"Aide Mémoire"

 

A glance into my old photo album makes me realize that “every man's memory is his private literature." From good old looks to good old friends, I think nothing seems to beat the old times when you have good memories to enjoy with. But underneath an ebon glare of endless fold, the pictures of cimmerian wilt are thrown out on the cold. 

Each page now starts to yellow. 

The paper crumbles. 

The album withers. 

And, as I turn one leaf to the next, I am reminded over and again of my limited timeline. Then a certain sadness ensues. 

From monochrome pictures to digital ones, I could not help but notice how time has changed. Watching my parents, once young and lively but now, their physical state is wasted and their strength becomes unstable. Their grey hairs and forelines remind me that I can’t stop them from aging. Like all things in life, nothing stands still. No matter how good they are and how significant they are to me, they just don’t influence the hands of time from moving forward. 

Suddenly,

the melody fades;

the sun sets;

the water of the sea retreats;

the flower wilts;

the leaf falls;

the season changes.

And, as it occurs abruptly in absence of notice, the inevitable happens. 

Death pierces through the timeline. 

We are now saddened by a loss of someone special.

We grieve. 

We experience pain. 

We feel sorrow. 

We deny the loss. 

We isolate ourselves. 

We feel sorry. 

We feel dispirited and disheartened. 

We go through all of these since, afterall, to quote Viktor Frankl, "grief is the price we pay for [loving]".

Yet, more than this, we bereave because we appeal to emotions not only arising from a loss, but more of a response based on delicate personal relationships and shared connections. Such feeling is a result of an unforgettable ties shared by people who once were personally thrown with each other, forming attachments and memories that they alone can exclusively and intimately  relate to.

Hence, we honor the dead not because one is already "missing" but one deserves "remembering". This clearly explains, to borrow the wisdom of my philosophy mentor Dr. Amosa Velez, why we show symbolic gestures of “care” every All Souls Day. 

We bring flowers in the cemetery. 

We lit candles. 

We recite “simple prayers”. 

And, we prepare and offer foods for the spirits to clearly indicate how we love them even beyond the grave.

So, no one really dies unless one is forgotten. We choose never to forget.

"One loves for always."

01.11.2019

07:49 PM

Digital Art by: Lot Jr Tabilid