Although we know that death is inevitable, we often don’t think about it in our daily lives. We don’t even want to talk about it. Thus, when it happens, we oftentimes are caught unprepared.

But death is played out every day in many venues. It is played out in hospitals when parents beg a doctor to do everything possible to keep a son or a daughter alive.

It’s played out in classrooms when students in an ethics class discuss end-of-life issues, like how long terminally ill patients should be kept alive.

It’s played out in foxholes when soldiers watch their comrades die without the benefit of saying goodbye to their families.

It’s played out in Gaza when thousands of Palestinian children and women are killed when Israel targets civilian structures for reasons I cannot understand.

It’s played out when a classmate checks in a hospital and dies while undergoing dialysis.

The scenarios are all too familiar.

A phone rings. We answer it and find out that a person we know or close to us is gone. We are shocked. We ask what happened. Like most people, we immediately recall our last meeting or communication with the deceased.

What did we talk about? Were we nice to each other? Did we part as friends? Did we forgive each other? Was there an unfinished business between us? Did we even embrace and say goodbye the last time we saw each other?

The pain created by the permanent separation between the living and the dead is simply too much to bear. It’s similar to the pain I felt when, as a twelve-year old, I was separated from my parents for the first time because I had to study in Naga, while my parents lived in Sipocot. As the kalesa (horse-driven carriage) my parents took on their way to the train station started to disappear from view, I started crying. I was not ready to experience the pain of separation, albeit temporary.

The parallelism between my story and death may not exactly be the same as when someone dies. But it’s close.  I knew then that my parents would come back on weekends to visit me. Or I could always cut classes and take the train to Sipocot anytime to be with my parents.  But not with death. I can cry. I can reminisce. I can even pray every day.  But once that body is cremated or buried, eternal separation begins. There is not much I can do.

So, how do I prepare myself for my own death? 

The thought of death will not change my ways of doing things. I will continue to text and communicate with my friends through email, and support O’Bikoliana – our high school legacy project at the Ateneo de Naga.

I will read the news online every morning, watch sports on TV, watch Netflix on certain nights, talk to my daughters and wife, pick up our two grandchildren from school every afternoon, chat with my brothers through Messenger.

I will continue to write and work for peace and social justice issues with my limited time unlike when I was younger.

I will continue to play with my rambunctious grandchildren when I see them and let them realize that I was once like them in many ways.

I will continue to pray even occasionally. I’ll just continue to live without making any radical change in my daily activities and beliefs. As the French say, c’est la vie.

While others, by some strange twist of fate, all of sudden become generous, philanthropic, and even religious when they know they are dying, I probably won’t when the time comes.  I might as well spend the remaining days of my life with my family. The time to do good is now, when we know we are not dying, and when we know that doing good will take a heavy toll on our schedule and resources.

My only wish is for people to be honest in their eulogy. Don’t make a saint out of me, because I’m not. Just tell the truth, plain and simple. And if a few green jokes are cracked at my funeral, that’s even better. I bet that will make everybody laugh and what a way to go.

Strangely enough and what a coincidence, while I was writing this article, a friend sent this text message: “Dying means letting go of the senses, leaving behind the material world, and crossing over to a new kind of higher perception. So, it really is no big deal.”

So, death, anyone?

The header image is titled “Undas in Guinobatan” (credit: Proud to be Albayano FB page)

About the author

GREG S. CASTILLA, one of the co-founders of Dateline Ibalon, is a graduate of Ateneo de Manila University. He was a recipient of the U.S. Department of Education Bilingual Fellowship Program at the University of Washington, where he earned a Ph.D. in multicultural education. He taught multicultural studies in several colleges and universities in Seattle as an adjunct faculty and authored eight books, the last of which is Magis: Things That Matter Most in Life (2021). He is a doting grandfather to his five grandchildren, and thanks his wife and children for what he has become.