Painstaking Death

When I went home in Bukidnon to my immediate family with my husband & our daughter to spend our Christmas break from work, I was greeted with the news of the death of my well-known grandfathers, two of them. I remember last year, within the months of August to October some of my close-related relatives (uncles & grandparents) also passed away. Almost eight hours after the signal of the New Year (2011), for another time, another lolo of mine went with the Lord. And when I got back in the city yesterday from my long rest, I received a text from a friend and an office mate that a co-former agent of ours had died and was buried last Friday.

I just can’t believe what I’ve heard about my once co-officemate whom I had previous talks & lots of laughter with. For my uncles & grandparents, some of them have body illness complications & some were already too old, around 90 something of age. As I was inhaling the news, I was also imagining my friend’s face inside his last bed or I’d say his final room on earth. And, I can’t help but to imagine my own self inside a coffin!

Just an hour ago I blurted this question to my husband, “What’s the feeling of being dead?” to which he answered bluntly, “I can’t answer that question of yours.” There were several news on the media tolling about people who came out or woke up from their deaths! I’d sometimes ask my father (who’s a minister) about these. His answer, “Observe & discern if those people were telling lies or if they were telling true stories.” Yes I can but how will I know? I’m not the one in their shoes.

The word death in the Illustrated Thesaurus is related to ruin, extermination, dying and decease. My maternal grandmother (to whom I was very close to) died when I was nine years old from an accident. She fell from the stairs; her head hit the sharp edge of the last flight and hemorrhaged, which caused her sudden death. I was with her that night; we were sleeping on the second floor of their house. That was December 29, 1995. Just two days before 1996 came in. I was fondly called lola’s child for I was sticking with her more than my own mother when my Lola Elena was still alive.

Death. I believe is the end of us humans here on Earth. The Bible says to dust man will return for he is made from dust. Our physical bodies were granted to us so we could breathe & live & were being gifted & given to us so we could do various activities which were also designed for it. Our heads, our hands, our feet were made from dust. The first man was formed from earth (Genesis). To Earth Adam returned. And so for us.

Now, I can imagine myself – dead. But not yet, not now. But, I’ll never know when my time is. What day the Lord will get back this life He had given me. I’ll never know. No one will know. The Bible says, To live is Christ and to die is gain. I believe we’ll gain when we do favors for Him when we are still breathing. I still can’t express thoroughly what I’m feeling & what I have in mind as of this moment. I know I’m grieving. To those people, who were already dead, I’m not sure if you can read this post I made. But, I ask each one of you, wherever you may be, please, pray for us still living on Earth. We don’t have any idea what things are going to happen when we’ll be the ones who’ll be dead.

My prayer is that may the Lord guide me to live according to His words in the next hours of my life, to forgive me from all my mistakes & the likes, to teach me what to do next so I will live like Christ while I’m still alive.