Death opens many doors, for the family and others whose lives the departed has touched. It opens a floodgate of emotions, but also of wisdom from the most unlikely source. Having experienced the loss of loved ones, one thinks one knows much of what there is to know about dying and letting go, heaven and hell, health and death … until the innocents show the way.
At 90, my father-in-law Cesar Araneta Villariba had lived a full life. The remarkable trait of the man I knew for almost 40 years as “Tatay Iba” was his sense of timing and history. He stayed on to mark his 90th birthday last November with his brood of 13 children and their progeny as well as his friends, even as it seemed that his wife, our “Nanay Nene” who passed a year before, was beckoning him to join her in that blissful state of no pain and no worries.
And when Tatay Iba’s aging body took a turn for the worse, he pulled through as if to say he still had one more train to board. On Christmas Eve he rose from his sickbed and asked to be wheeled out for the last big family reunion that had gathered for him. He stayed at the center of attention just long enough to take all the love in. Only weeks before, he lay dying of pneumonia in hospital.
The merrymaking done, it was time to go.
That he chose an auspicious date, Jose Rizal’s death anniversary on Dec. 30, to leave the earthly plane was not lost on his eldest son, Sonny. For Tatay Iba is very much a hero to his family and to those he served—as a war veteran, public servant, religious lay leader and educator. His son-in-law, Edicio dela Torre, noted the connection, saying that the dean emeritus of the Graduate School of Enverga University believed, as Rizal did, in the critical role of education in nation-building.
On that fateful day Tatay Iba crosses over to the spirit world, but not before asking for hugs from his grandchildren and for a taste of his favorite dish. And then, in the presence of family members who gather around him along with praying nuns and neighbors in the close-knit community around the Carmelite nuns’ convent, he breathes his last.
Instinctively, 12-year-old Manny presses his portly body against his grandfather’s as the man fades away. He has been taking his turn watching over his lolo since the latter came home from hospital. In the gesture, Manny fulfills his grandfather’s last wish for a touch, an effort at making a farewell connection with the physical body.
In folklore, a child who receives an embrace from a dying warrior is also the recipient of the talisman that enabled the warrior to survive his battles. But, bucking superstition, the family makes Manny realize what a treasure and privilege he has received from the patriarch, to preclude any childhood fear or trauma.
Tatay Iba’s passing is not entirely a surprise, but it triggers a rush of sadness and tears among his children. Unaware of what has transpired, his first great grandson, 9-year-old Gavin, is struck by the sudden commotion in the house that only days before was the scene of a joyful Christmas celebration.
Speaking in Filipino, he confronts everyone he sees in tears: “Why are you sad? What’s going on?” The adults are hard put to reply, but he persists until he gets an answer. And, not content with being told that Lolo Iba’s soul, the life force that made him alive and responsive, has left the body, the child floors everyone with his succeeding queries.
“Is Lolo Iba in hell?” he asks with an expression of wonderment. Seventh daughter Dr. Ceres, within listening distance of a nun who is leading the prayers, hushes him and says, “No, Gavin, Lolo Iba has gone to heaven.”
The child’s retort is instant: “[Then] why are you crying?!”
Across the Pacific in California, another scene is unfolding simultaneously. A great granddaughter, 4-year-old Alique, seeing her parents distraught by the news that Tatay Iba has passed, tells them to stop weeping because “he is now with Nanay Nene in heaven.” Hearing the child’s advice, her mother Gayle is moved to dry her tears.
At the height of the wake, fifth daughter Jojie is exhausted. She slumps on a seat and groans melodramatically, “I have a splitting headache, I think I’m going to die.” At which Gavin looks at his grandaunt and tells her, “Sonny and Lynett say, eat healthy food and you won’t die.”
Did the child get his grandparents’ advice, said at the dining table, all wrong?
Later, his grandpa Sonny, talking parapsychology, explains that Gavin has gotten it right. The child is saying that with all the grief and tears he has just witnessed, the family can’t afford another death at this time. So he picks a line from his impression bank to stop people around him from dying, despite heaven being an attractive proposition.
And so the family survives the sorrow and pain of losing a loved one, but the children blurt out hard questions to reflect on. We are accorded 40 days to do so.
There is a traditional religious view that the period of 40 days after death is the time when the departed soul is “judged,” his life flashing before his eyes, and then directed where to go: to heaven or elsewhere, or back to life, if there are still accounts to settle. It is believed that the soul lingers on the earthly plane during these 40 days—a nanosecond in eternity.
For the living, the period is plenty of time for acceptance, healing and closure. From one funeral to another, we all have sought to demystify death or what comes after life. But we fail because the limited intellect can rely only on hand-me-down information, if not faith, or what the scriptures tell us. And we remain stuck with the fear of dying.
So during this period, this adult searched within, with the uncluttered mind of a child, to explore the mystics’ method of dying while still in the body. Its other name is meditation, and it helps us conquer our fear of death, to prepare us for a smooth crossover.
From my limited experience, the method of dying while living as taught by a living Master is a gradual, willful withdrawal of consciousness from the tip of the toes to the top of the head, holding it at a point behind what we know as the third eye. With practice and concentration, I overcome the pain in my lower limbs—called the sting of dying and described as “pricks of a thousand scorpions”—until I become oblivious to my still and living body, but expand in awareness. There is a gush of energy leading to an indescribable state of bliss. If I am able to hold my undivided attention with the help of a mantra given by the Master, the inner journey becomes a ride in the wind to celestial music and effulgent light.
For me then, by this definition, heaven is for real. It happens within the body, in a spaceless, timeless realm “located” between the eye center and the top of the head. It is not, as the material scientist insists, a brain activity or hallucination induced by chemical interplay.
Similarly, mystics say that dying is the soul’s departure from a deteriorating physical body. It begins from the lower limbs and moves upward, finally exiting through the portal of the third eye. The journey beyond is the otherworld experience, depending on who is meeting and leading you.
Saints and mystics make it apparent that dying is as important as being born. Life is just a timeframe but it does not end with death. Dying is a crossover from a time-governed physical life to a timeless and ageless spirit world. With the disarming innocence and plainspoken boldness of a child, it need not be traumatic.
Lynett A. Villariba is the art and design director of the Inquirer.