But what is grief, if not love persevering? ~ Vision from Wandavision
I am afraid of death … I don’t think about it often since I’m alive most of the time. And for the times when I feel I’m not, I am still … in all the physical sense of things and in the absence of evidence to the contrary, I am VERY much alive. Living, breathing, loving.
Death is only one of the biggest questions about life that I am resigned of not understanding. I have been a seeker of knowledge but anything that speaks about death, I can only comprehend for what happens in the physical world and what one feels in grief throughout the experience of the ones left behind. What happens to the consciousness and the soul who passed — I will never know.
I have resigned to accept that I will never know the absolute truth to the meaning of life even while I pursue a life of meaning. While the latter can be discovered in one’s lifetime, the former, not so … and perhaps may only be found out once the inquisitor reaches the end of his life. But does the answer to the former even matter?
For if there is life after death, then the answers may be revealed by the higher being that created life. But when there is no life after death, then whether you know or not know, it does not make any difference. There is a metaphysical belief that only our physical bodies die, and our consciousness emerges out of its bodily container to join the grander scheme of things, the greater cosmic entity that is the universe and the Collective Conscious.
But in all of these things, consciousness or not … does it matter? Would it matter to join the angels and our God when we become a whole new person? Would it matter to join the Collective Consciousness to serve a higher purpose and being … IF you don’t have any memories of WHO you were when you once lived?
For what are memories, but the information contained only within a mind that shall eventually die. Even memories themselves are not immortal … the mind forgets — and even while captured through the technologies of man: in writing, in photos, and in any other media created — the recollection of one’s memories is only but a history captured in part and is incomplete: the nuances, the emotions, the details aren’t fully captured, for where the camera is pointed at only one direction, there’s a whole lot of story that is left out that the lens wouldn’t be able to capture in one frame.
So even when I make an attempt to write a eulogy to celebrate Ramil’s life … does it matter? For however much I long to express and let Ramil know of my heart, he will never know about my gratitude and my grief. His time has ended, while I and all the people who loved him that are left behind can only mourn in the depths of our hearts.
But even while writing for one who has already passed and who will never receive the “captured” parts of my soul, I still feel the desire to write in honor of his memory. That somewhere and in some place in the annals of the world wide web, a memory of Ramil shall live in legacy even while after the writer, too, shall pass.
I write because I, too am going to pass eventually as Ramil has also passed. And I write this as a letter of love and mourning, and for those of us whom he has left behind.
I do not wish to say that Ramil was a good friend, mentor, and colleague to me. He was more than that, as he has been to more people whom he has genuinely cared for. To the person who loved Ramil and has received his love in return, he was a man who gave his best to live an authentic life: being true to himself and speaking his truths while also being warm and open for others so that they, too, can live their authentic lives.
Ramil was the person who gifted me the knowledge of a mind mapping tool which I had since used in many ways throughout my conscious life — MECE which stands for Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive. One box can only be in one bigger box and all of the boxes are contained in all the bigger boxes, and none of them share boxes.
I cannot for sure write a eulogy that is MECE, that is beyond my mental capacity, but I will dare try MECE the expression of his authentic life based on the time he has shared with me — he is a man of principle and lived by his values: he takes responsibility of his actions, expresses his truths in a way that included others, and acts with dignity and integrity.
I remember Ramil as a very intelligent and refined leader when I met him first while I was a learner in his EY Core Consulting trainings. I remember wanting to be calm and reserved while also being engaging and comfortable “like” him as he facilitated the training; if I’m not mistaken, that was also when I first heard about MECE as a tool. I looked up to him and he became my role model since, the type of manager I wanted to become when I became one, and desired to be as intelligent and eloquent as he was.
I used to believe that someone like him was unapproachable … since I felt intimidated by his intelligence and refined expressions; except that he was the one who approaches people first. Warming up and opening up to him even as a superior, and eventually as a peer (as a I myself held the position of a leader), was easy.
