Of Death and Life

We are here in Sorsogon now, my parents are resting while I’m typing this up in my laptop. There’s no Sun broadband signal here, so I’ll just publish this as soon as I have access to the internet.

We’re here because a grand uncle, Lolo Aug, died. He passed away yesterday because of heart attack. My parents are helping arrange matters as of course the bereaved family is handling other matters. Since my own grandparents have already passed away years ago, Lolo Aug and Lola Cris served as our Lolo and Lola. I remember that we always went to their house and spend time with them. My Dad also took care of them whenever they needed anything (I’ll have another blog entry about my Dad soon).

If you’ve been updated on my life, you’d know that this is the second death in our family in about less than a month. Just a number of weeks back, Lolo Aug’s sister, Lola Liling, also passed away. I don’t really know the exact reason, but I heard this afternoon that it was aneurysm. I’m not really sure. It was a surprise for all of us as we just received a text message that Lola Liling was comatose, and then a few hours after we received another message about her passing on.

Just last May, I tagged along with my parents to a trip here in Sorsogon. They were fixing tax, land, et al, matters and since I didn’t have anything better to do, I just joined the trip. Vacation. We spent five days here, just being bum, eating, sleeping, and occasionally going out to look around. We didn’t even get to visit all the relatives. We just went to Lolo Berting, and then to Fernando Hotel to visit Lolo Jun and Lola Cecilia (and hear their views on the government haha. That’s another entry, too!). With that trip just last May, I was really surprised with the deaths of Lolo Aug and Lola Liling. We went to Legazpi to bring Lola Cristy shopping, as she was just always in the house tending to the chores and looking after her husband and mother. We figured we should take her to Legazpi, for her to take a break. When we arrived there, we dropped by Lola Liling’s house (just behind Divine Word), and then she decided to go to Sorsogon with us. We just rode the bus going back. It was a nice experience. Then we just spent quality time with my Lolo and Lolas (haha, three of them--Lola Cris, Lola Liling, and Mama Dahlen [great-grand!]), eating and talking with them. I really had a great time then, I remember even that my quote for the day was about listening to the stories of the old. Their experiences were really quite something to hear.

Lola Liling hoped to live for 20 years more, as she was the one looking after her five grandchildren (these kids have no father already as Tito died I think about six years ago). She was the one supporting those children, and she always worried about them. It was really a surprise that she died, as she looked very strong (even traveling alone from Legazpi to Sorsogon, or even Legazpi to Manila BY BUS). Same goes for Lolo Aug. He even wanted to adopt one of the grandchildren of Lola Liling when Lola died. He wanted to take in the youngest, send her to school and give her a good life.

But I guess, life is really like that (cliché). As the priest said in his homily this evening, “una-unahan lamang ‘yan”. When your time comes, then it comes and you go. I could say that they have lived a full life. They have accomplished a lot, and I’m glad that they are now in a happy place. I know that with everything that they’ve done, they are with our Master now. Peace to them.

Another point that struck me during the priest’s homily was “ang kamatayan ay hindi dapat kinakatakutan, ngunit ito’y dapat pinaghahandaan”. I think this is the first time that I’ve heard this point, and I loved it very much. It made so much sense. Yes, I admit that I am really scared about death. I am scared of losing my loved ones. Yesterday, I really couldn’t stop thinking about facing the time when I had to lose any of my closest loved ones. It’s a reality that we have to face. Anyone could die at any given time. Young or old, sick or healthy. It happens. Death happens. We can’t stop it, but indeed, we can prepare for it. How? We can prepare for death by living a full life. When death comes, we’re prepared when we know that we’ve done everything that we have to, and everything that we could. Live without regrets. Just love fully. That’s how we prepare for death. Of course it’s not easy to do, but that’s the beauty of it. We know that we’re given a chance to prepare.

Sigh. This is a hard topic, but I’m glad I was able to write. Now it’s time to rest.









Requiescat In Pace.