Love is Stronger

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My uncle‘s dog is sitting comfortably on our front lawn, waiting patiently for his owner. The dog accompanies him wherever he goes. When he goes to our house everyday to chat with my dad (as if it has been a long time since they last saw each other, they just never run out of things to talk about), the dog sits on our lawn, observing the surroundings or sometimes taking a nap while the siblings continue to bond. It’s such a nice picture, my dad and uncle laughing out loud on the porch and a furry friend on the lawn.

It would have been a pretty normal thing to have the dog around but not today. It’s my uncle’s birthday.

My mom had goosebumps when she saw the dog sitting comfortably there, it has been a long time since my uncle’s buddy did that. Dad said that it reminds him of the times when he and his younger brother would spend time together talking about anything under the sun. No, they did not have any falling out of any sorts, they remained the best of friends. But then my uncle has left, the Big C took him away. 😦

The diagnosis came out in 2011, it was summer. None of us expected that someone full of life, always laughing, energetic, rarely gets a cold, and still at the prime of his life, in fact has an illness called Prostate Cancer. It’s already in the late stage. According to WebMD, “Prostate cancer is typically a very slow growing tumor, often causing no symptoms until it is in an advanced stage.” That’s exactly what happened to him. The cancer has metastasized to his bones, at first affecting his mobility and then later on his whole body. It was painful to see him go through such suffering, his energy depleting each passing day.

I can still vividly recall the last time we visited him at the hospital, his eyes were dull, gone was the spark and the teasing glint. His sadness permeates, his hands holding on to the railing of the hospital bed, as if trying to hold on to life. The atmosphere that day seemed so heavy, that even the hospital elevator felt like it was grieving. A few days later, less than a year since the diagnosis, he left us.

We miss him very much. He may no longer be physically present but he will always stay in our hearts.

I strongly agree with the person who said that, “Love is stronger than death even though it can’t stop death from happening, but no matter how hard death tries, it can’t separate people from love. It can’t take away our memories either. In the end, life is stronger than death.”

Silence

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It was the first time I saw you, sleeping peacefully. It was as if nothing in this world could harm you, nothing can disturb you nor hurt you. You looked so calm, it was as if you were finally home. That moment happened years ago, and all I can recall were fragments of what happened during those two days that we spent time with you on that particular summer.

I cannot describe how I felt that day, it was a mixture of awe, regret and sadness. The next day was even worse, for your daughter was trying to call your attention but you would not answer, no matter what she said or did, you did not give her the smile or the hug that you usually give her. You did not utter anything or made any move to approach her and comfort her so that she would stop crying. You did not do anything, and I know it was not what you wanted but there was nothing you can do about it anymore.

Perhaps that moment was too painful, that only fragments remained on my mind. It was your wake when I saw you, I would like to think then that you were just sleeping. But sadly, you were gone, I can say your name a million times but you won’t hear it. I could never get to hear you call my name. That chance no longer exists. We were denied a lot of things. We came for your internment and how I wished the reunion was a happier circumstance, but it wasn’t.

I remember seeing the following words on a card that day:

Don’t grieve for me, for now I’m free
I’m following the path God laid for me.
I took His hand when I heard Him call;
I turned my back and left it all.

I could not stay another day,
To laugh, to love, to work or play.
Tasks left undone must stay that way;
I found that place at the close of day.

If my parting has left a void,
Then fill it with remembered joy.
A friendship shared a laugh, a kiss;
Ah yes, these things, I too will miss.

Be not burdened with times of sorrow
I wish you the sunshine of tomorrow.
My life’s been full, I savored much;
Good friends, good times, a loved one’s touch.

Perhaps my time seems all to brief;
Don’t lengthen it now with undue grief.
Lift up your heart and share with me,
God wanted me now, He set me free.

Perhaps that was your message for us or it was God’s way of letting us know that you were finally home; free from pain, sorrow, and all the things in this world that has hurt you.

