Last June 30 was supposed to be my dad’s birthday. We do not celebrate it the usual way anymore since he has already passed away. The entire family just went to the cemetery, offer our candles and prayers for his departed soul as this has already become our “tradition” whenever this day comes.
The cemetery lot he’s buried in has been in the Borces/Codeniera clan for years. Anybody from our clan that dies is buried in that small plot of land. Since the area is quite small, to make up for lack of space, burial chambers are built atop one another. The Philippine burial places look funny when one thinks about it. I would like to think they resemble little condo unit boxes for the dead.
Seeing my dad’s final resting somehow pains me. Even in death, he seems to be stuck and crowded in.
When we returned home I immediately looked up prices for new burial lots. The idea of getting our own cemetery lot appealed to me. That way, we won’t be forced to “share” or make room for future relatives that might pass away. Yet, when I looked at the prices online for these small plots of land my jaw literally dropped. I did not expect that it would cost so much! A plot of land can equal to investing in a small house.
Seeing this, I could only shake my head. Why does it have to cost so much when it is for the dead? I know and understand people could be sentimental because I feel the same way too about my loved ones but then it also made me realize that if ever I would pass away I do not wish my folks and family to be bothered. The thought of being buried without even undergoing the usual customary procedures suddenly appealed to me. Just wrap my body up, don’t pump it full of embalming fluids, bury it deep and then plant a tree to mark my grave. Then, sit back, relax and let Mother Nature do its thing. I think, is more appealing.
I looked up other “burial” alternatives and my research proved to be interesting.
A sky burial is also good. At least you would directly provide food to the other members of the food chain.
Cremation is expensive now. Plus the amount of fuel needed to char one’s bones is too high.
Yet, the most interesting one I have recently encountered so far is the plan to just dissolve corpses and flush them down the drain. Literally!
“The end result is a small quantity of green-brown liquid containing amino acids, peptides, sugars and salts.” Sounds yummy? Do read more for yourself here and then be the judge.
I’ll get back to the usual daily grind of my boring life and hopefully won’t kick the bucket any time soon. I’m broke and can’t afford a funeral.
This picture was uploaded by a friend on Facebook and it really made me laugh out loud. The political fever is officially on... Let the mudslinging begin
I was cleaning up our storage room last week and I managed to dig up some old textbooks which my mom has kept and stubbornly refuse to throw away.
A lot of memories came to mind when I saw the old pile of books. It seemed like I was instantly transported back to a time when big problems didn't seem to exist and the only things that occupied my then world was video games, tv shows and homework.
One textbook I opened was the one we used in English for our Reading class. It was full of short stories. One of the stories it featured was one written by Paul Villiard entitled "The Gift of Understanding". I read it again and this time, now that I've matured enough, I fully understand the impact the story communicated. I will post the text here to share with you all the beautiful story.
The Gift of Understanding By: Paul Villiard
I must have been around four years old when I first entered Mr. Wigden’s candy shop, but the smell of that wonderful world of penny treasures still comes back to me clearly more than a half-century later. Whenever he heard the tiny tinkle of bell attached to the front door, Mr. Wigden quietly appeared, to take his stand behind the candy case. He was very old, and his head was topped with a cloud of fine, snow-white hair.
Never was such an array of delicious temptations spread before a child. It was almost painful to make a choice. Each kind had first to be savored in the imagination before passing on to the next. There was always a short pang of regret as the selection was dropped into a little white paper sack. Perhaps another kind would taste better? Or last longer? Mr. Wigden had a trick of scooping your selection into the sack, then pausing. Not a word was spoken, but every child understood that Mr. Wigden’s raised eyebrows constituted a last-minute opportunity to make an exchange. Only after payment was laid upon the counter was the sack irrevocably twisted shut and the moment of indecision ended.
Our house was two streets from the streetcar line, and you had to pass the shop going to and from the cars. Mother had taken me into town on some forgotten errand, and as we walked home from the trolley Mother turned into Mr. Wigden’s.
“Let’s see if we can find something good,” she said, leading me up to the long glass case as the old man approached from behind a curtained aperture. My mother stood talking with him for a few minutes as I gazed rapturously at the display before my eyes. Finally Mother picked out something for me and paid Mr. Wigden.
When I was six or seven years old my family moved to a new community where I grew up, eventually married an established my own family. My wife and I opened a shop where we bred and sold exotic fish. The aquarium trade was then still in its infancy, and most of the fish were imported directly from Asia, Africa and South America. Few species sold for less than five dollars a pair.
One sunny afternoon a little girl came in accompanied by her brother. They were perhaps five and six years old. I was busy cleaning the tanks. The two children stood with wide, round eyes, staring at the jeweled beauties swimming in the crystal-clear water. “Gosh,” exclaimed the boy, “can we buy some?”
“Yes,” I replied. “If you can pay for them.”
“Oh, we have lots of money,” the little girl said confidently.
Something in the way she spoke gave me an old feeling of familiarity. After watching the fish for some time, they asked me for pairs of several different kinds, pointing them out as they walked down the row of tanks. I netted their choices into a traveling container and slipped it into an insulated bag for transport, handing it to the boy. “Carry it carefully,” I cautioned.
He nodded and turned to his sister. “You pay him,” he said. I held out my hand, and as her clenched fist approached me I suddenly knew exactly what was going to happen even what the little girl was going to say. Her fist opened, and into my outstretched palm she duped three very small coins.
At that instant I sensed the full impact of the legacy Mr. Wigden gad given me so many years before. Only now did I recognize the challenge I had presented the old man, and realize how wonderfully he had met it.
I seemed to be standing again in the little candy shop as I looked at the coins in my own hand. I understood the innocence of the two children and the power to preserve or destroy that innocence, as Mr. Wigden had understood those long years ago. I was so filled up with the remembering that my throat ached. The little girl was standing expectantly before me. “Isn’t it enough? She asked in a small voice.
“It’s a little too much,” I managed to say, somehow, over the lump in my throat. “You have some change coming.” I rummaged around in the cash drawer, dropped two pennies into her open hand, then stood in the doorway watching the children go down the walk carefully carrying their treasure.
When I turned back into the shop, my wife was standing on a stool with her arms submerged to the elbows in a tank where she was rearranging the plants. “Mind telling me what that was all about?” she asked. “Do you know how many fish you gave them?”
“About 30dollars’ worth,” I answered, the lump still in my throat. “But I couldn’t have done anything else.”
When I’d finished telling her about old Mr. Wigden, her eyes were wet, and she stepped off the stool and gave me a gentle kiss on the cheek.
“I still smell the gumdrops,” I sighed, and I’m certain I heard old Mr. Wigden chuckle over my shoulder as I swabbed down the last tank.
