SUDDEN DEATH

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Why did this happen? The unexpected death of loved ones is hard to accept and this most painful incident could happen to any of us. What makes it worse is that even though you were given chances to be with them even for a short time, yet you let thoe chances pass thinking that there are other chances to get together. The lack of time to bring this important relationship to a positive close causes much anguish to those of us whose loved ones die without a warning. We wish that we could have known in order to say and do what we wanted to. Talking about my own experience, I wish I could have just one more brief moment with my cousin to tell her how much I cared for and loved her; apologize for ways I might have hurt her; explain why I treated her the way I did; or let her know what she really meant to me. Weeks ago I was rushed to the hospital due to severe asthma attack. I could barely breathe. Trying to catch my breath felt like drowning. It almost felt like being on the verge of death. Praise God I got to recover. On the fifth day before I left the hospital, despite having an inserted IV in my wrist, my cousin visited me. The next day she fell sick. She was happy then as she narrated her new teaching experience in one of the upland barangays in our City. I gave her advice as she considered me “dite” (older sister) who had a longernteaching experience. But during her visit I didn’t chat with her that much because I felt weak and I gasped for breath everytime I spoke. I didn’t even feel that she had already left my room as, so my sister told me, I fell asleep, maybe due to anti-histamine intake. Despite my health condition, I pushed myself to visit her in the hospital the other day when she was already in coma and could no longer hear what my heart wanted to say. I knelt and prayed and asked for another chance at life for my cousin. But maybe God has his own way of giving our body complete rest. I knew my cousin fought for her life as she felt our presence, giving her moral support while she struggled for her life in ICU for almost three days.

We had no preparation and no time to gradually absorb the reality that at a snap of a finger everything is would change dramatically. I felt miserable for my widowed aunt and the sudden death of her daughter who happened to be her one and only child. It was really too traumatic for her. The physical and emotional shock appeared to be more intense as the days passed by. Lord, helps us to understand that life is a gift and that it will not remain with us for long. Help us to realize that though life is a sorrow, we can overcome the pain. It is an ironic but positive consequence of sudden death that I appreciate and value life more now. God gave me another chance to live life according to His will, to share to other the real essence of living. Lord, use me as your instrument for this purpose.