-Friday, April 28, 2006- Do not wear red at funerals.

yesterday, i attended the funeral of my father's close friend-slash-neighbor-slash-family friend, Sig. Giuseppe Staibene. he was 60 something and had cancer. he found out that he had cancer almost 2 years ago, when his doctor told him that no one could do anything to cure him, but he never gave up on life, he never blamed God, he accepted and embraced his "destiny". he was pretty ironic about him having cancer and knowing that sooner than anyone expected, God may call him. everyone thought he would pass away before my father, but then again to err is human. he died only 6 months after papà did. he and his wife lived one floor up to ours, my parents and them have known each other even before i was born. i still remember how we found out about his cancer, one hot summer, papà and i were to pick up mamma somewhere in the center of town when we saw him and his wife at the bus stop waiting in vain for the always-late-every-summer bus and decided to give them a ride. the streets were almost empty, seems like everyone has already gone to their vacation spots then papà asked them on where they're spending their vacation and he said they're staying here in the oh-so-hot milan, that's when papà decided to invite them to join us for a week or two in the U.S. of A. at my sister's place, giuseppe then said that they prefer to stay here, just to make sure that if he dies, he'd be at their humble place. that's when he told us he had cancer and all that other stuff. in one of those hot nights when i was trying to get some relief with the help of the nonexistent breeze, i wondered how one feels knowing that one day or another he might die, feeling that his exsistence has an expiration date of some kind.

yes, he wanted to relinquish life at his humble home and there he slept in peace.

the priest who celebrated the funeral mass said that giuseppe would often talk to him about life and death and most times even joked about it.

priest: don't say goodbye, instead say see you in paradise.
giuseppe: if all the people who dies goes to paradise then it's pretty crowded in there... how will i recognize the people i knew?
(then a laugh between him and giuseppe would start until it was time for giuseppe to go back home)

he was a happy-ironic-man, very well-educated, never had prejudice, he loved life. the only thing that worried him was that he was to leave his wife alone.

at the church, it was simply amazing that i was the only "foreigner", (i came there by myself) yet i never felt alone not even for a single second. which reminds me of a famous line from sex and the city, if my memory serves me right. the one that talks about living in a big city like new york, of course, being surrounded by all those people and yet feel lonely... something like that... ohh... i have a very bad memory.

::- to giuseppe... arrivederci in paradiso! -::

♣ ♣ ♣

who said that we should not wear anything red on funerals? and what exactly is the reason , again? i think it's only us filipinos who actually do this stuff.. i mean half of the people in that church were wearing red, even giuseppe's youngest son and some of his grandchildren were in red.

♠ ♠ ♠

† today is lolo's (grandpa's) 3rd year death anniversary. †



have a great weekend, everyone!
take lotsa care! ta-ta people!

haloscan old comments

signed,
who deemed @ 8:41 PM

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