On Tombs and Dead Relatives

For most of us Filipinos, All Souls Day or undas entails going to the cemetery to visit our dear departed and spending a day and a while in front of the grave to offer prayers, flowers and candles, and then share a repast and reminiscences about the dead. This remembrance of our dead, wether family or friend, has been a strong tradition among the Filipinos, especially among the Roman Catholics.

We have several dead relatives in our own family. I just realized now that I am already completely orphaned of lolos and lolas. Both my maternal and paternal ancestors have already passed to the other world we Catholics know as the after-life. Some uncles, aunts, and a few cousins and distant relatives have already kicked the bucket some years ago. Those of us who are living must then see to it that their graves do not belong to the limbo of lost and forgotten tombs.

When we were younger, undas was more like a fiesta, except that the streets did not have colorful hanging flags. My mother would usually roast chicken and cook other wonderful dishes in her magical kitchen. We would don our best attires, ride in the family car and then, while in the cemetery play hide and seek with cousins around tombs or aratilis trees. Back then, undas was just like a family reunion with our family spending a whole day to eat and chat while waiting for the candles to shrink to their doom.

But now, I noticed that as you grow older, you become more aware of graves and cemeteries. The somber realization that somehow in the future, you too would be the person to be interred in the tomb and visited by your family, is quite sobering. Indeed, no one really knows when you will actually kick the bucket. Before, I used to read the newspaper because of only one thing--the comic strip page. But now, strangely, I found that I tend to regard the obituary page as more and more fascinating, to check those who had already traveled to the other side.

Once in a while, I think about my own death, too. We are not immortal, you know, although I wish I have the same nine lives of the feline. But then again, neither do I wanted to become a bed-ridden Methuselah. Yet, I know that in the future, sooner or later, it would be my turn to kick the bucket and pass on to the other world.

What would be my grave of preference? Well, really simple is what I would like to have it done. A white tomb with maybe a small cross on top with the face of Jesus Christ carved in its center, like the ones you usually see on many graves in La Loma. No crying angels on top as it looks really depressing. The lapida should just have my name carved on it (not painted) with my birth and death date. Well just as a sort of final luxury, I would like to have small tree planted on the side so that birds could be my company when dear ones have already left me after the undas.

For us the living, death is taboo. We refuse to talk about it and regard someone talking about it as a morbid person. But nothing could be farther from the truth. Those who accept death as the universal completion of life should be regarded as the true living persons.

So, what would be your tomb of preference?

A belated Happy All Souls Day!