for everyone |
It’s UNDAS again. A good time to ask: Are we just a little more than the flies of summer? - It’s almost that time of the year again, when it’s not yet quite the end of the rainy season nor the beginning of the most comfortable climate in this blessed land. It’s coming to that Philippine phenomenon commonly known and referred to as “UNDAS” (evidently a Filipinized version of “honras” or “honors,” as in paying respects). It’s the Feast of the Dead or in Spanish “Dia de los Muertos”(Difuntos), The Day of the Dead. It’s that time of the year when everybody almost instinctively feels compelled to join the mad rush to all the cemeteries or memorial parks all over the country, to commune with and pay respects to one’s dearly departed and do so simultaneously with all the living in the Philippines. That’s half of the fun right there. Everybody has to agree to do it all at the same time and only during that designated time of the year.
While there may be some similar practices in Mexico or wherever else, I am almost certain that our kind of “Undas” is uniquely, dubiously and exclusively Filipino.
It’s also inexplicably called “Todos los Santos” or “All Saints’ Day.” Whether that refers to the living or the dead is unclear. The living behave badly, almost boorishly toward the dead and obliviously disturbing the peace and quiet that typifies any cemetery at any other time during the year. The traffic situation is almost unmanageable everywhere. Road rage is understandably more frequent. A few years ago there was your classic senseless killing over a scramble for some parking space. It’s another festival gotten out of hand. I suspect that the dead must feel compelled to go somewhere else at this time of the year.
Our oldest civilizations and indigenous peoples, from the Egyptians to the Mayans, ever since homo became sapiens, have always had a special regard for our relatives and friends who have gone on ahead of us to the great beyond. Hence, whatever traditional customs, practices and rituals are observed with respect to our dead speak volumes about the living.
Having lived for quite some time within walking distance from “LOYOLA” I have had the opportunity to witness almost on a daily basis wakes, funeral processions, grounds-keeping and maintenance work, headstone-making/polishing, the candles and flower business, tents rentals and all other activities related to this perenially “dead or dying” industry. Particularly at this memorial park where maintenance work has been left in the hands of a few hundred individual and independent grounds-keepers/gardeners, this time of the year has to be the festival to top all festivals, a time when Christian, pagan, Asian and local practices have found some common ground to hold a celebration of sorts.
Weatherwise, mother nature can’t seem to decide whether to let it shine or bring on the rain. At least one or two weeks before “Undas” it will usually be bright and sunny weather. However, a few days or so before the day, it will usually be foul weather. The cemetery ground gets all soggy and muddy and visitors will all be made to look like they just came from the battlefield. Again I have a sneaking suspicion the dead are trying to tell us to leave them alone.
At all other times of the year, most cemeteries and memorial parks are eerily quiet and empty, if sadly neglected, except for a handful of visitors, mostly those recently bereaved or visiting their dead at the latter’s death anniversary or birthday. Valentine’s day, Mother’s and Father’s day also draw quite a few visitors. Many health buffs and joggers regularly use our memorial park to exercise and luxuriate in one of the few really clean and less crowded open spaces in the city. It must also remind and motivate them to keep their regimen faithfully, or else.
I have observed with some degree of concern how many gravesites and mausoleums are so well-maintained while many others have all but been neglected and forgotten. There are some bereaveds who appear so distraught and inconsolable they visit their dearly departed, bring flowers and light candles without fail everyday for months on end. I asked an old groundskeeper how long any grieving widow or sweetheart will continue to visit a dearly departed loved one faithfully on a daily basis. He calculates that the record would be about 2 years, max.
I recall the story about a woman who was so distraught at the recent death of her husband, she had engraved on the gravestone as an epitaph the following words: “MY LIGHT HAS GONE OUT.” A few months later the widow met another man whom she wanted to marry, so she consulted the bishop about her predicament engraved in stone. The wise old bishop advised, “Don’t worry, madam. Just write underneath: I HAVE STRUCK ANOTHER MATCH.”
During Undas, I have also observed that the gravestones or gravesites of those who died somewhere between 1975-1985 are most in danger of becoming so neglected that they are mercilessly stepped on by muddy feet almost beyond recognition.
