Requiem

On this Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, I read these last lines in George Eliot’s novel Middlemarch:

“…for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”

I had heard these words earlier in the day, in the homily preached by Fr. Denis, OSB, at the St. Thomas Aquinas Chapel. They echoed in my ear as I remembered the names of those family members and friends who have died since the last Feast of All Souls: Gregorio Antonio Soriano and Ofelia Suing-Soriano (my great uncle and great aunt), Virginia Torres viuda de Dizon (my paternal grandfather’s first cousin), Genoveva S. Tinio viuda de Galang (my cousin-in-law’s mother), Eduardo Torres Nunag (another cousin-in-law’s father), Jesus Lacson Simbillo (my Mom’s third cousin and also my Dad’s fourth cousin) and his firstborn son Manolito Simbillo, Nancy H. Fister (widow of Deacon Louis Fister of the Diocese of Lexington; Nancy and Spanky had always sent me a card at Christmas since I came into the Diocese), and Eugene Rodney Hutchinson (from my home parish of St. Martha’s in Prestonsburg; a retired officer of the Kentucky State Police, he had taught me how to parallel park when I first arrived in the United States).

I owe a lot of who I am now from the unhistoric acts of these men and women of happy memory. I have learned much from Ingcung Goyu’s piety, Apung Peleng’s humility, Apung Viring’s industry, Apung Beba’s devotion, Apung Eddie’s joie de vivre, Bapang Situk’s confidence, Cong Lito’s forgiveness, Nancy’s thoughtfulness, and Rodney’s patience. Indeed, things are not so ill with me partly because I have met and known these unhistoric men and women, but most of all because they have allowed me to know how it is like to be loved on this earth. Today, even when I am unable to visit their tombs, I name them in my prayers and implore our everloving God to keep them in His eternal embrace.