Thursday, September 06, 2007

Its not about the question

"Ours is not to question WHY but to know the WHO behind it"

I remember this quote as I say my little prayer this morning for the death of 2Lt Ariel M Toledo, PMA Class of 2006.

Most people would remember him as the subject of a recent Maalaala Mo Kaya episode or the valedictorian of the biggest class to graduate from this Academy. For me, I remember him as that jolly upperclass who made me run at least two checkpoints (that's about 5.5 Km distance of roadrun each) for not fixing my bunks properly, The Company Commander who tutored me and my classmates in Calculus, or simply the cadet who taught us how to smile despite of the pressures in our training as cadets. Yesterday, he succumbed to the rare bile duct cancer after more than a year of fighting the disease. Why do good people die?

In an article I read from Panorama Magazine a few days back, a columnist wrote about understanding why bad things happen in this world and asked the simple question: WHY? Thinking about it now, the question is valid. In my lifetime, I have lost an uncle to the brutalities of the NPA, a cousin (my favorite cousin that is) to an unknown brain condition and a mother to cancer of the cervix. One can not blame me if there are times that I just talk to God and ask him why people that I love had to die and yet I see bad people around me living their lives without any care for the rest of the world. I read about lives great men who died of malaria (like that of Alexander the Great) or in their sleep while down hard criminals escape bullets being fired at them. I wonder why despite of all the good things that I want to do, I end up finding myself in deeper trouble while those who do not care about anything can get away with even the gravest offense. I ask why.

Yesterday, I wrote an e-mail to someone. I was very emotional writing it trying to put into words my feelings without really giving so much ideas about why I was even that emotional in the first place. The thing with writing that e-mail was that in my emotions are little confusions as I find myself looking out for the best of the things to come yet so sorry for myself because that is all I can do, to hope. I realized that in everything in this world I can really just hope. But in this hope I learned that the mere act of being hopeful for the good things is a journey towards self discovery. It is a journey that allows a person to understand the real meaning of this life and not be encumbered by the uncertainties that accompanies it. The fact that good people die is never a reason for us to stop being good people in the same way that bad people escaping justice is not an excuse to be bad. The thing is our life is not about those who are able to go on with their lives or lack of it but rather on the kind of person that we become as we live each day fulfilling a purpose that has been drawn out for us. We can choose to love or to hate but to choose hate knowing that it is the wrong choice is simply stupid.

The life that we live is not about those that we have lost but on what is there to gain. The lives of those already lost is never a lost because in reality they have lived a life where lessons and memories can be gathered to make us better people. Life is so wonderful that spending it by trying to understand it diminishes all the beauty it has.

I do not know the answer to the question why nor do I want to give an answer based on my belief system, but what is real is that being alive has a lot to do with living it rather than questioning it.

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