Siftings
Deaths in August
This August has been producing a bumper crop of deaths, not to mention the equally disturbing rate of road and other accidents reported in newspapers, TV and radio. What is it about the month of August that has stood witness to the deaths of notable personalities like Cory and Ninoy, and in the local scene, budding literary luminary Winton Lou Ynion and retired UPV Professor Josefa “Pipit” Belleza Manalon? My mother, Mrs. Consuelo Hidalgo Regalado vda. de Bernabe, who passed away on August 23, 1990, used to say that August was the month of “aratay”, a condition when animals, esp., poultry, hogs and dogs, would die due to the inhospitable weather conditions, when rain would pour down and gusty winds blow in our faces, to be followed by scorching heat from an unreliable sun. That was before greenhouse emissions and global wastes have torn the huge hole in the earth’s ozone layer that is causing us innumerable skin and other diseases, giving rise to creams and potions for whitening the skin and cleansing the body of atmospheric pollutants. When I was twelve years old and my puppy died of something mysterious that was causing him diarrhea with blood in his waste, followed by my favorite pet hen dying in the same way, causing me to cry buckets of tears for days, my mother tried to console me, saying: “Ah, indi ka magkasubo. Gina-aratay na naman ang mga sapat. Pagbuot ina sang Diyos, kay malain and panahon. Gina-ibanan lang ang mga nagapuyo diri sa duta kay naga-gutok na ang aton kalibutan.”
A simple explanation replete with faith in God’s management of human and other resources. But how are we to cope, we the bereaved? We humans who are mainly responsible for tearing that hole in the atmosphere, for inventing weapons of mass destruction, for medicines that, despite the advancements Science has made, still cannot completely eradicate the causes of deaths and sufferings in even the most advanced societies of the world? Consider the reports of deaths by road accidents in the past two weeks of this month. Reckless or drunk driving or plain stupidity by drivers. The human factor. Or shall we say, the inhuman factor. By and large, man’s greatest enemy is still himself. The very last thing man has been unable to control is still, man himself.
Once in a while, a death takes place among us that makes us feel blessed. Such is that of Pipit Manalon. Ma’am Pipit died in her sleep one Saturday night, not responding when Sunday morning came to the nudges of her grandson who was waking her up to get ready for mass. For Pipit, death is but “a sleep and a forgetting,” to quote Shakespeare. She would have loved to know that, she who was an English major and loved literature and listening to quotes she could identify. She retired in the 1990’s, satisfied with having rendered faithful service to the UPV, the institution she loved which nurtured her and her siblings. Quiet and retiring, Pipit nevertheless enjoyed the intellectual life UPV offered, and would sometimes ask if there were any conferences or seminars or programs she could attend within the perimeters of UPV. How typical of Pipit that she went from this world without causing undue pain or expense to her family and friends. When we brought her to her final resting place, we braved the heat and glare of the noonday sun to lay flowers on her casket and say: “Goodbye,dear Pipit, go in peace to the place God has reserved for you which you so richly deserve. We will never forget you.”
But other deaths can be so tragic, wasteful, almost meaningless. We mourn the passing of Winton Ynion, who gained awards and recognition for poetry, fiction and essay, such as the Palanca Award for Fiction in Hiligaynon and the Gawad Pambansang Komisyon para sa Panitikan, earning a Ph.D. in Filipino at age 26, and, at the time of his death this month at the hands of unknown person/persons, was on the way to making more of his dreams of recognition and success come true. But often, death overtakes those who are too much in a hurry, as if the world must needs call a halt to the further rising of a star. Maybe because the speed at which the star is rising is taking a toll on the world’s capacity for distributing its largesse? Never mind that Winton, with whom I lost contact several years back, might have committed some sins in his ambition to succeed. He gave us noteworthy works in the language he helped develop, Visayan-based Filipino, which he believed in. In his death, we have lost a true son of the Word, an intellectual in spite of his being flawed by an all too human failing to succeed beyond the call of propriety, but struggling for the excellence which often ignores the best of us as we undertake our daily existence. Winton had proved his excellence despite the flaws.
As the month of August draws to a close, let me end this pseudo-homily and tribute to friends in their passing with another quote from Shakespeare: “Who knows what dreams may come/when we have shuffled off these mortal coils/must give us pause...” It recalls to me a movie starring Robin Williams about the afterlife shown some years back. Some dreams in that afterlife are heartbreakingly sad and beautiful. May those kind of dreams envelope our two friends in the afterlife, as they stand privileged to be in God’s presence in the unending summertime of their choice. Amen.