Mario Palamos will offer pink and white roses — his wife’s favorite — at the mass grave outside the Palo Cathedral before the Pope arrives today.
Palamos, a pedicab driver, will also try his best to get near Pope Francis and will personally thank him for the visit in case he gets the chance to talk to him.
“I know my wife; my nephew, Ricardo and his daughter, Myra will be very happy with his visit and blessing,” he added.
The Pope is expected to bless the mass grave just outside the cathedral where those who perished in supertyphoon Yolanda (Haiyan) are buried.
Palamos can still recall how he found the body of his wife, Ellilian.
He said he was holding the right hand of his wife as they ran for their lives when the river in barangay Salvacion in Palo started to swell.
They tried to outrun the surge but they were overtaken by the floodwater.
“My shirt snagged on a steel bar while my wife got swept away. I held on to the steel bar to survive,” he told Cebu Daily News.
Two hours after the surge, his friends came rushing and told him that they found his wife hanging on a bamboo near the Sacred Heart Seminary.
The couple’s house was also swept away by the flood.
Like the other victims who were buried in the mass grave, the body of Palamos’ wife was placed in a body bag and was sprinkled with limestone before it was laid side by side with the remains of the other victims.
He said he was glad that a visit to the mass grave was part of the Popes itinerary.
Palamos now lives with his siblings in barangay Salvacion.
An international non-government organization gave him a pedicab so could resume his livelihood of 40 years.