WHEN DEATH IS AT THE DOORSTEP

The dying process starts at birth. But death is a distant rumor to the young. To me the reality of death came into focus at the time I retired. Before that I was either in denial or too busy to think about it.

Death is a certainty we can't brush aside. In a given time, we're either dead, or dying, or about to die. Better to confront it. What better way than to reflect on what other people think or say about death.

I'll start with Dean Koontz: "A man begins dying at the moment of his birth; most people live in denial of death's patient courtship until, late in life and deep in sickness, they become aware of him sitting bedside."

Super centenarian Walter Breuning's advice: "Don't be afraid to die. Because you're born to die." Maybe that's one reason he lived more than 114 years. Worrying of death may bring you closer to it. 

“Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives" (A. Sachs). So, Ill strive to have a full life.

Death is a great compensator. Helen Keller expectantly declared, "Death is more than passing from one room to another. But there's a difference for me, you know. Because there I shall be able to see."

Personally, I saw no injustice about death. As a great leveler. It doesn't discriminate against the poor and the rich, the faceless and the famous and the righteous and the unrighteous.

If you see paupers dying of malnutrition or lack of medical attention, think of rich people dying of gluttony, of high-profile executives dying of stress, of half-dead rich patients in life support.

It is society that plays favorites with the dead. Consider this post in the social media: "In America, one celebrity dies of drug overdose, a million mourn; in Africa, a million die of malnutrition, no one mourns There are disparities on how society takes care of the dead. Some dead reside in mausoleums and visited by the living; many in dirt graveyards and forgotten.

When I die, I want to be buried in a memorial park with a simple tombstone to mark my resting place. A quiet place where those who will find time to come will enjoy the view of the landscaped grounds, sunrises and sunsets, the moon and the stars; unhampered by assaulting structures.

How would I prefer to die? Well, if it's not too much for the Grim Reaper, I want to die easy and old. And no accident, please. 

My second younger brother, Bonifacio, died of food poisoning when he was a toddler. I was then a kid myself and had no memory of his tragic death.

My second younger sister, Concepcion, was four years old when she died of lockjaw. She accidentally pierced her foot with the nail protruding from the wood I was working on. She was smiling in the morning and died in the afternoon. Her sudden death was a grievous experience for me, then fourteen years old, and the trauma stayed with me for a long time.

Silvestre, second child of my parents' nine children, died of electrocution while helping the workers install a transformer. He was an electrical engineer employed with PHESCO, a contractor of the Agus Il, the second hydroelectric plant in the Lake Lanao Grid. He died before his 30^th birthday. He was single.

My mother was only 64 years old when she was fatally hit by a car on October 29, 1990.

Thinking of life's unexpected turns and tragedies, I ask myself what is the meaning of life? Granting that I live for 100 years, what's the big deal? What on earth am I here for? What awaits me after death?

These elusive questions have been contemplated by the learned and the unlearned, by herdsmen in the open fields and professors within the four walls of the academe, by believers and nonbelievers. It is a common menu of Stoics, Epicurus, Ecclesiastes, Augustinians and Oriental philosophies. People have been thinking, talking and writing about death.

Consider what people said in the ancient and modern times:

"Life is useless, all is useless. You spend your life working, laboring and what do you have to show for it?" Says the philosopher in Ecclesiastes 1:2-3.

"Our life is short and full of sorrow, and when the end comes, there is no escape. No one has ever known to come back from the world of the dead. We were born by chance, and after life is over, we were as if we had never been born at all." (Wisdom of Solomon 2:1).

"Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist." (Epicurus).

“If you have grasped the purpose of life there is no point in trying to make life into something it is not or cannot be." (Chuang Tzu).

"We live in illusion and the appearance of things. There is a reality. We are that reality. When you understand this, you see that you are nothing, and being nothing, you are everything." (Gautama Buddha).

"Life is just one damned thing after another" (Erbert Hubbard).

"What is life? It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset." (Crowfoot).

Thoughts like these leave me grasping straw in the wind. Somehow, I've to crawl out of darkness to see the light. Out of despair I should find hope. And I saw the glimmer of light from believers.

"To believe in God is to realize that life has a meaning." (Ludwig Wittgenstein).

In his intense search for God, Saint Augustine, said: "Thou hast created us for Thyself, and our heart is not quiet until it rests in Thee."

Since I had long accepted that a God created me, I have to accept that I was born by and for his purpose. “For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible. . . everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him." (Colossians 1:16).

I trust that God, my creator, has the answer to the question "what on earth am I here for?" What is the meaning of life? Delving on this matter, Rick Warren, author of "The Purpose- Driven Life," quoted Bertrand Russell, a known atheist: "Unless you assume a God, the question of life's purposes is meaningless."

C.S. Lewis, a Christian apologist and author of "The Chronicles of Narnia", said: "If the world has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning. “

That blows out the air of the skeptic in me.

Is there life after death?

With my religious upbringing, my belief in eternal life is an act of faith. Fortified by Paul's insight on faith in his letter to the Hebrews: "Now, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

Yet, there are moments of doubts, hesitations and skepticisms. To have faith is not an easy or frivolous thing. There are big questions to surmount, doubts to resolve. To have an informed faith, I've searched for enlightenment. It's a continuing process, a lifetime pursuit. Faith doesn't make things easy it makes them possible. I thank God, "who works in mysterious ways," for the gift of faith to make me confess that I was created in His own image and likeness. That my sins can be forgiven, that my life on earth is just a journey, that I have an immortal soul, and that my ultimate citizenship is in heaven.

I thank God for the gift of love. The intense feeling of being in love and being loved makes my short life on earth worth everlasting. Gandhi said, "Where there is love, there is life."

I thank God for the gifts of pain and suffering. Like joy, pain and suffering make my existence real.

I thank God for my mortal body. The eventuality of death is a constant reminder that I am alive.

Now, let me proceed to my contemplation about death.

The thought of death or dying brings in fear, anguish, self-torment, and unnecessary distress to people. But through our faith in the promises of God, we can confront the inevitable with courage, good humor and peace.

Death doesn't bargain. You can be a poor farm worker or a rich sugarcane planter, a saleslady or a mall owner, an ordinary employee or a president of the republic, but everybody dance with the Grim Reaper.

Moses, redactor of the Book of Genesis, wrote: "For dust you are and to dust you shall return."

But our death, "a melancholy and shocking extremity" (Jane Austin), is not the end "If we can live on in our children and the younger generation. For they are us, our bodies are wilted leaves on the tree of life." (Albert Einstein).

"From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity." (Edward Munch).

More than that, as a believer I draw hope from Psalm 23:8, "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

Yes, "the ‘world is an inn, and death is the journey's end" (John Dryden), but with death I can claim my "citizenship in heaven" (Phil 3:20).      

Philosophically, I'm in agreement with Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Computer, when he said in his 2005 Commencement address at Stanford University:

"No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we shall share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be because death is very likely the single best investment in Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old and makes way for the new. Right now, the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become old and be cleared away."

Part of growing up is learning and accepting that death is going to be part of life.