In this day of rain and gloom, a friend is shrouded with grief. When she has all been very vocal about how she misses her family, her brother passed away from a car accident in the least expected time. It just gives me the creeps knowing that everything happened fast, and that everyone was caught off-guard of the sudden demise. Being the great betrayer, death comes in with no innuendos; at first it gives hope for a happy ending, but in an instant tick, it just grabs one in the neck and curtails whatever bliss one has at the beginning.
Anything about death gives me that chill along my spine. At this point, I just feel unprepared of any talk about death, about corpses, about coffins. I have great admiration to those who treat death as a celebration of life, as a moment of memorializing those good, old memories. But to me, it is first, above anything else, a curtailment of life. Needless to say, I hate the agony that death gives. I hate the sleepless nights, the whole theatrics of burial time, the excruciating I-know-you've-been-a-good-person-when-you-were-still-alive-and-that-you'll-be-in-heaven-by-now monologues of the living toward the dead. I hate it especially when death arrives in one instant, in one blast, in one kaboom of a second, abruptly taking away everything that has been established and shared through the years.
I have experienced a lot of deaths in my family. But, if truth to be told, I can just count in my fingers the deaths that I truly grieved for, that I mourned for for months (or maybe years). But I agree that every news about death in the family or in my nearest circle of friends always has that shocking factor that makes me feel afloat in the air for quite a time. And I must admit that, apart from the fear of ghosts, remembering and that chasm in one's life caused by the passing of a loved-one are what I am truly afraid of.
Also, there is this masochist and condescending thing about death. It controls all the affected ones for months of anguish and reassessing. Death makes people thrash about, then jaded, then melancholic, then afloat of memory, then nostalgic, then melodramatic...until they reach that point of saturation, wherein the only thing they can do is look back, shed a smile or tear, light up a candle and say a deep, soulful prayer of acceptance.
Going back to my friend who is in this low moment of mourning after the sudden death of her brother. The sheer news of her brother's death leaves me bereft of words, since, for the past weeks, my friend has been constantly blogging about how she misses her family, how she loves her brothers, how she really wants to be in the province to have some road trips, how she's excited about Christmastime with her family. Until this abrupt news of pain and death.
In these rainy days, it is quite dramatic (and cinematic?) to talk about death. It leaves me with this eerie feeling that everything is just wrong. It turns me skeptical about life, and makes me really think that life indeed is really one big bitch that orchestrates its plans in helter-skelter.
Now, my friend, in one of her latest posts about the death of her brother, asks "why him?" Like any other Filipino family who usually questions every death, she is also on the process of internalization, of seeking for that perfect time when everything would dawn on her. Being friends with her since elementary days, I know that she has more than a hundred queries aimlessly roaming on her mind. Despite still being in the city, far-away from the province where the true drama is unfolding bit per hurtful bit, I can still feel my friend's lamentation. The moment she replied a curt "Tnx oj" to a text message that tried to console her, I knew that she is taking everything heavily.
On my part, I cannot tell her that I understand her and that I feel for her. Because no matter how hard I try to feel the pain and understand the sorrow of the family, I know in my heart that theirs is a million times more afflictive and more grueling than what I have, and that no amount of hurt could capture the lowest of low times that they are in now.
Few days from now I will be back at the province. Our circle of friends is fast communicating about what to do and how to comfort our friend. The news is spreading fast. Inevitably, everyone is casting a feeling of sadness toward the death of Cathe's brother. After my own moment of solitude and reflection, after having my own version of pain written in this blog, I will leave the house, face the rain, and head for school for a group meeting. Today, as the notion of death clouds my mind like a veil, I once again learn how to say a soulful prayer.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Friday, October 3, 2008
Notes of a Stressed Person
I just miss writing about myself. It has been some quite a time now since I really blogged about the goings-on in my life. I have kept this blog thriving by re-posting poems which I wrote in different moods and times in the past. A lot of things has been happening lately. Saying that I am extremely preoccupied would surely qualify as an understatement. But ironically, now that I am assessing what life has been after undergoing too much pressure from the previous weeks, I still cannot give an honest estimation of progress and productivity on my part.
The semester is now on its last leg, and seemingly, it turns out that the laxness that I portrayed all throughout the semester is now taking its toll on me. Perhaps that is what one gets from having too much confidence about himself. With the rate of things, I can now conclude that this semester has been the most hectic and bustling of all semesters that I have had in my whole academic life. Usually, in the tradition of obssesive-compulsive students out there (read: grade conscious), I fulfill the requirement days before the deadline rolls down in front of everyone, giving me the time to rollick on my own smug complacency while everyone haggles for life just to accomplish things.
But now the tables are turned upside-down. Like a student desperate of finishing the burdening requirements, yesterday I even resorted to gulping down two large cups of strong, dark coffee just to keep me sane and awake all through the night up to the wee hours of the morning. To my fellow batch-mates and me, this is one of the many looming signs of the coming of the apocalypse, or what, in our own UP academic jargon, is more popularly known as our thesis days. Inasmuch as I do not like to jump into conclusion and go way ahead of my academic life, the signs are now lurking around, as if ready to pounce on every unprepared and disgruntled student anytime they want to. Thus, the understandable pressure.
