A friend of mine since the late 70′s passed away as I was traveling to Naga city last week. She was fit, died of a heart attack at 63. The fragility of life and the suddenness of death encompasses all concepts and make us pause.
In Naga, I saw my high school classmates of forty years ago. Some looked like old leather, a bit wrinkled on the edges, but still smart and even better looking. Some are stroke survivors, a shadow of their former selves. Most of us still carried the same personalities:
This one hardly spoke. You have to coax him to volunteer information. He was in the vicinity of the Twin Towers on September 11, 2002. He has seen carnage and mayhem, being part of the medical service, but you have to draw him out. He’s like that. But he has an endearing personality. He is a living room couch, nice to relax with. Same guy, no change at all.
And then there’s this guy whose home was swamped by typhoon Ondoy. He has had other difficulties I am not at liberty to tell, but if I could, you wouldn’t believe his almost Job-like existence. But guess what? He’s still the ebulient person that he was in high school. If you didn’t know what he was going through, you would say he was at the pinnacle of success. He may have aged a bit, but the boy inside him still laughed at the world. You are astonished at his resilience.
In the end, it’s just you. You make your own world. The world doesn’t make you.
Some people are fixated on the end of the world. It doesn’t really matter much. Of course, if it does happen like the doomsayers warn, it’ll be quite a show. But you know what? In the end, it’s still you. You stand in front of God who will judge you when you die, and it doesn’t matter how your dying took place. It could be a strictly private affair, with no one watching, or it could be like a movie event with bells and whistles and all the cinematic effects thrown in for good measure. But it doesn’t matter much.
When I die, it’ll still be just me. The same baby, the same boy, the same young man, the same old man. The world as I know it ends when I die, and then I’ll be liable for judgment. The world continues to try to change me but the will to remain unchanged through the years gets stronger. Somehow, we have in us a chemical component that makes sure we do not change, just like a ship is made to stay afloat. God put something in us to make sure that He can reclaim the same soul, this according to Emmanuel V. Non, S.J. our high school religion teacher who gave a recollection on the first day of the reunion. What is He God for?
The same soul that God birthed to the world, who was leased to a mortal body is the same soul that God awaits in heaven. Now, tell me if that’s not good news enough.