Friday, November 02, 2007 Lee: Mortality By Kelvin King Lee Babble On
All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day never fail to make me think about my own mortality. A visit to the cemetery to see the tombstone of my father, Franklin Chiew Lee, who was killed in an incident in the outskirts of the city 20 years ago, is a stark reminder of how death will someday come for us all.
I still remember when I heard my father was dead. I was barely eight years old, and it was already late that night. I remember watching television and my mother coming in to tell the kids father was gone. In theory, I should have understood the finality of that statement.
Father was dead. He could no longer come back to nuzzle us with the scratchy stubble on his cheek, nor tickle his kids’ bellies until we dissolved into hysterics, or even to say good night before we slept.
Of course, how could we have fully understood? We were kids. Death made no sense to us. Mortality was not an issue yet. We were young, and we thought we were all immortal. That we would live forever. I learned soon enough that this was not the case.
Where other children would learn about mortality and death from the passing of pets or of animals, my siblings and I learned from our own father’s death. He was never coming back, and we would never see him again. Ever.
Even now, my sister can barely visualize our father’s face, since she was but a baby when he died. My brother, who was the closest among us to him, seemed to withdraw into himself early into his childhood. And I? Well, I picked up a lifelong fascination with death. Mortality issues seemed to dodge me every moment of my life.
Mortality was such an issue to me that I once told my class of Grade Six students (aged from 11-13 years old) that “the only thing constant is that everyone here will all die one day.” Obviously, that did not endear me to the parents of my students.
But we remember our dead, and we honor them. And that is a uniquely Filipino trait. No other people that I know of, spends a whole day in the cemetery with their departed loved ones. No other people treat it as a celebration of sorts, with liquor, music and food aplenty on All Souls' and All Saints'. No other people honor their dead quite this way.
So when we die, we can at least rest assured that no matter what, we will never be alone. In our case, father has never exactly been alone for the last 20 years, even though he has long passed on. There is always someone there on All Saints’ Day.
Yes, we are mortal. Yes, we will die one day. But no, that doesn’t mean we will be alone. Because aside from being with God when we die, our loved ones will always be there every year, on All Saints’ and All Souls’ days. And that comforts me greatly when I think of my own mortality.
(You can reach the author at babbleoncolumn@yahoo.com or check out his own blog at www.kelvinlesterlee.wordpress.com.)
