Their Dear Departed

I was feeling empathic for my dear friend and ex-boss who just recently lost her husband due to an unfortunate accident in the mountains of Isabela. I went to Arlington yesterday to visit her and her three lovely kids, asked the kids personally on how they were coping (heard they were adjusting remarkably well), heard yet again the story of what she knew was a recount of the fateful day of the accident, and have seen her personally satisfy the curiosity of friends, relatives, co-workers, and associates.

It must be tiring to feel the burden of a loss, deliver the news to the kids and immediate family, have the arrangements done to give the departed a fairly decent place to be seen one last time (and in this particular case, have the body shipped from the province back to Manila), and still answer the questions of mourning friends one by one, or group by group, whatever the case may be. We could not discount the day to day tasks set aside to give way to the wake, like mountains of work and family obligations for my friend and studies for the kids.

It's the routinary recount of the event for each of the guests which got my interest. If nothing else, I'd consider it to be most gruelling those left behind. Shouldn't there be like a video for the guests to see before going inside the memorial chapel for that sole purpose? Or could the story-telling bit be at best considered as part of the letting-go phase? Could be.

I remember the hospital visit I made in July for a colleague who got hit by a car. The parents and his brother, too, had to endure recounting the event for each of their visitors.

Ironically, it could be some sort of unjust justification to say that the stories account for the reward the visitors get for paying their respects, be it for the dead or the sick. The visitors come because they care, and as they care they curiously itch to have their pertinent questions answered, subconsciously thinking they have the right to have closure on the event, too.

This post is becoming too philosophical for its worth and I'm in no position give my insights, being just a pseudo-intellectual with no psych background to boast. I just thought I'd gather my thoughts on the matter in something I could go right back at and read again in the future.

Rest in peace, Tito Roger.

posted by Fritz @ 5:38 AM