It was the first and last time I saw you. You were too young to die. Under circumstances that were beyond our control, we lived separate lives. You were the brother I never met but you are greatly missed.

Thin Line

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They say there is a thin line between love and friendship and for American humorist Emma Bombeck, “There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.” That minuscule thing that determines where one ends and the other begins, that border, matters a lot.

Today I learned something in the least unexpected way. We were seated in the waiting area near the emergency room of a private hospital this morning waiting for the result of the laboratory test of my nephew (he had his tooth extracted yesterday and was suddenly bleeding terribly last night until this morning despite medication , my brother got into panic mode so my nephew was rushed to the hospital). Then it happened… that moment of impact that made that can make your hands grow cold and damp, and your heartbeat   quite unstable. Inside the Emergency Room (ER) was a man who happened to be the brother of my cousin’s wife (talk about the six degrees of separation, the connection of each person to one another), he had a heart attack, just weeks after being released from the ICUfor the same cause. There he was battling for his life, traversing between the thin line that separates life from death, and within a few minutes, he was gone. 😦 The cries of the family members said it all, and the first thought that entered my mind was when we went to the hospital when grandpa died last year.

Just as the cries subsided, my thoughts shifted to another direction. There I was wallowing in fear for the upcoming exams in school while there are people who are facing bigger battles, mine is just a tiny spec, something that is all in the mind. There are people who no longer have the chance to pursue what they were going after, before taking that last breath. There are those who can no longer hold the hands of their children or their parent, nor kiss their loved one before going to sleep at night; gone too soon.

Life has no expiry date to let you know when the time is up so it is best to live it to the fullest. American business woman, Mary Kay Ash was once quoted saying, “Some people drift through their entire life. They do it one day at a time, one week at a time, one month at a time. It happens so gradually they are unaware of how their lives are slipping away until it’s too late.“

Every person must make every moment count, to collect memories and not regrets, to leave behind happy thoughts and not heartaches and to be closer to the one who gave us life. Don’t hold back, let the people who matter to you know how much you care, how important they are and how much you love them. Carpe diem!

Moments and Memories

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“Life’s all about moments of impact and how they change our lives forever. But what if one day you could no longer remember any of them?” Leo Collins (a.k.a Channing Tatum), The Vow

A lot of people will be able to recognize that line and there are those who remember those words by heart. But have you ever really asked yourself that big “what if”? This is not a movie review, neither is it a summary nor a set of quotes from the movie. But I think it is appropriate to take off from those lines.

“What if one day you could no longer remember anything?”

Suffering from a cold, I asked my dad if there are still herbs available from the house next door (which belongs to my aunt and grandma from dad’s side), he said there are none, it’s only my grandma who is fond of planting and she no longer does. My grandmother is 90 years old, she is healthy, her eyes and hear hearing are still good BUT she does not know me anymore, nor does she know any of her children or grandchildren. I remember spending afternoons in her house, listening to stories that she tells with such enthusiasm. She used to wake us (my cousins) up at six in the morning for breakfast when we would spend the night at her house, and she would fill our plates with food and the hard-boiled egg is never out of the menu, then she would tell us to eat everything there, which we then considered a great feat. But what I looked forward to was her hot chocolate, which, no one else can prepare the way she does, come to think of it, does she remember that recipe? The way she holds the wooden thing to mix the hot chocolate the old-fashioned way, it’s like an art and that memory will forever be engraved on my mind. There are a lot of fond memories with grandma, it’s just sad that she no longer remembers any of it. Just like her herb garden, those memories are no longer there.

Grandma has not completely lost her memory, there are facts that she recalls well. She knows her complete name, date of birth and other similar data. But what really touched me, is that, even if she does not recall who we are most of the time, she remembers one person so clearly, as if it was 70 years back (or sometime close to that), she remembers my grandfather, her husband up to this very day. She knows how, when, and where they met; she remembers the date of their wedding. It seems like a once in a lifetime love that will never be erased from her mind. My grandfather died long before I was born, long before my parents met; he died when my dad was still in elementary and grandma never remarried nor entertained such thought. Perhaps in her subconscious mind she wants to relive those moments, to freeze those memories when they were still together or perhaps it’s just the romantic in me thinking that way.

