A Time to Die

Was there ever a time in your life when you thought that "This season would be a good time to die"? I've had this thought when I was in my second year in University.

Don't get me wrong. I wasn't suicidal (still not). But I thought of it because that time was a good time to die even though I have not finished my degree yet. At that time, my relationship with God has grown deeper; my relationship with my parents and my siblings were made right; and my relationship with my friends were like family. I felt like I had it all. . .that if I died anytime soon, I would be happy knowing that I have lived a full life.

All Souls Day is that one very special day out of the 365 days of the year when we remember the dead. In the Philippines, it's that day when many camp out in cemeteries and spend time (eat, talk, drink, sleep) with the remains of family who have long gone as well as spend time with living family members to tell stories of how their dead lived their life. But this isn't what All Souls Day mean to me. At least, the time I've spent in cemeteries (I've spent two hours, tops) do not attest to this.

To me, All Souls Day is a day of reflection - of how well or how badly I've been living my life. Most of the time, it's the latter.

Perhaps you've heard of this sermon (at church, from a friend or a parent): Live the dash.

The lesson goes like this: When you die, there are two dates that would accompany your name on your epitaph: the date you were born and the date that you die. In between, there is a dash. What do you want that dash to represent? What would be the story behind it?

Of course, I think about this on other days, on normal days. But today, on All Souls Day, I make effort to think about it and not ignore it. In truth, I've had difficulty ignoring my story - or the story that I want my dash to tell because I am reaching my quarter life. I'd be 25 soon and I am scared that years in the near future, when people ask me what I have been doing in my life, I wouldn't be able to give an answer that I would be proud of.

And so, I've been planning how I'd spend my 25th birthday and my life after that day. And in order to get there, I'd have to make changes in my life now. Adjusting is never easy for me but I am hopeful that as long as God is with me, I'd be more than okay.

My prayer is that may God point me towards the paths I should take and may I have the heart to obey.

Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. 

-Psalm 90:12

There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens:

a time to be born and a time to die... .

-Ecclesiaster 3: 1, 2

The mind of man plans his way, But the LORD directs his steps.

-Proverbs 16:9 NASB

People disappear when they die. Their voice, their laughter, the warmth of their breath. Their flesh. Eventually their bones. All living memory of them ceases. This is both dreadful and natural. Yet for some there is an exception to this annihilation. For in the books they write they continue to exist. We can rediscover them. Their humor, their tone of voice, their moods. Through the written word they can anger you or make you happy. They can comfort you. They can perplex you. They can alter you. All this, even though they are dead. Like flies in amber, like corpses frozen in the ice, that which according to the laws of nature should pass away is, by the miracle of ink on paper, preserved. It is a kind of magic.

-Diane Setterfield, The Thirteenth Tale

We should live until we die.

-Fun, The Gambler