“All people are like grass,
and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of the Lord endures forever.”- 1 Peter 1:24-25
The first time that I had experienced having a departed relative was when I was still in my elementary years around late eighties when my Uncle, the eldest brother of my brother had suffered a major stroke. He was the driver of our then former Governor of our province. He was driving at that instance but had managed to park the car before he felll into a comatose state and then snored and died because of a ruptured blood vessel in his brain.
My Uncle has been suffering from hypertension and is not looking after his eating and drinking habits. In fact he is severely obese and had a bulging belly. So as with his hypertension the brain got affected immediately after the stroke. Well good for my Uncle because he didn't suffer for long unlike my other relative who lived for so many years before succumbing from his total paralysis.
About four years later my grandfather went into a tragic accident where he was allegedly fell into a river where at that time there was a heavy downpour which made the river swollen in the most part of this main island that I am living into. It was not really clear if my grandfather had drowned or not or maybe he did because his body was never recovered.
My father was then working abroad and even sent search parties that included my younger uncle but it never resulted into anything but an expense that also affected us his family because the money that should have gone for us was used up for searching my grandfather's missing body. Anyway my grandfather at that time also is half paralyzed because he suffered from mild stroke due to his vices.
"Adiós, dulce extranjera, mi amiga, mi alegría,
Adiós, queridos seres, morir es descansar." - Dr. Jose Rizal (Mi Ultimo Adios)
Then in around the year 1998 my grandfather, the Father of my Mother suffered a heart attack. He was hospitalized before with a clogged artery in his heart but was not given a comprehensive treatment about his heart condition so his heart was left untreated.
He was not looking after his diet as well and even eating the forbidden foods too like pork because he said that it is cheaper than fish. Then one day after getting angry with his children (he remarried at the age of 72 years and had four children) he suffered a major heart attack and died there.
I was able to attend the wake and funeral and I am happy that I did because I was able to at least spend some time with my relatives over my Mother's province. Anyway after 21 years it was my Uncle that died with a heart attack as well which was never detected at the first place, he was just found dead already, and m=now my Aunt that died due to colon cancer. It was tragic because it was so fast.
No wonder that my Aunt was quite thinned-out the last time I saw her during my Mothers birthday celebration about two years ago because losing weight is also a sign of cancer. Then after that she was already complaining of aches and pains and not being able to pass her stool only to know later that she already got a stage 4 cancer.
The sister of my Father, my Aunt was then working in Hong Kong for many years as a household help and a nanny. Then after coming back home ( I was already in dialysis at that time) she had a complaint of having a headache and overall feeling of ill. Then it was too late when she got rushed to the hospital as she already suffered a heart attack.
It is because she said that she used slimming pills that have ingredients in making Meth. Basically some sort of Amphetamine that made her heart get so overburdened that it failed due to stress of probably over-beating all the time. So it is truly a bad thing that had happened to my Aunt back then because she is still young when she died and left my cousin which was her informal son basically orphaned.
I know that our life here on earth is just temporary so we just have to cling on the things that are unseen because it is an eternal life an we could achieve it through our reunification with God and from there we could meet our lovedones again if them and us have met the criteria for our salvation. So it will not be so sad of a story after all.