For a frail and aging senile like me, it’s as good a time as any (better than Ash Wednesday and its “Memento, homo, quia pulvis est…”) to confront my own mortality and ask how many more “UNDAS” to go before I become the “visitee” instead of the visitor at these parks for the dead. Of course, it’s not as if I am not confronted with the morbid thought every morning when I look into the mirror just to be doubly sure that I’m still alive. It’s also a good time to seriously think about the kind of funeral arrangements one wishes to be made at one’s own funeral.
It used to be that people could not get used to the idea of cremation, in the same way that when the Puyats first started to introduce the concept of memorial parks, they had to spend quite a bit on institutional ads to educate the market. Now, Loyola, for good or ill, is almost synonymous to memorial park. Now, nobody thinks of being entombed in a cemetery. The Hindus of India may have been right and proper all along. Cremate the remains and throw the ashes into the Ganges, their river of life. I would like some of my ashes scattered in Sta. Rita, Pamp., Baguio City and some in my tiny little garden infront of the house. I imagine my gray matter would make good fertilizer.
Another concept that I believe is ripe for scrutiny is the practice of embalming the dead. People are only now beginning to realize how gruesome and cruel and completely unnecessary is this unwholesome and distasteful practice which has been going on seemingly without pause or question all these years. Now, it may be time to look into the practice of our Muslim brothers who immediately arrange for their dead to be buried within a day or so. No embalmers need apply.
More and more, I get the feeling that wakes for the dead are beginning to get out of hand just like our “Undas.” Many professional gambling lords take advantage of these occasions to conduct their illegal activities with impunity. They set up mahjong and “tong-its” tables ostensibly to collect some tong for the family of the deceased. The inveterate soaks gravitate around the free drinks and open bar. Politicians lend tarpaulin tents and plastic chairs with their names boldly emblazoned as a gentle reminder of their generosity in your hour of bereavement. Long-lost friends and relatives suddenly have a grand reunion and cause to celebrate. Those who can afford will spend a fortune to have a professional caterer serve food and drinks for the duration of the wake.
Lately, however, horror of horrors, the Filipino has started to rent a karaoke machine which looks like the old classic jukebox where the guests are encouraged to sing their favorites tunes. It’s no longer a wake but a carnival. The general idea it seems is to make as much noise and merriment enough to wake the dead. If this is allowed to continue, in a few more years, “Eat Bulaga” and the other similar TV shows might consider holding their programs at some of these wakes. Professional politicians might use the occasion for their so-called “miting de avance.” It is clear the one "lying in state" is just a prop used in the stage of life.
Incidentally, at my age, I would not wish to live longer than 15 more years. I would be roughly 85 by then, chronically and acutely arthritic, diabetic, asthmatic, emphysemic, with an enlarged heart, hypertensive, impotent and with markedly failing memory. I will have stones in my gall bladder, plaque in my teeth and arteries, too much sugar in my blood, and blood in my stool. I will be prone to frequent dry dreams and wet farts. I may require a pacemaker to maintain my heartbeat, statin to lower my cholesterol level, an ACE inhibitor to control my chronic hypertension and aspirin to thin the blood.
I imagine I will be chronically and clinically depressed most of the time, a pain on everyone’s ass and cranky as hell.
I refuse to be in the constant care of doctors. Goodlooking, tender-loving female nurses, yes, maybe. I definitely will refuse to undergo any dialysis. I will not have my rib cage opened for any open-heart surgery or any double or triple by-pass. If I develop prostate cancer, that’s as good an excuse as any to die of something. All my life I have tried to avoid any over-intense effort at anything. Most of the time I have allowed mother nature to take its natural course. There is no need to change that lifestyle this late in the game. I realize and accept that I am entering the “Pre-Departure Area.” My ticket and boarding pass are ready. All I’m waiting for is for my number to light up on that LCD number machine.
