Remembering Peter...

Life can be funny sometimes when we realize how we spend so much of our time & effort on things that don't really matter.

Last Wednesday night, I was online & was somewhat amused with the controversy raging on over a player in a football club I've supported over the past 18 years. Reading an interesting anecdote, I tagged a few friends in a post on my Facebook account somewhere around 2am on Thursday, October 21st. Little did I know that the next post on one of the tagged friend was to be the last ever "crazy" post I'd share with him...

The fateful last posting

 

 

 

It was only later during the next day that a posting on my Facebook wall caught my eye. Someone published a picture of that friend with the dreaded words "In Loving Memory" on it...  After recovering from the initial shock, I found out that indeed he passed on the previous day...

I guess that we're bound to feel this way when we see someone with a whole future mapped out before them is then snatched away in the blink of an eye. It hurts even more I guess when it's someone we know, someone we've spoken to, someone we shared something with...

I have to admit that I'm not the closest of friends to Peter in his lifetime. We crossed path in school where he was 5 years my junior and when he eventually came to the morning session, I had left the school to further my studies... I did however get the opportunity to get to know him when we both served the church as altar servers... Despite being assigned to different services, we'd meet here and there during activities, meeting et al...

Despite that being over a decade & a half back and a brief one at that, I remembered thinking then that this is one cheerful chap... He'd happily helped out when we were making preparations for solemnities & feast days in church... He never complained when the then sacristan (a stern looking nun) instructed him to do a spot of cleaning, decorating & polishing... And he'd almost always be surrounded by laughter with his jokes and anecdotes...

Thanks to the wonder of Facebook, we were connected again earlier this year... We shared a common interest in football so it was an easy transition from not speaking over the years to being "buddies" again... I guess there in lies the regret... Not actually going beyond the odd posts & comments instead of being a friend in the real sense... A friend who's a listener... One who dispenses advice... One who's concerned with his well being & daily state of affair...

Now that Peter is gone in his mortal form, the world would definitely be a lesser places especially for those who knew him well... At this juncture, I could only implore that God gives Peter a merciful judgment. through  prayers.. In upholding his faith over the years, I'm certain that he's currently enjoying eternity with the company of angels and saints...

According to Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, when we're dying or have suffered a catastrophic loss, we all move through five distinct stages of grief.

We go into denial because the loss is so unthinkable we can't imagine it's true.

We become angry with everyone, angry with survivors, angry with ourselves.

Then we bargain. We beg. We plead. We offer everything we have, we offer our souls in exchange for just one more day.

When the bargaining has failed and the anger is too hard to maintain, we fall into depression, despair, until finally we have to accept that we've done everything we can. We let go.

We let go and move into acceptance...

Peter would remain always in our memories... Cheers bro... Till we meet again...