I was surprisingly comfortable and felt easy with him. Whenever I’m with him, I felt heard and seen by him as an equal; And most especially, he is one of the few very busy people who is fully present with you even as you speak — be it work related or personal matters in life. When you approach him, he stops what he’s doing and turns his body towards you, signaling that he is ready for you. When he’s slouched or has his body close to the laptop, you know he’s engrossed and quiet, so you don’t approach him not unless he turns towards you whenever you approach (not him) but your station, he smiles. He always does.
When I became a manager myself, we used to co-facilitate in EY Core Consulting and other Advisory sessions. He was always easy and fun to be with … neither overbearing nor too nice. He was a perfectly balanced colleague whom you feel safe to share your worries at work and never feel judged but rather supported and he advised thoughtfully. He laughs and jokes with you and also respects your space, he’s not tiring to be with — we do complain of small things, and we can laugh it off, and when we speak of serious matters, we are well-adapted. I believed he must have been introverted like me, that’s why we can relate to each other in so many things, with how we understand the world and with how we interact with others.
I haven’t seen Ramil in the last two years and have kept our communication rare and sporadic through the years. He was one of my very few friends whom I used to call as low-maintenance friendships (as all my friendships are) — I don’t have to check in with them often, nor do they check in with me. But when we do decide to meet up, we do converse as if we haven’t missed each other nor spent time away from each other.
After Ramil’s death, it made me think of how I am with my friendships and how I dislike the idea of any more of them to pass without me telling them how much I loved and appreciated them.
In all the times we’ve been together as friends, Ramil only made me cry thrice — once while he was alive and twice when he is dead.
I cried first when I found out that he has been critically ill for a long time then, and that I’ve only found out about it last month. I was surprised to have felt tears when I heard the news … I do not believe that I was the type of a distanced friend who can feel pain for another. But it was Ramil, he has been a big inspiration to me throughout my career in EY and there I was, seeing a man who was dignified and refined … suffer and look too close to his end, on his death bed.
I was not prepared to find out that the image of him that lived inside my head for the 5 years that I knew him, had to change to a frail and thin man almost deprived and being taken of his life’s energy.
I cried the second time when I found out about his death. I felt that it was coming the first time, but I still couldn’t believe how an imminent future have just become the inevitable present. By then, I have regretted not being able to say goodbye, as I was only brave enough to leave him a well-wishing message earlier.
For how presumptuous would I be, to say goodbye to a dying man while he was still alive?
Maybe we were not really made to say goodbye to people whom we haven’t earned that intimacy and proximity in friendships … except for farewells in their deaths.
The third time was today, when I found out that it was today that was his burial, the final act where his loved ones have to lay his corporeal body to rest. I sobbed like a mad woman. I couldn’t comprehend how a distant friend like me would’ve felt so much grief to a person whom I have only met as a colleague and haven’t had kept in touch with in the last two years. I wasn’t his family nor his closest friends. He was just a person who impacted my life through my career. And even while he was “just” a person … he was someone whose life has left a lasting impression with the way he has lived his authentic life.
That’s why I grieve for him, and I mourn in his passing, and most importantly, I regret not having told him how much I appreciated his life. I never got to send the gratitude letter I have meant to write for him two years ago.
And so, I am only strife with regrets, that my gratitude letter became a eulogy.
Thank you for your life, Ramil. Even when I don’t know whether your consciousness lives with the Collective now … nor whether you’ve retained your memory while being given the gift of after-life … a portion of your life through the expression of my words, shall live in eternity in the only way that I know how.
May I find solace in the future when I will chance upon reading this once more … or may your family and loved ones and the rest of the world that knows you, celebrate your life ad memoriam through this letter … and even when all of us pass eventually and all that is left are the annals of the internet so long as humanity is able to preserve it in its archives …
A part of you shall live on in this interweb, a container that might as well have been a version of the Collective Consciousness.
I am very greatful and humbled of what you wrote here to my baby brother Ramil as I called him “My Mimil”. My heart is in a million pieces but slowly glued back from so many of his friends who shared their own story about him, my heart will be restore back again but the edges of the pieces will always be there visible and will reminds me that ones my heart is broken and will somewhat heal.
I read and carry a book of Ikigai for so many years and even carry this book everytime I traveled is the book that taught me the meaning of Life and how to Lived.