the movements of life
Thursday, September 27, 2007
"let your life lightly dance on the edges of time like dew on the tip of a leaf."
- rabindranath tagore
over the weekend, i received a message on my mobile informing me that the mom of one of my good friends passed away. from partying a day before and enjoying a wonderful weekend of dives in anilao, i've been informed of this. being one of my best buds, i felt for vince. a number of times i went to their house and saw how gracious his mom was. and even with their family's experience of life (the trappings of a struggling middle class family in the Philippines), it has always been a joy to be around them.
with those thoughts along with some memories i've accumulated over the years about them, i treaded back to manila. that same evening, i decided to go to the wake. i arrived just about the same time as they were preparing for service, a requiescat as some would refer to it. i didn't want to be inside yet and just stayed outside with some of our high school friends. after about 30 minutes, we all agreed to go inside and pay our due respects before we leave. upon entering, a friend of vince's mom was up in front giving her eulogy. a number of people spoke up and one of the last was vince's sister, trina.
it was very moving, to say the least. but at the end of what trina said was what amazed me the most. here was one person willing to let go and thank God for the opportunity to have a mom like her. that she wouldn't have the respect for all mothers if it weren't for her. that she was able to define beauty not through a dictionary but through a person. that indeed she was a gift.
the service ended as such. i stayed on for an hour more before i went home.
i was greeted by my godson upon my arrival. even while sleeping, i look upon him with so much gratitude. here was a life just starting to burst forth. with every breath, every undulation of his stomach, i experience the mystery of life all over again. such abundance.
from death to life. life seems overly paradoxical these days. or may i dare say all the time. the experience of birth and death, the movement of joy and grief, all are 2 sides of the same coin. sometimes, i just refuse to see it that way.
it seems as though life has been thrown at me full speed, no experience less than the other and i guess this is me continuously grasping how it is to live: with fullness in every aspect.
posted by lex @ 1:01 PM,
quote
Friday, September 14, 2007
saw on a shirt today:
nobody trains to come secondhell, yeah.
posted by lex @ 11:04 PM,
