Originally drafted on August 16th

Last week I was at Tito Charlie’s last wake and burial. It’s really sad because there’s another death in the family. Tito Charlie was the husband of Tita Grace, so he was my dad’s brother-in-law.  The last time I saw him was at mama Lu’s burial last year. He was still strong then. I learned that they just found out that he had cancer last December. Then in less than a year, his body succumbed to the deadly disease. He was 75.

Life is indeed short. Job 8:9 says, ” … our days on earth are but a shadow. ” When I was young, I really didn’t have the notion of time. A day for me was really long. I wouldn’t mind playing in the streets with my friends, do everything we could under the sun and just practically enjoy whatever we were doing.

Now I am in my latter 20’s and boy, does time really fly. Gone are the days where you can just stare at the starry night sky and just dream freely. I now have bigger responsibilities on my shoulders and more challenges to overcome that there is almost no time for solitude. Everything seems to happen so fast. It’s like I am wishing sometimes that God would extend more hours in a day.

Life is really short and without God, life is really futile. There’s really no value in everything we do if we don’t have Him in the equation of our lives. He is our hope. I’ve had my own shares of struggles and I’ve experienced that deep blackhole like there’s no more way out. But all this time, I’ve always felt in my heart His hand holding me. Yes, I’ve tried to push Him away but He’s always been there. He is faithful. I want to know Him more by what I’m going through. I want to find Him.

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I also met some of my second cousins for the first time.  The first of them was Sheila. We met by accident in Trinoma a couple of weeks back. So we agreed to go to the wake the same day so we could meet again. Paige, her sister, texted me earlier that day and told me that she too was going together with their youngest sister, Jacqui, and a couple of friends. When I met them, I found out their names were Zack and Cecille.

I got there just before 7pm. Kuya Ricky was by the door so I approached him and introduced myself because I knew he wouldn’t recognize me. Ate Yella saw me and greeted me warmly. She walked me inside and Ate Divine was already there. Ate My was also already there.  She introduced me to her BF and then I finally approached Paige, Jacqui and their friends. We had a short chit chat then after a few minutes the Mass started. Kuya Ricky gave the Eulogy and Ate My read Tita Grace’s letter.

After the mass, we had dinner. I joined Paige, Zack and Cecille at their table and we briefly talked. Well we had knock knock  jokes which was really cool. Ate Divine introduced me to Tita Lizza, Paige’s mom, and she told me that when they arrived, Tito Totie asked her, ” Who’s that guy seated beside Jacqui? ” She answered, ” Oh maybe that’s Piwi they were talking about.” Then Tito Totie came and I greeted him “Kala ko kung sino na eh. ” He thought I was a suitor or something. It was really funny and it was fun to have met them. Later, Elaine arrived. Paige introduced me to her. Then a few minutes after, Elaine’s sisters came by as well, Diane and Lorraine. I was really happy to have met them.

We stayed there the rest of the evening. My cousins had a drinking session til morning. The burial was really really emotional. I was trying to hold back the tears as I tried to capture some shots using Elaine’s cam because, I mean, pain is pain.

We left right after the burial and I ended the day with Elaine. We dropped by Trinoma. We had sort of snack and short talk.