ENDEAVOR

Just a week after the onset of the first enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) lockdown in March 2020, I received a text message from a long-time friend: “You must have heard that Mike (not his real name) died last night. He went home after waiting for hours to be admitted; no available hospital room.” A week later, I learned about the death of another member of the same peer group as Mike. Two months later, a third death from the same group was reported. In January 2021, yet another friend from this cohort of long-time friends passed away in the US.

In another peer group --- this time made up of office mates from way back --- two dear friends passed away in the first two months of this year: the first one was due to COVID; the next one had been chronically ill but could have been infected, too, as she showed similar symptoms.

In July this year, a friend and former neighbor --- also a fellow member of a professional organization and a civic group --- texted me from out of the blue, engaging in spirited commentary on news about an incident that broke out on network TV and the Viber chat rooms. It was a pleasant exchange and I was pleased that this long-time friend found an opportunity to reconnect. After all, we had known each other for decades and had often worked together in various projects across our shared multiple affiliations. Last month, I received word that he had been afflicted with COVID and in a matter of days, he, too, had succumbed.

As this is the last week of the month in which we honor our dearly beloved family members and friends who have passed on, I decided to write on one of the defining experiences of the new normal imposed by COVID. For want of a better term, I have opted to use this phrase: muted transitions.

‘Muted’ comes from the Zoom vocabulary. “Please unmute yourself” is the most requested action in every Zoom meeting. But no, it's the opposite reality when we come to terms with deaths of long-time friends. Quarantine rules have drastically restricted the rituals of mourning for our dearly departed. Their bodies were cremated within 24 hours; even wakes over ashes were tightly regulated in accordance with the prevailing quarantine status.

This harsh regime was consistent with the severe restrictions imposed during hospital confinement. No relatives were allowed, as patients were isolated. When a close relative of mine was confined due to Covid, her son wisely befriended the attending nurses so they could pass on messages to her. With God’s grace, she survived and had since then recuperated fully.

But hundreds more had not been as fortunate. Hence, their sudden death has inflicted deep emotional wounds on their loved ones.

We could learn a few lessons from those who have professed themselves to a lifetime of commitment to the Holy Orders. Last August, when the deadly Delta variant became rampant and led to the imposition of a month-long ECQ --- the most severe form of lockdown --- three members of a priestly order died from COVID within 10 days; two of them died within a day of each other. My priest-friend shared this narrative:

“When we were in the junior seminary (high school), there was a ritual that was held on every month-end. As we were boarding in a school dormitory, we were required to pack up our belongings and change rooms every month. This ritual signified the need to be ready to move out of your comfort zone by being acclimatized to a change of room and roommates. It was the drill --- or the dry run --- for accepting the reality of death and moving on to the next life.”

Another priest-friend from the same religious order shared a similarly memorable story:

“A ten year old boy talked with his father after the latter had brought him home from school: ‘Daddy, today is the last day of the school year. I’ve just finished grade four, next school year I’ll be in grade five and so on, as it has been since I was in kindergarten. Ganun ba talaga ‘yun: paulit-ulit lang?’” (Is that the way it really is: a cycle of repetition?) My priest-friend then gave the “correct answer” to the boy’s query which recalls the lesson from the seminarians’ drill: ‘No, my son, our purpose is to prepare to be called to go to heaven.”

(Postscript: There was sad news from the office yesterday. Samuel “Diony” Nobleza Dionisio, our long-time security guard at the main lobby, used the lunch break to go to a nearby office building to withdraw money from the bank. While he was in a queue, he collapsed and was brought to a hospital where he was declared dead on arrival. So swift and sudden was his departure – yet another muted transition.)