By Atty. Proceso Martin Remollo III
In behalf of the Remollo and Martinez families, I would like to express our sincere gratitude to everyone for taking time not only to be with us to celebrate the life and legacy of our mother Carmita Martinez-Remollo, but for also offering help and support to our family in various forms during our most difficult time. Salamat. To our families, close relatives and friends, Mom’s doctors, nurses, hospital staff, caregivers; the janitors, guards, and orderlies at Ace Hospital who all made things lighter and bearable during our five-month stay there, thank you.
Of all the fears that frighten all of us, none is greater than the fear of death. It is our greatest fear. The sum of all our fears.
But do we really fear death itself? Or is it what happens after we die? I guess we all have to find the answer to this question because by doing so, we’d be able to know how to live and spend each of our remaining years.
We’ve been taught at a young age that there is a time to be born, and a time to die. But does death really win in the end? Did death truly win upon Mommy’s passing? My answer is no, for I know that Mommy will always be remembered by everyone whose lives she touched.
Death for me should not be the end of our individual story because sometimes, being forgotten is sadder than dying many times over, and still being lovingly and fondly remembered. Life goes on, and memories arent forgotten and lost just because they are no longer with us.
The beauty of life is not in what we keep but in what we give, in the love we share, the kindness we leave behind, and the lives we touch along the way.
Mommy has indeed touched hundreds of lives. She was there for everyone. Always. She was there for everyone as a daughter, a niece, a sibling, cousin, wife, mother, lola, friend, and employer. Always there for everyone in need.
That’s why it’s sad that she was right there when my brothers and I took our first breaths, but sadly, we weren’t there when she took her last.
This somehow bothered me at first. But I guess that was how Mommy wanted to go. How she wanted to leave this world. So now I have no regrets. We all make time for who and what we feel is most important in our lives.
As they say, time is the most precious gift we can give someone because if you give that person your time, it’s a part of your life that you will never ever be able to get back. And Mom has given her time to a lot of us. She chose to leave 20 years more after Dad left. She “waited” nga dagko naming kalabaw before joining Daddy who passed away in 2005.
As to memories and good things I can say about Mommy Mita, I know we all have our individual stories to tell as to how she has touched each of our lives. And she has touched countless lives from school, in the work place, to the bank, and as manager of Polo Plantation.
Farewell Mom, and see you soon. Puhon we will all be together again, just like the old days. When it’s my time to go, I pray that you and Daddy will be there in heaven to meet me. Tagboa baya ko ninyo because I am still afraid of death, and I, too, must still have to find the answer to the question whether it’s death that scares me, or what happens after we die, and the loved ones we leave behind.
