On Friendships, Death, and Legacy

For us, people in their late 20’s (there, I said it), death is already something we’ve given a serious thought or two. As Serj puts it, think of the years between the present and the year we were in Grade 5, put that together with our age today and that’s when, one by one, we would inevitably start complaining of chronic illnesses, like hypertension, dyslipidemia, or if someone gets unlucky, cancer. Come to think of it, that time isn’t very far off actually, for the years pass us by faster now that we’re older than when we were younger.

This has been the topic of discussion when my friends and I went beer-drinking at La Mesa Grille in SM Mall of Asia after watching Ratatouille last Saturday. Or rather, this has been the topic of discussion for two weeks in a row. But we’re not quite that worried yet about aging and death. We simply thought of how the years have gone by and how through those years our friendship was strengthened. I guess Nietzchean philosophy still applies: what doesn’t kill a friendship strengthens it and it isn’t called poison either.

We talked about the time when one by one Death would stop for us and what we would do during everybody’s wake. Somebody joked about how their sons/daughters would be driving them to the wake because they would already be wheelchair-bound by then.

And they would still come late, as always, a friend quipped.

Laughing at the idea that our quirks would remain unchanged even when we’re already old and sagging, we agreed that for each one’s wake, those who remain will bring a bottle of that person’s favorite drink, pour him a shot in a jigger and put it on the coffin with several sticks of ciggies (even if he doesn’t smoke), lighter, and an ashtray and drink to his death and perhaps, rebirth, if there would be an afterlife. We believe that death must also be celebrated with joy like birth for death means that one has lived.

And since we were on the topic of death, we would be remiss if we do not talk about legacies, too. No, it isn’t about inheritance and wills. Rather, we agreed that, since we perceive that we are at that age when death is not imminent but is a near enough future possibility and we believe that it is important that we leave a meaningful and important legacy, we would start with doing a more veritable charity work that would involve the whole barkada. We’re not simply going to gather our money and give a certain amount to a certain institution. We are thinking of sponsoring the education of, at least, one child. All of us will try to come up with a certain amount each year, enough to send the child to school. But it will not end there. We will schedule visits to the child to show our genuine concern for how he and his schooling is turning out and offer help whenever possible and needed. It would be gratifying to watch how a child, given chance and all the help possible, mold his own future and grow up to be a good, well-educated person who could contribute to the betterment of the country.

It is a small endeavor perhaps, concentrating on just one child. But if time and money permit, we can start sponsoring a few more. A little difference it might make but, I think, a well-educated person will spell good benefits to a society plagued by poverty and poor education. And we need not anymore think of what he can do to benefit the country. Think of the life he’ll have! To be able to help improve another person’s life and be somewhat partly responsible for his good future is, perhaps, the best legacy one can give.

This project is still in the making. And it’s a bit complicated for us, who know nothing about organizing such projects. If you have any suggestions as to how my friends and I can go about it, please do email me. As of now, we’re still concentrating on gathering funds for our Christmas gift-giving project for kids who are working in the streets in our local area: the newspaperboys, the junior garbage collectors (they’re actually more hardworking than the government-employed garbage collectors), and the sampaguita peddlers. These kids never had the chance to experience the wonderful childhood that most of us had, all because they needed to start working at an early stage to be able to provide for their family and for themselves. We do believe that these kids need to be given the chance to, at least, experience, even for a while, that they are kids, free from the problems of the adult world.

So now you see why I love my friends. For people who’ve known one another for a decade or two (some of us were classmates since kindergarten!), we’ve gone through a lot of joys and hardships that could perhaps make any shallow friendships crumble to dust. And yet here we are still. We’re not only a group of people who’re happy together because of booze, food, and gimmicks. We are a group of people who’ve seen each other’s bests and worsts and still, we love each other as much as we can while still alive and, for sure, until death. If there is something that I could give someone before I finally take that last breath, I would wish that someone to have the best friends anyone could have in this world…just like the friends that I have now.