Tag Archives: death

Polar Opposites

I’m noticing a pattern in the past few days.

Image from sxc.huLast Monday, I was talking to some friends on chat, and I find out the following:

  • One friend is now happily in a relationship
  • One friend is nursing a broken heart
  • Another friend found out something not so nice about the guy she’s dating

Today, I found out:

  • A friend gave birth to her first baby last weekend
  • A friend’s dad passed away yesterday

Talk about polar opposites. And all during the Christmas season.

Things like this baffle me. Sometimes I wish there was something we can do to stop bad things from happening at this time of the year, because let’s face it: who wants to experience death and broken hearts at this time of the year when people are supposed to celebrate? Can’t it be in any other time of the year?

But who wants to welcome bad things at any other time of the year, though?

And…how can we appreciate the good if it not for the bad?

Life and death. Happiness and sadness. All together in one cycle…does this mean one cannot be there without the other?

Ah well. Thoughts all over the place again. Sometimes I want to contain them all in a metal building, just so they won’t run all over the place in the middle of the work week.

Forgive me for this word vomit. I’ll try to post something more coherent next time.

Going Home

Day 5Just earlier, I came from my future sister-in-law’s mom’s funeral. That’s…the second funeral I’ve been to this year, if I am not mistaken. But it’s not the first death I’ve heard of for this year; it seems as if 2009 is full of deaths of so many people, both famous and not.

I know, I know, how morbid.

But then, think of it. It’s not just in 2009. It’s impossible for a year to pass by without anyone passing. Death is a natural part of life. Everyone goes, and it’s not something we can deny ourselves of. Someday, all of us will leave this earth and go back home. To our real home. With God.

I’ve been trying to come to terms with death, to stop myself from fearing it. I keep on trying to remind myself that this life on earth is just a transition to eternity, that this is just a drop in the ocean of forever. I keep on trying to tell myself that I shouldn’t hold on to so many material things, or worry about any other trivial things, because this isn’t home.

It’s hard. More often than not, I get caught up with so many shallow things that I forget why I am here in the first place, and where my real home is. But days like these, or times when I hear about people passing, leaving their earthly lives…I am reminded of just that.

I find a lot of wisdom in this little image I found at icanread about life and death, and I think it’s just timely. I hope you find some in it, too.

Don't waste another second
Don't waste another second

Have a blessed Saturday night. :)

5/30.

Hello, Bella

Oh hai, new layout.

I wish I could say I designed and coded this layout…but I didn’t. Shortly after I wrote the last post, I started surfing through the WordPress theme directory to look for themes to use as an inspiration. But I realized I have no time yet, and what harm is it to use one of the free themes?

Hence, hello Bella — the name of this theme. I like how clean and colorful it looks. :) The headers and the titles take a while to load, though. Some kind of font-flash-rendering thing. Or maybe it’s just my connection.

Anyway, I miss designing. But I know I’m so rusty with it already. Must. Flex. Designing. Muscles.

And speaking of muscles…I’m still in pain from Sunday’s work out! I can’t laugh properly without my abs complaining, and stretching always needs extra effort. I’m not exactly complaining about the pain, though. I kind of miss it whenever I don’t feel pain the day after a long work out. How gym buff does that sound? As if that isn’t enough, I’m hitting the gym tomorrow later again for another round. But seriously, the pain kind of puts things in perspective.

And speaking of perspective. I just got reminded of my mortality — God can really just take us away any minute He says so. When it’s your time, it really is your time. It’s very humbling and overwhelming…and well, like I mentioned before, early deaths can really silence most people. It certainly left me at a loss for words.

Life and Death

Last night, I went to my high school friend’s younger sister’s funeral. Yes, funeral. She died at 20 because of cancer, a few months after graduating from college. I heard about it last week, but I was a bit busy, and to be honest, I sort of didn’t want to go. It’s not that I am afraid of funerals or of dead people (I can safely say that I’m one of the people who’s not afraid to look into the coffin), but because of the fact that I’m afraid to see someone so young yet dead. :(

But anyway, I ended up going yesterday with some high school friends. My mind was running a mile a minute because of all the things happening in my life, and I was also talking so much, trying to keep certain emotions at bay and not wanting to think of how I would react when I finally see our friend who lost his sister. A little while later, we entered the place to pay our respects, and the moment I saw her coffin, lined with her photos and flowers and finally, when I peeked to see her, I couldn’t help but cry. I hardly knew her, and I was only close to her brother during freshmen year…but seeing her — so young, so accomplished, someone who had a very bright future ahead of her — inside a wooden box, dead because of a very unforgiving disease…it’s just surreal.

It was like I was staring at my own mortality. Back then, I only hear of cancer from people who are aging, from people on TV. It wasn’t a possibility for me or any of my friends before — we’re too young and the world’s so big and there’s so many things to do for us to suffer from a disease like that. But seeing someone even younger than me pass away, not even getting to experience how it is to be outside of school…to imagine someone like her going through chemotherapy treatments…it doesn’t feel right. It’s so unfair.

Cliche as this may sound, but being at the funeral last night made me realize yet again how fragile life really is. I’ve always believed that when it’s your time to go, it is your time to go, but it never hit me smack in the face as it did last night. It made me think of how I — or anyone of my loved ones — could just go anytime. How one person could be there at one moment and gone the next. How God can just take anyone of me away when He says its my time to go.

That made me wonder — what am I doing? Is everything I am doing even important? At the end of it all, would what I am doing right now even count? When it’s my time, will what I am doing right now be even worth it? All these things that are bothering me, are they even supposed to matter? What am I living for? Am I living for the world, for now, or am I living in the light of eternity?

So many questions and so many thoughts that, interestingly, gave me a fresh perspective of everything that’s bothering me in my life right now. I keep on complaining on what I am going through right now when what I’m complaining about is just a small thing — even smaller than the usual furniture catalog! Why am I even wasting my time and energy on things that are so petty, when I could use that time to be a better and more loving person? Why am I worrying over something so small, when there are so many more people worrying about things even I can’t grasp?

I guess if there’s something that could really silence people, it would be death, just like what it did to me last night. I can’t say I’m not afraid of death, but being in its presence last night made me remember that life is short compared to eternity, and I must remember where I am, where I am from, where my real home is. Most importantly, I must remember whose I am and what I am living for. Because really, at the end of it all, it’s going to be between me and God.