The
living will pause from their labors to recall and render homage to the dead.
Although
liturgy has assigned today as All Saints Day, Filipino tradition nevertheless,
calls for the people to start trooping to the cemeteries until tomorrow, All Souls
Day.
Cemeteries
will be converted into a carnival of lights while the living keeps vigil.
The
resting place might be bare brown earth long unmarked, save for a circle of familiar-looking
stones that once held up a wooden cross now gone.
| | | Or
these could be anywhere God only knows, perhaps they are better left that way
so that the fickleness of one's imagination might succeed to deaden the pain of
the brutal fate they had met.
Or
these could be cold cement or marble slabs hired masons had expertly built-in
futile, if not vain, effort to preserve their status symbol even before that "great
leveler" called death.
But
wherever they lay, endearing thoughts pierce barriers of barren earth or cement
walls in an effort to bring back to life even for just a fleeting moment of joy
they who are now gone once shared with us. |
On
their final homes we shall light up tapers so that the heat of their flame might
symbolize the warmth of our undying love to carry our fervent prayers for their
eternal repose in God.
And
when we leave their resting place, the sun having set, we will turn around once
more to bid them goodbye until the next visit and wishing them rest in peace. | 
