"3 things I have seen this week: 3 Deaths"

"3 things I have seen this week: 3 Deaths"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.MD

It will just be a couple of months now before I turn 41. 2 months to be exact and nothing reminds me of my own mortality than death. 2 of them from people almost the same age as me and one is a family friend who you always expected to be in family gatherings forever but who was taken oh so suddenly as well.

1) The Childhood Crush  

Isabel Granada is a fit and beautiful woman in her early 40's. She had been a childhood crush and I was so thrilled to have stood next to her in the airport. I was so choked up that I never had the courage to talk to her. And so when the news broke of her suffering an aneurysm it bordered on the surreal. She was more fit than the women in our age group and yet she was revealed to be a ticking time bomb.

2) The Childhood Bridge

When my Dad and I talked the other he mentioned than one of our neighbors had died and when he described it I instantly remember who she was. She was Erlinda Fernandez , a friend of one of my exe's who had served as a bridge since she had no problem talking to me. She had been diagnosed with cancer and had left two young children. She was also in her early 40's. And it seems that all those childhood memories also passed with her.

3) The Ever Present Tito Rene

Since I could remember Tito Rene was at every major family party that I went to and so I was taken aback when I heard the news of his passing. A heart attack on a plane going back to Manila. It will be sad for his family as the Christmas season goes into full swing. I know that he still had a lot of plans as he would often go to and fro.

These deaths remind me that work should not be the only thing that should occupy my time. Family is the most important and the things that I have been ignoring like eating right and sleeping right or even that novel that has been in the back burner for some time. I am alive. I can still do these things. No need to hold back.