My journalist friends—Mang Ruben Cusipag, Mang Tony Sikat, Jojo Taduran, Tenny Soriano and Butch Galicia—have retired permanently, resting in their graves.
Once in a while, I think about them because I know I’ll have the same eventuality– passing on.
Being a senior, I cannot help but think about both life’s uncertainty and its eventuality, that someday, I will go to the same resting place where they are now, where there are no more pains.
Except for Butch, all of them had come to Canada ahead of me, but when they were still in the Philippines, I used to rub elbows with them either when we were covering our respective beats or drinking in our favourite watering hole, Our National Press Club.
So, when I came here to Toronto in 1994, Mang Tony Sikat, Jojo and Tenny were the first media people who accompanied me to some community gatherings and press conferences; it was their way of making me feel the” community spirit.”
Although I was already writing for Bluffs Monitor, I was so grateful to Jojo for being instrumental in meeting up with some publishers and editors of the Filipino community papers. Mang Tony and I were almost neighbours in Scarborough, and at one time, when he visited the Philippines, Mang Tony gave me two big coffee-table books about the Philippines and the National Press Club. I was so grateful to Mang Tony for gifting me those two heavy books.
Oh, how could I ever forget Tenny, the guy who would always greet anyone with “Pre, rhapsody, how are you?”. Back home, when we were still covering the military beat, we would, from time to time, see each other at the office of Brig. Cris Maralit, the Philippine National Police spokesman, either interviewed Maralit or had our free lunch there.
I would always encounter Mang Ruben when he paid a visit to the NPC, and when he was there at the club, he would share some bottles of beer with his friends. Mang Ruben was known as ” the journalist from Canada” at the club.
Knowing Mang Ruben, I readily invited him to attend some PLM gatherings in Toronto in the late 90s.
Though they were my close friends, on the day they died, I sent my sympathies and condolences to their families whom they had left behind. My dear dead friends are not suffering anymore; they are sleeping in death, awaiting their resurrection, and the Bible tells us they are not conscious at all: “For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing at all nor do they have any more reward, because all memory of them is forgotten.” ( Ecc 9:5) and death is likened to sleep (Ps 13:3).
With the death of our loved ones, we are all sad, but not very sad, because of the comforting thoughts from God’s Word that our dead loved ones are just sleeping in death. One day, we will see them waking up (resurrection) from their deep sleep ( John 5:28-29) to hug them again tightly and welcome them back to live in the new Paradise Earth (2 Peter 3:13).
The question foremost in the minds of many people is, are our dead loved ones now in heaven enjoying the company of angels?
Read what our God says in Ps 115:16: “As for the heavens, they belong to Jehovah, But the earth he has given to the sons of men.”
So, in short, we are earth-bound; Ps 37:29 says, “The righteous will possess the earth, And they will live forever on it.”
Now we can look forward to the day when our God transforms this world into a Paradise where “And he will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away.” (Rev 21:4)