In these punishing times, the only consolation that the poor self gets is patches of happiness brought about by tranquility and some little delights that, however mundane they seem to be, still unfailingly bring back the childishness in one's self.
On my way home today, I passed by a Seven Eleven store located at the busy length of Quezon Ave. Surprisingly, I decided to get a large paper-cup of GULP and have some taste of that particular green-colored drink flavored in apple and kiwi. I found it strange that I was smiling all the while like an excited child as I was waiting for the drink to fill to the brim. Various thoughts played in my mind, like a joyful rollercoaster ride. In one snap, I realized it: I was zooming back to some memories of my sweet, innocent childhood.
As I was about to pay the drink over the counter, my eyes darted to a basket filled with the luscious yet cheap local toffee. Without any contention, I grabbed one and excitedly paid the bill. Then, as I left the store with the cold apple-kiwi-flavored drink on my left hand and the saccharine piece of Cloud 9 sticking out its brown, nutty complexion from the plastic like an inviting tongue on the other, it dawned on me that it had been a long time since I treated myself to such infantile pleasures. But then again, it also occurred to me that, from time to time, one needs to go back to the sheer delights associated to his childhood, for him to have, although fleeting at times, a sense of vitality, a sense of grounding.
It is just crazy to think that after a grueling week (which would obviously still continue till the last two days of the semester next week), it is in this trivial stuff that one finds splotches of bliss. Sometimes, one just tends to be gravitated to the immensity of things, that he forgets about the little joys in and of life. On my part, I am somehow lucky to discover some tinge of ecstasy from these simple things amidst the events that I went and am still going through at the final part of the semester.
I may sound like an evangelist coming straight from Net 25 or any Christian station on boob-tube---but does it matter now? To a self-confessed and self-absorbed cynic like me, reprieve and ecstasy come not so often after all. So why not just celebrate the joy?
The semester is now on its last leg, and seemingly, it turns out that the laxness that I portrayed all throughout the semester is now taking its toll on me. Perhaps that is what one gets from having too much confidence about himself. With the rate of things, I can now conclude that this semester has been the most hectic and bustling of all semesters that I have had in my whole academic life. Usually, in the tradition of obssesive-compulsive students out there (read: grade conscious), I fulfill the requirement days before the deadline rolls down in front of everyone, giving me the time to rollick on my own smug complacency while everyone haggles for life just to accomplish things.
But now the tables are turned upside-down. Like a student desperate of finishing the burdening requirements, yesterday I even resorted to gulping down two large cups of strong, dark coffee just to keep me sane and awake all through the night up to the wee hours of the morning. To my fellow batch-mates and me, this is one of the many looming signs of the coming of the apocalypse, or what, in our own UP academic jargon, is more popularly known as our thesis days. Inasmuch as I do not like to jump into conclusion and go way ahead of my academic life, the signs are now lurking around, as if ready to pounce on every unprepared and disgruntled student anytime they want to. Thus, the understandable pressure.
In these punishing times, the only consolation that the poor self gets is patches of happiness brought about by tranquility and some little delights that, however mundane they seem to be, still unfailingly bring back the childishness in one's self.
On my way home today, I passed by a Seven Eleven store located at the busy length of Quezon Ave. Surprisingly, I decided to get a large paper-cup of GULP and have some taste of that particular green-colored drink flavored in apple and kiwi. I found it strange that I was smiling all the while like an excited child as I was waiting for the drink to fill to the brim. Various thoughts played in my mind, like a joyful rollercoaster ride. In one snap, I realized it: I was zooming back to some memories of my sweet, innocent childhood.
As I was about to pay the drink over the counter, my eyes darted to a basket filled with the luscious yet cheap local toffee. Without any contention, I grabbed one and excitedly paid the bill. Then, as I left the store with the cold apple-kiwi-flavored drink on my left hand and the saccharine piece of Cloud 9 sticking out its brown, nutty complexion from the plastic like an inviting tongue on the other, it dawned on me that it had been a long time since I treated myself to such infantile pleasures. But then again, it also occurred to me that, from time to time, one needs to go back to the sheer delights associated to his childhood, for him to have, although fleeting at times, a sense of vitality, a sense of grounding.
It is just crazy to think that after a grueling week (which would obviously still continue till the last two days of the semester next week), it is in this trivial stuff that one finds splotches of bliss. Sometimes, one just tends to be gravitated to the immensity of things, that he forgets about the little joys in and of life. On my part, I am somehow lucky to discover some tinge of ecstasy from these simple things amidst the events that I went and am still going through at the final part of the semester.
I may sound like an evangelist coming straight from Net 25 or any Christian station on boob-tube---but does it matter now? To a self-confessed and self-absorbed cynic like me, reprieve and ecstasy come not so often after all. So why not just celebrate the joy?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
