68 More Visits to the Grave………..

There was a slight drizzle this morning greeting the pilgrims to the stone city. It was as if heaven was silently weeping reminding us the solemn occasion. The teardrops from heaven awaken us to the painful and gloomy memories of the past and reminded us also of what future lies ahead, that someday we will be dead and share a space however small in this city of stone. It is in this backdrop that the city of the dead suddenly became bustling with life with the living haunting the dead and breaking the eerie silence. I was one of pilgrims this morning and like everyone else, I came to visit the dead. Visit, what an inappropriate word used to describe the act for as if the dead ever knew or even expect that somebody was coming to see them. The proper term for such act should be to come and pay my respect for the dead. Anyway, like every year, I first visited my father’s grave, lay out the offerings and pay my homage by inserting 4 lighted incense sticks on a small mound of sand in front of his tombstone along with my whispered message. After which, I lay the paper money on top of his grave and hike off to do the same with my grandfather, which happens to be located on the farther end of the stone city. It is actually a very frantic day filled with formulaic rituals and cumbersome ceremonies. In the midst of this frenzy, I actually forgot to “tell” both my grandfather and my father the good news that I graduated from my masters a month ago. I was meaning to “tell” them the Sunday after the graduation but somehow the mundane tasks of living allowed me the excuse to postpone again and again and now I was there and I forgot to “tell” them. Actually, I’d never believe in rituals and ceremonies neither in any religion that supports such. Nevertheless, I still perform the rituals and ceremonies because human beings are such a succor for rituals even if they don’t understand them neither would they care to understand them. As for me, I do understand them, i.e., those rituals and ceremonies. The things we do like offering incense, offering foods, burning paper money, etc., are done to remind us of our departed love ones. Those formulaic acts are devised to institutionalize their past existence into our memories by expressing our love to them however futile and useless it maybe by now. There are not acts of worship as some foreign, close – minded religion suggests because I never view my father as a “god”. He would always be my father. I remember a story my elementary school teacher once relates to me in class. The story begins with a Westerner chiding a Chinese for preparing an elaborate banquet as an offering to the dead saying that the dead wouldn’t rise up to eat the foods being offered to them and to which the Chinese shot back, neither would your dead rise up to smell the flowers you put in their grave. The point of this little anecdote is that the acts and rituals we do aren’t meant for the dead. It is actually a way we comfort ourselves of their “missing” presence. It is a way we try to remember them amidst a fading memory. And what better way to remember our departed love ones than to labor on their favorite dishes and offer it to them? As for the other rituals and ceremonies, though their origins has religious connotations, I still performs them even though I don’t believe in them anymore. My reason is simple. Why should I forsake a cultural tradition that I’m familiar with in favor of a tradition that is totally alien to me? Wasn’t it the thought that counts rather than the action? If it is so, why the insistence? My mother once told me a long time ago, that she wanted to be “worshipped” like her ancestors before by the time she pass away (She is still very much alive). It is then I realize the essence of perpetuating “old” traditions. “Old” traditions are an assurance that the living will be remembered when they’re gone. It is when traditions are passed from one generation to the next that that assurance will be affirmed. This brings me to another question. How do I want to be remembered? Looking around, I’d only found tombstone with pictures and names written along with their date of birth and their date of death and nothing else. These dead lived their entire life and what do they have to show for? A blank tablet. Was this tablet enough a description of their existence? Is that will be my epitaph? “Here lies Mr. XXXXXX, born XXXX, died XXXX”. It is so short and so unfair and so unjust but an inescapable fact except for a kindred few. History immortalizes the memories of these exceptional few. They are rare because their exploits are also rare. It is as if they are the only ones living in their times while the silent many were simply nothing or didn’t exist. Funny, but wasn’t that silent many that remembers the exceptional few? Or perhaps, I’m looking at the wrong signs. It is not the epitaph that perpetuates memory rather it is the number of incense sticks that protrude from the sacred ground. It is the offspring that comes every year to offer food and incense that perpetuates the memory of that person, proving that once he or she existed and that although he or she didn’t do great feats worthy of historical records, he or she will be remembered nonetheless because he or she was their love ones. As I was engrossed with this thought, I began counting. I’m now 31. The average Filipino male lived up to 65 and for a Chinese, we visit the dead twice a year, one on November 1 and the other during the Ching Ming, that means I had 68 more “visits” to go before it would be my time to lie on the ground 6 feet under. Plenty of time to live, to build an edifice, and to raise a family to pass on the tradition and hence, be remembered for.