A celebration of life
This year’s celebration of All Souls’ Day may be different from the past due to the pandemic, but nothing can stop us from celebrating the memories of our loved ones who have dedicated their lives to leave a legacy for the current generation.
Celebrating the lives of the departed reminds us that no wealth or earthly possessions can stop the inevitable day when our human flesh disintegrates to become lifeless particles of the Earth. After death separates a man’s worldly entanglements, he becomes nothing but a memory that is nurtured in the hearts of the lives he once loved. The Roman statesman, lawyer, and scholar Marcus Tullius Cicero once said that “the life of the dead is placed on the memories of the living.” “The love you gave in life keeps people alive beyond their time. Anyone who was given love will always live on in another’s heart.”
But how does the living celebrate the lives of those who are victims of injustice? Or those condemned as lesser mortals because they were born to a poor family? Or those who died fighting for equality but condemned as anti-institution and anti-government?
Unlike the lives of celebrities, politicians, and other elites who once lived a life of affluence and who are best remembered with the fortunes and business empires they have built during their lifetime, some lives serve as reminders of an imperfect system humans have established for themselves.
As we celebrate the lives of the departed, let us learn from the short-lived existence of Baby River, the child of mother activist Reina Mae Nasino, whose death is the culmination of sufferings from the womb to tomb. The child was completely innocent of all the circumstances, but the pain was real and unbearable, and eventually, death freed her from a world riddled with inequality, injustice, and imperfection. While carrying her in her womb, River’s mother was arrested for illegal possession of firearms and detained in one of the country’s most congested prison cells under “cruel and inhumane conditions” manifested by her low birth weight. A few days later, from the child’s birth at a government hospital, the mother and child were compelled to return to jail and later separated when the six-week-old River was transferred to the care of her grandmother. With deteriorating health conditions and severe diarrhea and pneumonia complications, River eventually succumbed to death and liberated from a dismal world she never had the chance to appreciate.
As we celebrate the memories of the dead, let us not forget that we live in a world fraught with contradictions and pretensions. We have the rich who live their lives in luxury and comfort while the poor continue to suffer from hunger and supposedly curable illnesses in the absence of health care. Even on the edge of death, some are privileged to be surrounded by family and friends and honored with pompous funeral while others, like Baby River, die in the absence of loved ones. Let us remember that our imperfect system may have inflicted violence on the lives of the innocent in our struggle to bring justice.
The lives of those who have gone ahead of us should serve as reminders that, in our struggle for the common good, we honor their lives by correcting past mistakes in our present lives. So that when the time comes, the next generation can proudly celebrate a life well-lived.