They say that this planet has been around for a million years and will continue to exist for millions more. If I live to be 85, that means that viewed from the spectrum of eternity, I would have lived on this earth for the equivalent of only a few milliseconds. The ordinary housefly it is said gets to live for a few weeks or so. Are we just a little better then than the flies of summer? Oh, my God! Where are you in this whole equation? Where do I fit in this vast universe? What is the meaning of it all? - James L.
What else can i add?
What else can i subtract? What else can i divide? Now, i know, you have literally taken to heart the admonition/injunction: Increase and multiply the bona semina in you! U will live a million and a half years more coz the seeds of immortality have fructified and the seeds have been scattered and sown all over the land, and even beyond. Mabuhay ka Kuya James, para bumuhay ng mga disgrasyado/a, para malasap nila para malasap nila ang tunay na grasya! |
kuya james, here is one for you. it is not about your birth or your departure but how you lived your life (mostly in Cubao area), click this:
http://www.thedashmovie.com/ |
butchcelestial wrote on Oct 23, '08
A friend died a week ago but so sure was he that he had an eternity in his future by the way he lived his life. I could only say 'I miss you, but you are home now'.
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bobilapurugganan wrote on Oct 23, '08
oh James.. i love the way you expressed it...i intend to live only till 66 in fact i added a good 3 years for it.....though, life is good despite the tribulations!!! but only till 66....LOL!
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Kuya J, you’re neither funny nor provocative. . . . . you’re both.
It was uncanny of you to have linked politicians with deadly campaign materials. Ghostly as it may appear, I guess there is some grain of truth somewhere that one is “lying in state”, as you’ve put it while the other is simply “in a state of lying”. But, surely, I agree with you; we have to welcome the assurance that comes with death . . . . . at least stiffness is guaranteed. |
xvdph said
 kuya james, here is one for you. it is not about your birth or your departure but how you lived your life (mostly in Cubao area), click this:http://www.thedashmovie.com/ 
The man speaketh in parables. No comprendo. Bkit Cubao. I was talking about Loyola. But, seriously, you may be right at that, Kuya EPI. It is how one has lived his life. Jesus died at 33. Who can say that he did not live a lifetime? "It is in dying that we are born to eternal life..."
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butchcelestial said
A friend died a week ago but so sure was he that he had an eternity in his future by the way he lived his life. I could only say 'I miss you, but you are home now'.
I still have to hear somebody try to tell me: "Bro, don't die ... yet." Ang lulupit niyo.
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bobilapurugganan said
oh James.. i love the way you expressed it...i intend to live only till 66 in fact i added a good 3 years for it.....though, life is good despite the tribulations!!! but only till 66....LOL!
Tnx, vki, you are always so kind and sympathetic. I have seen some of your family fotos. You got good genes. Your brood has the "K" to live on forever. You also seem to have the character and personality of a matriach. Mother nature will insist that you stay on to rule over your great, great grandchildren.
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Kuyajeems, another bestseller! You amaze us with your blogs: homespun, witty, articulate, philosophical, with a twist of fun, what we can now call JEEMSDEEISM. Give us this regular fix everytime, we need no other drug. If only for these posts of yours, kuya Kaka is most willing to treat us to a drink (thanks Kaka, sabit kami).
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Years back I attended the funeral of a CKS classmate, Mario Bolasco, in Loyola Marikina. I heard/overheard one of his co-professors in Sta. Scholastica narrating a pact or agreement he had with Mario: Whoever of them would go first must give a sign, if he can, to the other that there is an afterlife.
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tomranada said
Intimations of mortality, to a Christian like you Kuya, are also intimations of immortality.
Kuya TOM, your one-liners are not only dazzlingly brief but overwhelmingly profound. As my blogs are tediously lengthy and verbose, your comment becomes refreshingly simple and straightforward. I suggest you publish a book, with every page a one-liner.
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In an earlier blog, I said I had also expected my sainted mother to come back and let me know about the hereafter. It took my classmate, the late Bishop Vic Manuel to remind me about the parable of the rich man and the poor man, Lazarus. We take a leap of faith or freeze in hell.
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You'll have many many more years to live for you have mamy many reasons to live for.
