Growing cost of sentiment and pride

When everyone is in a frenzy over the burgeoning economic crisis, here is another feather to add to the cap of lamentations! The cost of death like the cost of living is rising too. Sentiment and pride have a high price. Simeon Dumdum Jr., in one of his poems, said that no coffin is really a work of art. No matter how many intricate carvings and paintwork is done over wood. I tend to agree that no one really wants to stare at a coffin though the flowers definitely add more cheer.

Recent innovations of caskets have made even this most foreboding furniture a showpiece of affluence and affinity. There are refrigerated types that cost hundreds of thousands. Caskets are sold at P20,000 to P300,000. Cemetery lots range from P75,000 to P150,000 depending on where. Local public cemeteries have a P5,000 lease for five years. Just enough for the dead to decompose and be placed in a bag. Cremation costs P35,000 to P50,000 and urns for the ashes also have their price. Burial places are classified according to the amount paid. Some make illustrious homes for the dead piling mausoleums in a grand scale. The poorer sect opt for the “condominium” sites and just elaborately adorn the tombstone and garnish the ledge with colorful flora to make up for the lack of stately appeal. Sometimes people tend to measure love and wealth this way these days.

I recall attending a wake of one of my friend’s relatives. Flowers were in abundance that they had to place a note to send cash to their favorite charity instead of flowers. The presidential suite in one of the plush funeral homes was oozing with various expensive wreathes that could suffocate the living with the various scents that reminded us only of death. The ribbons that bore the signatures of those who sent also magnified influence of the family as marks of kings and princes in various echelons posted their expression of sympathy.

There is nothing wrong in this. It is best to make your friends aware of your care and sympathy. However, it should not be a measure of how much you care for that person.

Nong Basilio, our neighbor, was the barangay’s pride and joy. Every fiesta, he would take the dance floor with his wife, Nang Naning and their lovely children whose feet were so light and graceful. I used to watch them between the skirts of my yaya and her pals as the couple would dance to the regal notes of a good tango. Or scurry with the tune of a fast boogie. When Nang Naning passed away, Nong Basilio lost his joy for life and followed his heart to his grave.

As I sat at his home, I saw only one wreath. Wrapped in plastic. Made of plastic. My heart grieved. I wanted to fill the room with flowers I thought he deserved. Then I looked around. There were more people than chairs. These were more than flowers. Nong Basilio could not ask for more. In his simple home-made box he lay rested with dignity.

The cost of death is great. Take the snacks that one has to serve at the wake and the burial. The donations for masses one offers. The mass cards one buys to enroll the dead for perpetual prayer when the real prayer for heaven should come from the dead himself before his demise. The amount for permits for burial. The rental of vehicles during the last drive to the cemetery. The vans and trucks for the wreaths. And in some traditions, the Styrofoam miniatures of life’s luxuries that are supposed to ease the soul’s passing through to heaven. All these mean money and good business and show the growing cost of sentiment and pride.

As we celebrate this all souls and all saints days, do not lose your souls and surprise the saints with the expensive adornments that will not add one step to your loved one’s ladder to heaven. Instead, my prayer is that we think of the real reason for all these things, our mortality and our chance for immortality through Christ. That is priceless!