BY: DONALD SEVILLA
COINCIDENCES HARD TO DISMISS?
When people close to you pass away, they leave indelible marks in your memory that are forever etched in time.
Uncle Rolly Butalid was a friend, mentor and a second father to me. A central figure from my past who transitioned into my present.
Josef “Jojo” Enerio was no kin but was more than just a friend and confidant. He was like a brother, who has been in my journey from past to present.
Yet both men passed away on dates that bear significance to us. Uncle Rolly died on my eldest daughter’s birthday while Jojo left this earth on our son Daffy’s birthday too.
Of late, Ta Equet Borja Butalid, Uncle Rolly’s widow, my mom’s second cousin and my mother-in-law Mommy Inday, died on the same day in the same hospital hours apart.
How can you ever forget?
Life is full of mysteries. Even stranger still are the ways people and events interact and connect with our own.
Things that may seem ordinary carry deeper meaning that resonate throughout our life’s journey.
Those closest to us may leave this earth but they just don’t disappear physically but make their presence felt as their memories linger deep in our hearts.
We celebrate birthdays as a thanksgiving to our life on earth. We celebrate life as much as we commemorate the deaths of loved ones, in loving tribute to when they once walked among us.
Ordinary as things may seem, these celebrations instill in us a sense of nostalgia unique to our own personal experience.
And this is the beauty of life.We may not fully understand its mysteries nor do we seek to fathom it.We just have to accept what comes along in the moment.
Not in sadness, not in grief but in the thought that beyond all these, there is joy in the memories we cherish in our hearts .
“For death is not the end but a transition to a joyous rebirth in God’s Holy Kingdom. “