monitor Emilyn’s heartbeat.

When the line fluctuated before going flat at 6:10 p.m., all Marilyn could do was call her daughter’s name.

Marilyn Villanueva comforts her grieving children aged 9, 8 and 6. She told the Inquirer in a previous interview that Emilyn, the eldest of her four children, was the one who looked after her siblings whenever she and her husband were out. —Joan Bondoc

“I kept saying Emilyn, Emilyn, come home! Emilyn, Emilyn, don’t leave. But she still left. I kind of wished that God had taken me first. As a parent, it’s just so painful to watch your kid die,” she said.

The 34-year-old mother recalled saying two prayers before Emilyn died.

First, she prayed the rosary and asked God to “please extend my daughter’s life. She had dreams. She wanted to do a lot of things. So, I asked God to please let her come home.”

Marilyn said it was difficult for her and Calano to accept Emilyn’s fate until a social worker at the hospital told them: “Our lives are borrowed from God. When it’s time to return it to our creator, we have to accept it and let it go.”

After that conversation, Marilyn went to the hospital chapel and prayed: “If it’s Your will, then I’m letting her go.”

But it does not mean Marilyn would let the shooter go scot-free, too. According to her, they are waiting for the NBI’s findings. “I respect what the police said but I want to see what NBI has to say, too.”

As for the pain of losing Emilyn, she said: “I’m OK for now. I’ve already accepted her death. But the impact of the pain? For sure, it will remain.”