SOMETIMES it is interchanged with All Saint’s Day. The difference in date and name though is easily bridge with the same nurturing idea of afterlife.

We pray for the souls of our loves ones. We implore for the intercession of the saints. In these two religious acts, we hope that our departed enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

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Between the living and the dead, eternity takes them apart. The celebration of the all soul’s day tries to mediate the distance as we troop to the cemeteries and once more show our love and care to the departed.

I once attended the burial of an uncle. My son kept on asking why his "Papa Remy" was sleeping in the coffin. I said, he is already dead, and would have to be buried soon. As usual to a precocious child, I was bombarded with follow-up questions. But the question that jolted me was "What would happen now that he is dead?" I could not answer. Otherwise, I would have to engage him in long and unending discourse of the afterlife, which until now I too am still grappling and searching for answers.

When the coffin was finally lowered to the ground of his final rest, I noticed that my son shed a tear or two. Other grandchildren also were teary eyed. During the vigil and the church ceremony, these children were still playing and frolicking around, seemingly unmindful of the solemnity of the occasion. Yet, at the final moment when the coffin was lowered to the ground, the same children who were playing were sobbing. I asked my son why he cried, he said, "Should we leave him alone?"

As a child, I was wondering what would happen after death. "Physically, death must be very painful that I may expire in the process," so went my childhood musing of death. Is the afterlife, too dark, cold, and lonely? Obviously, my son, gregarious and playful as he is, is concern more of the dead being alone in a dark grave than of the beyond.

We all have the same child-like wonder of the afterlife. As adults we grapple with questions about afterlife in the context of our respective religions. As rational beings, we all need to have reasons, explanations to our nagging questions.

Science could not explain the realm of the spirit. Reason breaks down in the face of the great beyond. Faith takes over. Intuition, or the inner being, somehow connects us to the transcendent. Without religion, everything physical collapses and ends. But the spiritual yearning goes beyond the grave.

We owe to religion everything that we live for. Even the so-called atheists live a kind of ethos that although not within the conventional religion finds its mooring on the transcendent.

Religion makes man whole. Take away the spirit aspect, the spirit-life, you have driftwood of a man breathing but not living in the here and now.

Religion makes us whole. Ironically, that which is supposed to make us whole has ripped apart man from his fellowmen, race from another race, and turn nations against each other. Read history. The protagonists are often men of the bible. Read the bible. Blood is written all-over the pages.

Recent events show that people abandon the present in favor of the promise of bliss in afterlife. They live for the beyond, but abandon the here and now reality.

Terrorists would kill innocent people in the pursuit of the jihad, whatever the word means. They may die in the process but that is of no moment so long as they go directly to the promise of paradise where they live in abundance, and they are surrounded by virgins whose duty is to satiate their pleasures.

There is too the Christian teaching that it is better for the poor man because he can enter the kingdom than the rich man. Forget poverty, hunger, and malnourished children; the poor are sure to enter heaven. People cease to live in the present.

As Filipinos troop to the cemeteries, it is well to be reminded that while we look after for the departed, and concern ourselves with the afterlife, the present is important. We cannot forfeit our present for the promise of eternal bliss.

The present existence is a journey to the great unknown. In our respective journeys, we have to take care of each other, help the afflicted, and heal the wounds of injustice. It may sound quixotic but in our journey, we have to rid all the thorns along the way.

If eternal life is founded on love and caring, how else can we prepare and deserve that kind of life except by living it right now, here on earth.

[Email comments to tiburciopalasan@palasanlaw.com]