Duty of love

CEBU, Philippines - When I was a kid like you, I used to ask myself whether it was really  right to remember the dead.

In 1979, I saw death knocked at our doorstep. The Grim Reaper claimed the life of my one-year-old sister. She had congenital heart disease.

It was the first time I experienced what it’s like to carry a heavy heart. I refused initially to embrace that my sister will long be gone. My guts seemed to get twisted and entangled badly every time we come to the public cemetery to visit her grave.

Year after year, or every November, my mother’s aunt would offer food items on the altar before we recite this prayer for the dearly departed. That year, my sister Chedda became part of the long list. I once thought it would have been so much better if we let go of this practice. The ghost cannot enjoy the food anyway. It would have been nicer if they already had the best of their life before death zapped them! That they were able to hear words of endearment and encouragement more, not a litany of structured prayers.

I’d rather pray that Chedda had come to live a hundred, not an infant gone too soon.

But my Christian Living teacher pointed out to me that remembering the dead is done as a duty of love. Praying for them is a manifestation of undying respect. It is not so much a petition that they be “allowed to temporarily stay in purgatory before Judgment time, or be spared from hell.” It is more about rekindling the relationship we shared with them when they were still so much a part of our world. (FREEMAN)