The Remains of the Day


While getting ready for a much needed sleep at about 2AM at the Memoires de Saigon, I glanced at the bedside table and saw the book my hubby is feasting on – The Remains of the Day…
My mind instantaneously wandered to the grim reality of daily deadly scenes in the Philippines, especially in the busy, urban centers of Cebu and Manila. No one, I suppose, desires to harbor such dreadful thoughts at bedtime. 
I often wonder how many of us, Filipinos, living in or away from our country ask ourselves – how many more will eternally rest, unceremoniously to say the least, and more accurately - unjustly? 
Out of habit or a genuine sympathy for the family or friends of a person who recently died, many of us would send them a message – “may God grant your dearly beloved eternal rest” or “may he or she rest in peace.”
With the daily carnage especially in the cities, what does death mean? When we feel uncomfortable mentioning the word death to a grieving person, we sometimes say – “your beloved is now at peace,” which is, more of a euphemism, when we want to be more polite or to comfort the grieving family. Or perhaps we are so uncomfortable with acknowledging the reality of death that we refer to the dead as “dearly departed” or as an attempt to reassure those left behind, we offer soothing words such as - “he has now gone to a better place.”
Are we meant to be disturbed over the untimely and unjust deaths that some local and international groups are keeping count of? 
If we were in the presence of these grieving families, what would we want to say to them? 
Words might come easy to those who find these killings justified and that there is nothing wrong with planting evidence to justify these unlawful killings. 
For those of us who find it hard to swallow how a predominantly Christian nation could tolerate such acts, we must still be frozen, and in a state of shock. But to remain in a state of shock when we daily see, read or hear in the news of the remains of the victims of state sanctioned killings will lead us nowhere. To be stunned too long, may make us only deaf and blind and fearful or indifferent to the gruesomeness of it all.
What remains at the end of the day? Or what remains at the end of a social decay process? What remains in our consciousness or more specifically in the consciousness of the youth and the children with all these untimely deaths? 
They who left us, whom most of us do not personally know, will they be back to haunt us? Will the largely unknown victims be the ones to remind us who we truly are as a people? 
Nothing remains the same, after all the carnage. 
Yet, I still hope, that we can still tap into the basic goodness deep in each of our hearts, to make those who have left us, truly be at rest and at peace.
I still trust, that at the end of the day, what remains is our sincere desire, our concerted, no matter how slow, effort to turn things around…


1152AM, Saigon, C. Ariza, 29 July 2018

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