funeral for a friend

it is now official. i now have one dead friend.

i heard the news of his death a day after it happened. right after i went home, i had my mom go with me to his wake. he was a friend since my preschool days. his mom and my mom were good friends, so my mom was shocked when i told her the sad news.

as we went to the wake, i saw almost everyone who were parts of my early childhood. to make it short, i saw all of my elementary batchmates. almost everyone was there during the four day wake. we went ahead to see him, and that was i think the first time i saw tears from my mother in a long while. i can't really describe her relationship with his mom, but what i do know is that they are really, really good friends and that his mom was our official family pediatrician so i saw them a lot during my childhood years. at first, i really did not feel anything. yes, i was saddened and all, but seeing everyone else and remembering the good times pretty much preoccupied my mind during the wake. i knew it had to be more than this, but i guess the fact that he has truly departed was not sinking yet in my mind.

then came the funeral.

i really did not know how, but hearing the priest emphasize that of the 3 dead people that were to be undergoing necrological service today, my friend was the youngest. i think that part really struck me. how come a strong 20-year old individual come down so fast and so sudden? how can someone who is just at the cusp of enjoying the world have his life abruptly cut? and so the feeling of loss made itself felt. i was crying. crying hard. i was mourning. i felt the collective grief that gripped that whole cathedral that afternoon. so this is how it feels to lose a friend. it hurts. and somehow i find it kind of regretful that his death came at a very suprising time.

they say that death comes like a thief in the night. adhering to that, death came and stole one of our dear friends away. it was encouraging to see almost everyone make it, but if we wanted to get together, all of us, i do not think it's really fun to get together in a wake. i hope we all get through this. somewhere, somehow we can see him smiling, being jolly and having fun because we would all be secure. it also helps to know that so many people came and saw everything from the wake to the funeral. it is a very, very crushing event, but afterwards everyone of us would be asked to move on..

but let us not forget that we have the capacity to improve ourselves and look back at this experience as an eye-opener for taking life for granted. personally, i did not think that dying this early cannot happen, yet it did. this now poses a challenge to all of us to take a step back and appreciate everything that has been given to us.

we can always sugarcoat everything, cloud them with fruity and colorful words to make them easier to bear. but sometimes, it takes one deep breath and a strong will to face what happened. a loss is still a loss, no matter what anybody says.

so, may you rest in peace pareng nikko. pahinga ka lang dyan, antagal-tagal mo nang pinapagod ang sarili mo. alam naming babantayan mo pa rin kaming lahat. kahit nasaan ka pa man.