Disclaimer: This Is Not A Sad Post.

So last Sunday, our family went to Cavite to go to my father's grandmother's funeral wake. I came because I must and I have to pay my respect because that was the 2nd and last time that I would see my father's lola. Lola was very dear to papa because she gave him love, support, compassion, and hope when he was still a little boy and when everybody turned their backs on him since his own father died. We have never been close to my father's relatives because of reasons that are very long and personal. That is to say, I am clueless aside from the stories my papa always relates to us.

(c) Pinterest

 When we got there it wasn't cozy or anything close to it, what did I expect. The trip was the only exhilarating part. Where we've got the chance to see a different light apart from the crowded Manila and our hometown Pasig. Plus stopovers are a bliss. I am always fascinated with how stores and food chains' ambiance feel different on other places.  Then it was all greeting each person, mano po to the elderly, mingling and babysitting the babies and the other kids there. And there was a time that I got cranky and acted like a spoiled girl because I was tired and exhausted and the night was noisy and drunk and other reasons. Horrendous, disgusting self.
To cut the agony short, when morning came it was more bearable. But I'd have to isolate myself in the car while the rain started pouring. Good thing I brought a book with me (it never lets me down, wise decision). 

I started reading The Five People You Meet In Heaven which I've always wanted to read.

(c) google

It was so relevant. And it still is purely dramatic, inspirational, heart-capturing and enlightening given that Mitch Albom (whom I thought was a woman even if I already read For One More Day) was the author. I couldn't forget the setting while I was reading it. It was raining outside the car, I was all alone and I kept on toss and turning just to get the comfortable way to read. Then my tears unprecedentedly falls on every unguarded moment.

It would be the Captain/ 2nd person Eddie meets in heaven part that I wanted to drop to the car floor curl myself and cry and cry. While reading it I recall the events in my life especially the night before it and I was so embarrassed for myself, on my actions and words. The book was too enlightening. Life, Death, Afterlife..

Like, all of us have our own interpretation and visualization of the physical/ metaphorical heaven. And Albom's could be considered as one of them. It can be because of the observation of life that it said

“There are no random acts...We are all connected...You can no more separate one life from another than you can separate a breeze from the wind...” 

“It is because the human spirit knows, deep down, that all lives intersect. That death doesn't just take someone, it messes someone else, and in the small distance between being taken and being missed, lives are changed.” 

“There are five people you meet in heaven. Each of us was in your life for a reason. You may not have known the reason at the time, and that is what heaven is for. For understanding your life on earth. This is the greatest gift God can give you: to understand what happened in your life. To have it explained. It is the peace you have been searching for.”  -The Five People You Meet In Heaven, Mitch Albom 

It's hard to argue with the last statement because all people go through their lives being miserable. Miserable because we don't see the bigger picture. All we see are the bad things that are happening in our lives, good things that we wanted to stay and we just piece them all together little by little until we recognize the significance of each one. Though sometimes we already give up and that is why we regret or suffer.

“All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.” 

“Parents rarely let go of their children, so children let go of them. They move on. They move away. The moments that used to define them - a mother's approval, a father's nod - are covered by moments of their own accomplishments. It is not until much later, as the skin sags and the heart weakens, that children understand; their stories, and all their accomplishments, sit atop the stories of their mothers and fathers, stones upon stones, beneath the waters of their lives.” -The Five People You Meet In Heaven, Mitch Albom 

I'm the worst daughter a parent could have. So I salute my parents for being able to still live with and for me for more than 16 years. I couldn't say this to them but I want to apologize and thank them everyday, which I know still wouldn't be enough. Though parents are not and could never be perfect.

“Holding anger is a poison...It eats you from inside...We think that by hating someone we hurt them...But hatred is a curved blade...and the harm we do to others...we also do to ourselves.” -The Five People You Meet In Heaven, Mitch Albom 

I'm sorry.

“Sacrfice," the captain said. "You made one. I made one. We all made them. But you were angry over yours. You kept thinking about what you lost. You didn't get it. Sacrifice is a part of life. It's supposed to be. It's not something to regret. It's something to aspire to.”   -The Five People You Meet In Heaven, Mitch Albom 

To my very selfish heart.

“Strangers are family you haven't recognize yet”  -The Five People You Meet In Heaven, Mitch Albom 

And that is for my ungrateful and disrespectful attitude.
Bless your soul, lola. She was buried this morning. ☨

i find this cute (read: tfios)