Leo was right, there are moments of impact that can change our lives. These moments often happen when we least expect them to, and the best thing to do is to cherish those moments, relish the feelings that come with them and make the most out of every second because we never know if there will be a next time, or, if one day we can still remember it all. Carpe diem!

 

Gramps

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I had this dream last night, one that I could not quite recall as clearly as other dreams but there were scenes which kept flashing back into my mind.  It was nostalgic and confusing; a series of events which do not seem interconnected yet they were sewn seamlessly like scenes from a movie.  I am not a Psychology major and have little knowledge on dream interpretation.

There were busy streets, kind of like somewhere in Manhattan; there was a funeral wake of a person who, according to the dream, is someone who seems to be a friend of our family.  But the scene which is not vivid is something that involved my grandfather…

It was as if there was a message for me from him and that was what I was trying to recall the moment my eyes opened at 7:00 a.m.  It was the last scene in the dream, a sky scraper, telephone, white notepad and grandpa’s presence.  It was weird because he was not there walking around or talking but I knew he was around, he was “there” and I woke up.

Grandpa passed away in March of 2011, his birth month but he did not even get to celebrate his birthday.  He went into a coma after a cardiac arrest and did not wake up.  I was not able to hold his hands and was not able to say goodbye.  During that time I cannot bring myself to say the words died, passed away,  and expired together with the word grandpa.  It was always “Grandpa left all of a sudden” or “Grandpa went on a vacation and he is not coming back.”  It was only during the last quarter of 2011 that I was able to say it and I still get teary eyed until now.

I will not be able to hear him laugh anymore, nor will I be able to fulfill my promises when I was three years old.  The saddest thing is, he will no longer be there on my wedding day (which is still in the unknown future) even if he told my grandma that he will be there. 😦

A few weeks after his burial I remember crying buckets of tears in front of my Raja Yoga instructor when she asked about my grandfather.  Just one question and the floodgates opened.  She told me I should not be sad because only his physical body expired, his soul still exists and it is possible that we will meet again…

He who has gone, so we but cherish his memory, abides with us, more potent, nay, more present than the living man.  ~Antoine de Saint-Exupery

People do not die for us immediately, but remain bathed in a sort of aura of life which bears no relation to true immortality but through which they continue to occupy our thoughts in the same way as when they were alive.  It is as though they were traveling abroad.  ~Marcel Proust

Let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life.  ~John Muir

Unlimited Happiness

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Prior to learning about Raja Yoga, I am one of those people whose concept of yoga is about the different poses or sutras; but perhaps it was really meant to happen that I find the path to this yoga. The search for a yoga instructor started when stress started to creep in due to a subject in school that cannot be considered as a wonderful learning experience, rather the opposite.

I have learned that the response or reaction (e.g. feeling stressed) to stimuli (e.g. subject in school) is the choice of the creator of the thought (the person facing the stimuli). The stimuli have no control over a person for there is always a choice; the same stimulus can get different responses from different people, the way they react is their own choice. Each person reacts differently because thoughts and feelings are within the hands of the person and not dictated by the stimulus itself.

People can choose happiness and be completely stress-free once the negative-emotions-are-caused-by-objects-or-the-lack-thereof (e.g. things, achievements) mentality has been eliminated.

Raja Yoga emphasizes the following:

• Happiness is NOT dependent on physical objects.
• Objects, possessions, gadgets are designed to give us physical comfort.
• Physical comfort is different from emotional comfort. Happiness is a feeling.
• Happiness is our internal creation and can be created irrespective of external comforts.
• We use objects as stimulus to create a response, but the response is our choice.
• Different people create different responses, using the same stimulus.

There is always a choice, so choose to be happy! 🙂

Om Shanti.

 

(Note: The bulleted texts are lessons from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dNPNtdaMWY&feature=related )