All Souls and All Saints Day Once Again

White crosses, like the one above, were erected around the devastated areas of Mount Mayon, in Albay province, a lonely mark of reminder that one or more have perished on the site caused by the lahar downflow on November 2006.

The ties that bind close family relatives makes the strong pull during certain occasions of the year. One of that is like today’s and tomorrow’s All Souls and All Saints day.

However and whenever day the family would like to celebrate (Monday or Tuesday?), commemorate or memorialize again and again our dear departed rests on the schedule and preparations. But mostly, on the first of the month, many are seen around the cemeteries and memorial parks in the region and elsewhere. The more the merrier.

So, how was the travel out of the metro(politan Manila) to the province? Should have been hard and gruelling, especially for many who did not get an early bus or plane reservation.

But while many depart from the big city, those left behind endures the havoc in the urban cemeteries sometimes becoming a nightmarish episode for the local government. The local police assume the task of keeping an orderly occasion until the end of the day.

But anyhow, majority would always pop out of the bus and unload the baggage to the home of their childhood and memories in their province. As it should always be, an occasion for happy reunion and renewal of kinship.

Many should consider it a blessing that the people whom in their lifetime were reverred, loved and cherished can easily be located with proper name, number, location, spot or place in the cemetery or memorial parks. Still well cared for in their lots, with plants and flowers, candles and more.

But there should be many living relatives who may not have a specific place and space to visit and locate some loved ones forever lost caused by hapless and fortuitous events like the wrath of nature, calamities, floods, volcanic eruption and lahar.

These mourning multitude face again and again the same dilemma of commemorating and touching base their lost ones even in thougths. For how could they. Many lives perished around the devastated areas of Mt. Pinatubo’s catclysmic eruption of 1990, the Ormoc city flood (of November 5, 1991) and landslides, the Guinsaugon- St. Bernard of southern Leyte landslide (February 16, 2006), San Francisco, southern Leyte landslide of December 2003, and the lahar devastation around Mt. Mayon in November of 2006. And perhaps, many more if we continue the list here. The pain of thought of loved ones untimely entombed under the ground and never had a chance of being recovered lingers.

At the end of the day, each and everyone of us living have much to thank somebody, someone above for the daily blessings received even though one has to wade through life’s difficulties, travails and trials.

Be safe. Happy halloween!


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