Passings (and what stays behind)

I am in New York, bringing my son to colleges so that he can eventually study in the States and learn to live life without the support of social status. It’s good for him to live life on his own. All Saints’ Day, I will be in San Francisco with my mother.

I have a few thoughts I would like to share on All Saints’ Day. This is a day when we honor those who have passed on to the next life. We remember them.

We remember ourselves as we honor them. Ninety-nine percent of the time we don’t remember anything material about our loved ones who have passed — instead we remember the feelings, the joy, the teachings, the special moments with them.

The way we remember those who have passed away should guide us in the way we live our own lives here on earth. Some people are so obsessed with material things — to the point of raping and plundering our natural resources. But when you leave this material world, it’s what you have done for others, the kindness you have displayed, the courage to stand for your principles that really count.

Point number two. No one ever really leaves. They just go to another place where you can’t perceive them with your senses. But they never really disappear. (As William Faulkner once wrote, “The past is never dead, it’s not even past.”) The lives they led here, and the state of their consciousness upon their “departure,” determines where they will go.

Before my father died, I felt him there, when he was in Alexandra (a residential area behind Benpres Building where he worked), or when I could see him at our Tuesday family dinners or on Sundays, and call on him whenever I needed help. That’s when he inhabited a physical space.

When he died, though, I suddenly felt he was everywhere. It was amazing. I felt I could call on him whenever and wherever I was, and his presence was pervasive. I still feel like that now. Oh, I don’t trouble him — I try not to — but I feel he is there.

So just remember the ones who passed way are not merely their physical bodies. The body dies, but the spirit is eternal. Don’t call on them with your mind. You need to go silent; feel their presence and just try non-verbal communication. More often than not, you will feel them. Just be open. If you had a close relationship, they will fill your being with light and hope and strength.

The ties that bind are non-material. They are strengthened by love and the purity of giving. Sometimes these ties are so strong that they last for many lifetimes. It is the love and the purity one puts into relationships that makes them last.

So today, while we honor the ones who have passed away, let us make firm commitments to nurture the relationships with those who are still with us today. Let these relationships be blessings in our lives and theirs. We have this life. We live it well — and through the quality of our relationships and the courage to stand for what is right, we leave the world a much better place to live in. The fact of how we live our lives here thus enables the Light to take us to higher spaces where we join those who have gone before us.

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I can be reached at regina_lopez@abs-cbn.com.