Missing My Dead Brother and Father

        If only we can hold the hand of time, we will do it especially if we want to stop painful and tragic events to happen. We humans really would like to perpetuate our happiness and success and same, we want to keep with our dear ones forever if only possible. But no, our time has limit and our life has an ending.

        Year 2022 and 2023, I'd lost my brother Jeffrey and my father Tomas. Though I already understood this as a natural part of living on Earth, but the pain was really soul deep. The thoughts that why somebody should leave ahead was not properly answered. I had only to rationalize everything. Jeffrey died of either of heart attack or stroke  so I told myself, it was because he failed to take care of his health. My father Tomas, died three days after he and my mother attended the wedding day of our niece. He already had a bout with gout for months, creatinine was high, constant bout with asthma, sugar was also high. In short, he was a potential physical time bomb ready to explode anytime. Papang (father) Tomas really succumb to community acquired pneumonia and passed away after our reunion in our house with my first born grandchild to my eldest son. I also rationalize this as good life already for Papang because he also told us that majority of his closest friends had already went to the great beyond ahead of him without thinking that he followed soon.

        Though I am now more than half of the century and had already witnessed so many deaths but still the pain of losing dearest members of the family was so intense. Grieving then was necessary to accept the fact that they were gone forever and could not be seen personally except in memories, pictures and mementos they left.

        Lessons learned, that while our dear ones are still alive, moments should not be taken for granted. We should really give time for conversation, face to face interactions, calling and messaging if we are far away--in short communication is necessary. Otherwise, if suddenly our dear ones went ahead without   any warning we would find ourselves regretting that if only we give our love and time to them while they were alive, then the pain of losing them was not so intense.