Tita Linda's Journey

We lost our Tita Linda the other day. It was just last month when she was diagnosed with cancer, the disease was already in advanced stage. Unfortunately, a few days ago, her condition made a sudden turn for the worse. In the end, she was still unable to overcome her illness.
Hailing from Bacolod, Tita Linda was cheerful and malambing. She was also an excellent cook and I will certainly miss her paella and home made strawberry ice cream.
Some people shine so brightly they light the way for others. My tita was such a person. Having that light snuffed out so suddenly is a loss to the world.


It is said that Death is like a great ocean, and we are on this shore seeing people depart. But every ocean has two shores, and every person we see depart is seen as arriving on that other shore. Death is not the end.

We are standing on the seashore.
A ship at our side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength and we stand and watch her until at length she is a speck of white cloud just where the sea and the sky come to mingle with each other.
Then someone at our side says, 'There! She is gone. There, she is gone.'
Gone where?
Gone from our sight, that is all.
She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left our side and she is just as able to bear her load of living weight to her destined harbour.
Her diminished size is in us, not in her, and just at the moment when someone at our side shouts, 'There! She is gone. There, she is gone,' there are other eyes watching her coming and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, 'Here she comes. At long last, here she comes!'
And that is dying.
-Henry Van Dyke

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