Thinking of My Own Mortality

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In 2011, a fellow employee died. He was only 35. He was stabbed many times in his home with wounds on the face, neck, back, and feet. The villain had the intention to kill.

My fellow employee’s decision of letting a stranger into his house was a wrong decision on his part. But who would’ve thought that a moment’s desire could kill?

The poor fellow was almost 6 feet tall, and who would’ve thought that he could be defenseless unable to protect himself from the attack. He’s not only tall but thickset. He had muscular limbs.

Mortality defines the human condition.

– Drew Gilpin Faust

It’s an old-time story, and you may be wondering why I suddenly thought of it.

This afternoon I went to visit a doctor. I brought him my APE results, and he wanted me to get additional laboratory tests because of the initial results from the annual APE.

Just like the story above, getting myself tested makes me think of my own mortality. Life is transient.

Before, I think of preparations before my ‘own’ candle extinguishes. I realize nobody can be prepared. My beloved husband expressed his desire to die because of the pain and suffering from his illness. But with good health, who would want to die?

While we all have our beliefs and faith, death still brings a gloomy thought.

But I refuse to give in. I wanted to be happy despite the loneliness that sets in from time to time. I want to be there for my children and the other wonderful people in my life.

When the time comes, I hope I can still smile.

A Different View

“Are there things true to all humans?” my son asked me before we went to the cemetery. “What do you mean by that?” I asked. He continued by telling me that he wonders if there is a common factor that we all humans share. He told me that not everybody is wealthy or poor, not everybody is educated or uneducated, not everybody is happy or sad, etc. “Every human being is born, and everybody dies,” I answered him with a coy smile.

 

“Oo nga, ‘no (Oh, yes, isn’t it true)?” he said realizing the truth to the fact that I had just said. It occurred to my mind that still many think that humans are at an advantage when he dies rich, even to the point of being filthy rich. Still a lot think that they are at edge because they are surrounded with the many good things in life. Still a lot think that they will die in peace when they are bloated with the many material things this world has to offer. This is why everyone of us is preoccupied, or had been preoccupied even once, with the desire to be rich. An in-law once told me that the death of a wealthy man and a poor man differs. My unspoken thought wanted to tell her, “No one can bring his material gains when he dies, everyone dies the same physical death.” The only difference that matters is how each person perceives death – Is it the beginning? Or is it the end? Is there life after death? Or is life simply terminated and nothing follows after the physical death?

If death is the beginning of something new, or the dawn of a phase of another (everlasting) life that was promised, how then would we prepare ourselves to be worthy of the privilege? Or if life, on the other hand, will be ended just like that, would it be acceptable that human beings live life the way they wanted to – unmindful of the consequences, defiant to laws and regulations, and to polices and disciplines, or wildly experimenting taboos? Because if the life of a human being just simply stops after physical death, why bother doing what is good? We die anyway and nothing or no one will scrutinize what we have done good.

The thing is most of us is in a state of denial that we are not doing enough to earn a place in Heaven. (That is, if one believes in Heaven.) We still cling to the old-time inherited beliefs that our kins who will be left behind will pray for our souls no matter how we had waned from our good ways and from our faith. There are still those who even pray for the aborted unborn baby who was innocent still and had not even had the chance to see this world. We still do those preposterous ways of earning points in Heaven. Believing so, we get absorbed to this material world, and forgetting to truly enrich the spirit.

I may have a different view from many but this is what I honestly believe in about death: Death is just the beginning. There is life after death. And I should do my assignment.