Day for the dead

It is so appropriate for the recent holidays... someone stole the telephone wires again in our neighborhood and so our telephone is dead again! This has happened so many times already and would usually be done on long breaks when the telephone company would not be available for servicing that my brother and sis-in-law finally subscribed to another telephone company for a backup. So our internet connection at the moment is with their other line and not our original line. It is not as fast but it is working and I am able to make a post :)

Today we remember our dearly departed and as has been our tradition we went to the cemetery. As usual there were a lot of people there and the place looks like a big picnic. The tents were colorful and some were bigger than in prior years. We no longer brought a tent but just 2 big outdoor umbrellas since there were only 4 of us that came today. My sister and her family came last night and she told me that there were already lots of people there that night, some of them going to stay overnight. My other siblings and their family will be coming tomorrow.

Most people that go to the cemetery for the celebration of UNDAS (all saints/souls day) usually spend it as a reunion especially for those who are visiting their dead Lolos and Lolas (grandparents). They get to see cousins and other relatives they don’t see often. In our case, we don’t really spend it as a reunion since our family already gets together often and we also visit the cemetery often but more as a special day for remembering our departed loved ones. We only get to visit papa and my Lola Bebe since the grave of our other departed are in the provinces, though I already visited my other Lola’s grave on my vacation early last month.

I did not have a chance to visit the church in the cemetery. I did not hear mass being broadcasted on the loud speaker of the church there and instead attended the service in our parish church tonight. I did not go home immediately and just stayed in the adoration chapel for a long while.

I was thinking about death… no not death for the people that frequently steals our telephone wire and sells them in the junk shop… but death. Why people are afraid to die? I remember boasting so frequently in the past that I could die any day and it will be okay. Well that is until I got sick and was in and out of the hospital a long time undergoing several operations. I went into depression and was getting hopeless and was angry considering that it shouldn’t have been so in the first place but I wasn’t healing and I was frustrated until one time I actually laughed at myself and told myself “ang yabang yabang mo! (you are so boastful!) You said that you were not afraid to die and here you are just sick and not really dying and you keep on complaining!” I was thinking, why was I complaining? If worse comes to worse and I die, so what? Didn’t I tell people that I wasn’t afraid to die? But I felt down. It is hard being sick and losing hope. So it was not really death that I am afraid of but pain especially prolonged pain and the thought that it might not end soon.

People have different reasons for fearing death but it is inevitable. It is not really something that you wish on yourself but it will surely come. I don’t know when my time will be up but when it finally comes I pray that I am at peace. Death came differently for my dearly departed, some were sudden some suffered pain a long time. I wasn’t around for most of them when they took their last breath but I hope that they too were at peace on that last breath and that they are now happily rested where they are!