In a matter of a decade I have encountered death through the loss of loved ones four times. In these encounters, death revealed its faces to me in various ways. I believe that the way I live today and the manner I see tomorrow are very much affected by these experiences.
I lost my father in 1995. He suffered cardiac arrest. I did not grow up with him as he had work assignments out of town. When he died, I felt I had lots of things I needed to tell him but it was too late. He was dead.
Death for me then was just another clumsy step. Death was cold and cruel. It ends all. It is because of this that I set out to prove that immortality was problematic. When one dies, he dies. There is no life beyond what we have now.
I remembered looking at life the same way. Those times were marked with family feuds over inheritance my father left behind. Those times were marked by rebellion on my part. I did not understand the event of death. All I knew was that I lost someone dear to me and I had lots of regrets. But he was dead and that was it. He was cold and unmoving and that was it.
For me, even God died too. He died on the cross and he remained dead, crucified. That explained for the crippling inequalities of life.
In 2003, the second encounter with death I had was the loss of my bestfriend. My preoccupation with proving that personal immortality was problematic became interesting for my bestfriend as well. We made a pact that whoever dies first will send a message in any manner to prove ourselves wrong should one survive after death and there really was life beyond. I do not wish to write about it lest my trustworthiness in the field of philosophy alters into fiction or hallucination for that matter. I never even talked about it with anyone. I wrote about it once to a Professor in graduate school and swore to him I will never mention it again. Thus, I am mentioning it again in this article not to entertain any arguments, skepticism or criticism. I am writing about the event in sheer remembrance of what happened without trying to convince myself or anyone that it was real.
Death presented itself in a shocking way, almost a scene out of a horror flick, almost unbelievable to an unbeliever like me. I remembered having a dream about my father, days after he was buried and noted the physical manifestations of difficulty in movement but awareness of the dead person’s presence. A friend recounted how he had dreams of my bestfriend and the physical manifestations of difficulty in movement and awareness of the dead person’s presence without my mentioning of my own encounter. I also remembered how I witnessed a physical movement from something immaterial which I attributed to my bestfriend’s doings to remind me of the pact. Indeed, it was probably hallucination or depression on my part. Or I may be accused of being fictional or folly. But personally, it was an encounter with death. It conveyed the clear message that there is a reality beyond even when there were no dead men who came back to tell the tale. On my part, I do not wish to pursue the subject matter for it will prove futile. I cannot prove it.
Remembering my bestfriend (seated on the left) during happier moments...
Death also embodied its being untimely. It is because my bestfriend was robbed off her youth by dying a meaningless manner for she died in her sleep that death conveniently told me we are not in control of it. Alas, it is perhaps one of the remaining mightier mysteries of God that not even technology and sciences can ever prevent or reason with.
A year after, the third encounter with death was with my uncle. He left his hometown when he was in his adolescence to follow a father who abandoned his family for another woman. He came home an old man, terminally sick with a very contagious disease and dying. His own family abandoned him as well.
My mother, his sister, took care of him. She opted not to let us care for him to avoid being infected. He had the worse kind of tuberculosis. He died with anger in his heart. He was angry at his family. He was angry at his very own sister who took care of him. He was angry at God. He was probably not prepared to die. But he died anyway. He was buried a day after he died. I remembered only six persons present during his funeral. Too few to even carry his coffin. Too few people shedding tears to soak the earth for the passing of a good dead man.
Death for me then mirrored life. The funeral scene made me think about the relationships I built with others. Are they deep or shallow? Deep enough that goes beyond the grave? Or shallow enough that forgets?
It reminded me of Jesus’ own death on the cross. He died alone. We will die alone as well. The solitary reality seemed scary. It is even more frightening than living alone.
Two years after, the fourth encounter with death was with my own mother who died because of breast cancer. She felt the lump while she was taking care of her own brother but she ignored it. We finally discovered her illness when she lost a lot of weight and it was already in the fourth stage. Despite the chemotherapy sessions, the cancer cells have already spread throughout her body. I remembered feeling afraid about losing her. I do not remember ever being hopeful. I had the feeling that sooner than later, I will lose my mother. I took care of her in her last few days. But until now I feel I have not taken cared of her well enough. I have the feeling until the present that my efforts in taking care of her were insufficient. I would have wanted to serve her longer.
My mother died literally in my arms. I can still remember vividly the moment how I held my mother’s hand while my daughter whispered in her ear the happy experiences she had attending a children’s party earlier that day. I had my gaze shifting from her eyes to her neck as I noted her pulse. The throbbing on her neck looked normal at first. Then, it slackened. Until it just stopped. I did not feel her gripped my hand in pain while she was holding it. I did not see her gasping desperately her last breath. It simply ended. Her vitality just slipped simply almost to me painlessly.
Her funeral was an overwhelming experience. The family who fought once during my father’s death came to reconcile and the healing process started. The experience of my loss as something communal rather than personal was very evident. Everybody helped one way or another.
Death pictured itself to me as a simple reality. It is an inevitable event. And it happens to everyone no matter who they are. It is through the simplicity of her passing away that I look at death just as the person’s breathing. It is something you cannot do without.
Through the healed broken relationships brought about by my mother’s death, from the Christian perspective I realized Jesus’ own way of healing us and bringing us back to the Father.
Through the simplicity of her passing away, I saw hope in a life beyond. Aligning with Christian hermeneutics, death presented itself to me as birth to new life, resurrection. I strongly believe in that now. And it changed the way I look at my life now. Coupled with life’s miseries is the hope and peace that the crucified, glorified Jesus offered.
We may grieve or rejoice death. We may be horrified or overwhelmed by death. It may usher in different emotions. It may tell various stories. Later on, I maybe writing about the death of a lover, or my child or my very own death in different ways but death to me, is no longer a foe. Yet it is neither a friend. It remains a mystery.
