Death does not choose. Death does not fight. Death comes when it comes.

Nothing is too late. Nothing is too early. There is only, the right time.

We have all dealt with death before. Even for those who have not been through a death of a loved one, they are somehow or rather influenced by it without realizing it. Death creates and spurs a chain of events that turn our lives upside down and inside out. I would like to think that soldiers and Navy seals are not immune to it even though they say they are.

It is inevitable that death befalls us. We are not immortals. There are some that believe that our souls will not cease to exist but instead await judgement. There are some who believe that we cease to exist altogether.

Under normal circumstances, a lot of people naturally move on after facing a death. However, there is a window or grace period for you to mourn. The most important thing is to use this window wisely and not get stuck in the past. If you however continue to mourn after the window has passed, you find yourself in a house of mirrors or trapped in a bubble with no way out. You keep projecting your emotions, feelings and regrets onto the deceased that it keeps becoming a cycle, a never ending cycle. That’s when we stop living and instead have become the walking dead. 

Why do we get affected by it so badly at times? The question is what do you do after we meet anyone? You say goodbye, good luck, have a safe trip, be good, all the best, tell me how it goes and so on and so forth. I think we all say this with the hope of meeting that person again sometime in the future, maybe not too soon but definitely somewhere and sometime when the two paths intertwined again. If the memory and impression of the person is a strong and good one, that hope becomes a candle that burns. The candle continues to burn until the next time you meet the person again. It stops burning. Then, it lights again. It is a repeating cycle but like all candles, they are never lasting and the wick will soon run out. It will then feels like a completely empty room overwhelmed with darkness.

We all deal with things differently. I normally deal with it pretty well. I have grown up accepting the fact that death is a natural part of life. Yes, I feel sad whenever it happens but I know I have to keep continue living because that’s what they would want me to do. As a Catholic, I do not believe death is the end of our journey. Death is only the beginning. We spend our whole lives living in the midst of mysteries and to finally being able to see and learn about them is a beautiful thing. We live in a world that is suffering and painful. Dying releases us of that burden and set us free. Gravity has let go of us. 

Reading the book ‘The Five People You Meet in Heaven’ a while back has strengthened this perspective. It also has given me a new one. The book is fiction but I would like to think that it is true and and it will be what we go through. We die and then meet different people of our lives. They may or may not be directly related to us but they had have a major presence and effect on our lives. These people help give us solace. More importantly, they help us make sense of our yesterdays and to understand our past. 

Those that are dead go through that path. What about us? We also go through that. We scan through memories of the person, meet with people that shared the same sentiments and give him one last goodbye at his grave so that we can make sense of our yesterdays with the person and to treasure the memories we had been through together. The empty room with darkness is no more but what’s left is a token.

You carry these tokens through your life after saying your final goodbyes. One by one of this tokens fuel you with hope, a different kind of hope that one day, no matter how long, you will be with them again in paradise.