A Day For The Living
Category: Seasons
In the Philippines, All Saint's Day is the day after Halloween and a time to be happy for dead people who are resting in peace -- that according to my wise little 10-year old. As a child I knew it to be a day for people to picnic by the graveside of long-gone relatives, until death stopped being an abstract notion and started hitting closer to home. Then it became much more.
I lost my dad 25 years back and a sister not too long ago, and All Saint's Day thereafter became more than a picnic but really actualizing a sentiment. Certainly, visiting graves do not bring us physically closer to wherever our departed have passed on to, but the practice is really more for the benefit of the living than the dead. By going, we do not only console ourselves, but other people as well, for having all known the pain of bereavement at some point in our lives. It is a day to collectively recall some of our sadder moments, and offer a glimpse of what earthly remembrances we will leave behind ourselves, when the time comes.
Tradition is good because it grounds us, and maintains our connectedness to where we are coming from. Sadly, as my mother-in-law pointed out, times are changing. She observed while visiting my father-in-law (our second visitation for the day, in the morning was my dad) how there were more people that came to the mausoleo in the past, as compared to last night when there were just a few of us who remembered. Family members have come (girlfriends that became wives who birthed brand new children) and gone (couples separated plus the grown up kids who left to live or study abroad) or turned indifferent (lazy family members who did not care to sweat the traffic and stayed home).
Death, I realize, isn't an abstract notion but something even I am bound to encounter at some point in my life. I do not wish to know it any sooner, and I do not have final instructions on what my family should do regarding my funeral. To be cremated seems less hassling and bothersome to the ones you'll leave behind, and my mother-in-law told me that this is her choice of disposal. She said wants her ashes to be strewn in a body of water, specifically in her beloved Sampaloc Lake, right below her home. Done Mom, I thought. As for me, I'd fancy having my ashes blend into a shiny, blue swimming pool in some fabulous celebrity home in Malibu. Yeah, Brad Pitt's sounds really, really neat
In the Philippines, All Saint's Day is the day after Halloween and a time to be happy for dead people who are resting in peace -- that according to my wise little 10-year old. As a child I knew it to be a day for people to picnic by the graveside of long-gone relatives, until death stopped being an abstract notion and started hitting closer to home. Then it became much more.
I lost my dad 25 years back and a sister not too long ago, and All Saint's Day thereafter became more than a picnic but really actualizing a sentiment. Certainly, visiting graves do not bring us physically closer to wherever our departed have passed on to, but the practice is really more for the benefit of the living than the dead. By going, we do not only console ourselves, but other people as well, for having all known the pain of bereavement at some point in our lives. It is a day to collectively recall some of our sadder moments, and offer a glimpse of what earthly remembrances we will leave behind ourselves, when the time comes.
Tradition is good because it grounds us, and maintains our connectedness to where we are coming from. Sadly, as my mother-in-law pointed out, times are changing. She observed while visiting my father-in-law (our second visitation for the day, in the morning was my dad) how there were more people that came to the mausoleo in the past, as compared to last night when there were just a few of us who remembered. Family members have come (girlfriends that became wives who birthed brand new children) and gone (couples separated plus the grown up kids who left to live or study abroad) or turned indifferent (lazy family members who did not care to sweat the traffic and stayed home).
Death, I realize, isn't an abstract notion but something even I am bound to encounter at some point in my life. I do not wish to know it any sooner, and I do not have final instructions on what my family should do regarding my funeral. To be cremated seems less hassling and bothersome to the ones you'll leave behind, and my mother-in-law told me that this is her choice of disposal. She said wants her ashes to be strewn in a body of water, specifically in her beloved Sampaloc Lake, right below her home. Done Mom, I thought. As for me, I'd fancy having my ashes blend into a shiny, blue swimming pool in some fabulous celebrity home in Malibu. Yeah, Brad Pitt's sounds really, really neat
Poppycock | 11/02/2006 |
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