Last last Tuesday, I attended the burial of the father of a dear friend. This was the third time this year that I witnessed the passing of a friend's parent. The first one was in February, when I came into the hospital room, minutes too late, to see for the first time someone lie very very still in a hospital bed.
The previous week seemed to cap those experiences when I used to fear death. When I was younger I would be afraid to look inside a casket. As a child my grandmother would bring me along during wakes of her friends in her small town and she would be afraid to look, and I would be forced to look and I couldn't sleep without the lights on after that. As I looked inside her casket two years ago, I remembered how afraid she was and how she probably finds it funny now as her spirit looks over my shoulder. All's well that ends well. After all, the Lord tells us not to be afraid of man who cannot kill our spirit but be afraid of the one who has the power to cast our souls into the pit.
I,like some of you, am not really afraid of a dead body but more of the idea of death, about what lies in the path where all of us must thread. As I sat on the burial of my dear friend's father's wake, it was a holy kind of sad, but sweet at the same time. For deep in our hearts we knew that even though his former life has passed away, he is about to live the fullness of life with God in heaven. I can almost hear Jesus say, go my child, your faith has saved you.
For no matter how old we get, we are God's children for eternity. And though I cannot explain it as scholars would, I see and share the faith of a child that heaven is real without a doubt. It is this deep comfort that God gives us at the point when our hearts are squeezed at the passing of a loved one. There is a hopeful promise that we will all meet again in heaven. It is not only words of consolation but a simple truth. There is a happy reunion we can all look forward to.
As they say however, it is always hard for the leavee than the leaver. Yes, it is true for all manners of death, death like the ending of a friendship, a relationship or a person moving to another state or country.
In the end, life does go on and the difference between the physical dying and the emotional dying is that we find immediate closure in the physical burying of a dear one, whereas we must contend with the healing of broken heart, which may be a long process. This is not to say that physical death does not also entail emotional healing for the loved ones left behind, it does, very much so. They also require healing of the heart and of the soul, when their spirits are battered after months or years of battling along with a loved one for his or her life.
They too die a little each day. And as the certainty of death finally comes, the left ones must begin anew. And this is where time becomes a friend.
Fear not, God says, he is with you through the roller coaster ride of life. Remember last year, I told you about autumn in my life, a season of pruning, of letting go of things that no longer work. That was also a kind of death. But on the other hand, while I thought of autumn, it was spring in other parts of the world, and life went on as it should. It is for this reason, that I feel death is not the end,it is only a part of life, as Forest Gump's mother says. After death, there is always life, even in nature.
This month, is the season of falling leaves, when trees shed their dried hands to prepare for their new greens, in spring. But in between is a process of shedding and preparing.
There were falling leaves, when Tito Marcial went to be with God. Even the sky cried. Yet, after the rains, the clouds broke into a sunshiny smile as if heaven was saying, do not despair, there is always hope. Our greatest hope is being with Him.
Tito Mars was - as his spirit remains - a gentle, kind and loving father and husband to his wife and children. I remember Tita Lydia sharing with me after the rains has ceased that she was really afraid of thunder but it was her husband who would often assure her not to be afraid of the thunder, because it meant that the rains were coming, and it was necessary for watering the plants, to make them grow...to make us grow Ruby...
Thank you Tito Mars for being a good father to my sister Ruby. And for being a good wife to ninang Lydia. I look at your life and I am inspired. Because you lived simply but you loved very much. You knew what was important in life and that was family.
I think also of the GK heroes who have died while serving others. I think of Tito Warly who died last month while he was placing pavers on the pathwalk at GK Capri village in Quezon City. I think of Tito Abeng of GK Baseco who died in September while hugging the award given to him by the youth (SIGA) for having served them so devotedly.
You lived a truly meaningful life. You are the reason why God made heaven. And we are blessed.
...so there I was sitting on a patch of land where the dead was buried and I thought to myself this is what life is all about...to give meaning to death, our lives should have meant something...
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