I pray that the Good Lord will keep you longer, say, for another 80 years, in mente sana et in corpore sano, in your grace-filled valley near Loyola and in other terrains, so that, thru your blogging and all other activities you are engaging in, others may have glimpses of heaven even here below. And when the time is up, we know you will be still be laughing your heart out, realizing that death is not just a comic relief, but THE GREATEST RELIEF pala! A quantum leap from this valley of tears. |
jeemsdee said
Kuya REY, you and your wit will still be the death of me. You have managed to paint death as something to simply laugh about.. "O, death, where is thy sting ...?"
Kuya J, I once read a remark of an ancient man that he doesn't worry about life because he won't come out of it alive anyway. Neither does he worry about death, too: "At my age, I do what Mark Twain did. I get my daily paper, look at the obituaries page and if I'm not there I carry on as usual."
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You had me rolling here, Kuya J.
May I suggest an entry to this proposed book -- the definition of death given by the late Bert "Tawa" Marcelo: Death has meaning -- "D" is for "Departure"; "E" is for "Eternity"; "A" is for "Abandonment of all material wealth"; and "TH" is either you go "To Heaven" or "To Hell". |
romesaluyot wrote on Oct 24, '08
Which reminds me of the joke about one dying, elderly Mother who was asked the specifications of her last wish, if she wanted to be buried or cremated. Her instructions were quick and precise: I want to be cremated. Then I want you to scatter my ashes in the Mall because I want to be assured of your weekly visits.
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Kuya James, you're absolutely hilarious yet down right serious, deeply spiritual yet realistically actual (down to earth). Thanks for the laughs, thanks for the insights, thanks for the sharing. You've tipped the scale.
I'd rather prefer my "xarkos" or "soma" be wrapped with a "banig" and get burned (cremated not condemned, I pray), than be frozen, embalmed or otherwise, It's gonna rot anyway with all the vermin crawling all over. Resurrection, not just reincarnation, is really something to look forward to...by the grace of God. |
Hey guys, let's support the Bill in Congress, that the living will no longer be allowed to go to cemeteries or memorial park or vaults, but the souls of our beloved dead instead will visit the living anytime of the day and night. Perhaps our politicians will no longer sleep in their homes.
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ednarivers wrote on Nov 8, '08
James, your body is like a clothes you wear. Soon, you may not need it anymore. But you live on. Mabuhay ka!
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ednarivers said
James, your body is like a clothes you wear. Soon, you may not need it anymore. But you live on. Mabuhay ka!
MADEER, tnx a lot. Coming from you, your msg means a lot. muaah.
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My uncle, Tito Rading, Tatay's younger brother, was sick for most of the last year and has been in and out of the hospital almost with the same regularity as did my late brother, Bert. During Undas last Nov.1, as our clan gathered at the tomb of my grandparents buried at a private cemetery in Bulacan, we talked about my uncle and my brother. They were very close and they spent many good times and fishing trips together. During our family reunions, when they were still in better health, aside from the normal pleasantries exchanged among attendees, they would normally greet each other with "..kailan tayo magfi-fishing ulit???"
When Bert died last May 7th, we did not have the guts to tell Tito Rading about it fearing it might devastate him and lead him to an early death. Well, he died last Sunday (Nov. 2) never being told that Bert died ahead of him. Now he knows. My funeral speech preceding his cremation last Wednesday ended with a bright note as I said: Now, they can go fishing together with St. Peter, who is himself a fisherman. Kuya James, you stirred a lot of thoughts and events with your "Undas" blog. Can you write about Resurrection or the after life in your next blog. |
VJ - tnx for sharing your very personal story abt your TITO RADING. it's not very often we hear abt a close friendship between an uncle and his nephew, now happy together in their great fishing grounds out there. am currently trying to piece together our own family tree. i find it a futile and frustrating exercise. our family was never relatives-minded. we should've built on those relationships when we were younger. now all of our elders are gone.
on the Resurrection or the afterlife, i would rather refer you back to the parable of Jesus on the rich man and the beggar, Lazarus. Lk 16:19-31 |
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