Life and death

THESE past days, my attention was caught by two deaths and a birthday.

Two of my friends had a mother and a father, in their 80s and 90s,
passing away after a long period of illness. Thanks to the social
networking, I managed to have a running account of how their
conditions went, provoking in me a gush of prayers and a boost in
hope.

Then my twin uncles also celebrated their 80th birthday, an event
made more special because most of their siblings, my other uncles and
aunties including my own mother, did not survive past their 60s.

My cousins labeled the event, “Mighty at 80,” with the obvious effort
to sweeten the unwelcome thought that lurks in everyone’s mind. A
naughty cousin even went further by saying, “Mightier at 90, coming
soon.” But everyone knows what that birthday was all about, aside from
being an occasion for thanksgiving and merrymaking.

I, of course, know how it feels to lose a father and a mother. It’s
like being deprived of air, like being left with a feeling that the
world has collapsed. And I think that’s because since childhood we
have come to depend on them for a lot of things, if not, practically
everything.

In fact, I would even say that our parents always occupy a kind of
immediate presence in our mind and heart. They are indelibly etched in
our mind and heart. We never forget them no matter how far we may be
in distance and temperament. And that’s because they are our first and
immediate link to life, and, in fact, to God himself.

It was through them that we came to exist. It was through them that
God created us. That’s why our parents are called procreators, because
they participated in a very intimate way in God’s creation of us.

Our first idea of God, of a certain sense of authority that has to be
respected, our primal idea of what is good and evil, of what is order
in life, of what is peace and joy, of what is love, was formed through
them. We learned self-confidence, faith and hope through them.

When we were kids, we must have thought they would never die. And the
first time we realized that they would one day die must have caused us
a deep anguish, and we must have prayed that somehow it would never
happen. Yes, we are capable of denying and refusing reality and the
facts of life.

Not only did our parents procreate us. They brought us up to become
what we are now. They not only fed us, dressed us, comforted us. More
importantly, they educated us, they took care of us not only
physically and materially, but also spiritually and morally,
inculcating in us the proper values and virtues for our life’s
journey.

And they do all these unstintingly, without regard for any return
from us, or counting the costs. They are willing to suffer and, if
possible or permissible, even to die for us. That’s why we cannot
forget them, just as they cannot forget us also. This is pure love in
motion. This mutual loving becomes self-perpetuating. It acquires life
of its own.

Still we have to admit that they will die one day, and when that
happens, even if we unavoidably plunge into grief, we should take
comfort in our faith, deriving strength and the conviction that with
the passion, death and resurrection of our Lord, death for us never
means an end, but rather a change of residence, so to speak.

That’s why we should not restrict our understanding of life and death
to a purely human level. We have to allow our faith to expand it and
to give us the complete picture.

We should not be afraid of death, but rather should welcome it like a
friend or the gardener who, in an image popularized by St. Josemaria
Escriva, now decides to cut the blooming roses in his garden to put
them in a better place, nothing less than in his own house.

We continue to live on in spite of our death, since there is
something in us, our spiritual soul, that refuses to die even if our
mortal bodies return to dust. And if that soul is vitally linked to
the very source of Life, to God himself, then that soul will live in
bliss for all eternity.

Besides, our faith tells us there’s going to be the resurrection of
the dead at time’s end. The body reunites with the soul.