The End of the Beginning

a self-obituary

A tombstone of a person scares me the most. Because it is an indication that a life that once on earth has ended again. A mark that one has fallen in the midst of the fog of life. However, what will I do myself if my tombstone will be the one welcoming me at my door? What will be my reaction? How will I endure that kind of scene for the longest time I shall ever know?

Shaine G. Capua, born on ****, died on ****, you will always be remembered. And we shall never forget the words rest in peace. Those are the things I will be reading if ever I am in front of my tombstone today. I never visualized how it looks because I know that its physicality will reflect on my economic status once again. If it is too pompous, maybe I died with lots of money. If it looks ordinary, then maybe I am just a normal person with nothing but loans. 

Disregarding that matter, I know that no matter what economic or social status I have in the future before I die, I assure that I have lived my purpose in life. Because as I believed so, I would’ve changed the world to a better place if I could whenever an opportunity knocks on my door. I would everyday, try to touch someone’s life with kindness and generosity that the world is lacking today. I would channel the heavy weight of cracks in my heart to help people, heal their body and mind, and let them stand for themselves. 

I want people to remember me as a person who put other people’s state first before mine. I want my loved ones to recollect my memories as someone who peels oranges for people so they could enjoy and eat it without minding any trouble. An athlete who has the highest honor for sportsmanship to other athletes who share the same dreams with her. A student-journalist who unravels merely the truth and nothing but the truth. A student and a classmate who engraved a legacy of being good, smart, and cheerful. A loving and caring daughter, big sister, and a girl who gave everything she can for the sake of her family. 

Yet, if I were to be asked, “Who am I?”, with no masks, costumes, or fakes, not my titles, achievements, or praises; just me. I will gratefully answer that I am just a plain black and white person who only wanted to live a good and comfortable life ever since the beginning. I have always dreamt of ending the cycle of poverty in our bloodline. The leech that keeps on sucking us down. Every bit of our blood, sweat, and tears that it keeps on slurping on us to make us suffer more. One thing I kept on praying for is for my siblings to never experience what I had gone through to survive. 

So yes, by constantly saying yes was what cost me to survive. Yes, I have been soft like a gooey marshmallow exposed with fire to be smores, to be able to satisfy other people. To give them credit for what they helped me. To deal with the pressure that keeps on bugging my head. However, that was also my mistake. I became too complacent to things. Too dependent on the word yes that all of the responsibilities piled up and gave me a slap of reality that was so hard to avoid. 

Maybe, in my next life, I would learn how to negate. To refuse people. To disapprove of ideas that will not give me peace and will never help me have growth. To deny responsibilities that I can’t handle. Because saying yes has been too easy for me, when my no’s could’ve been more understandable. 

The people who have held my back ever since. The support, trust, and love they have given me and boosted me was not wasted. I will be missed, I suppose. But these people will also be treasured deep within the corners of my heart. This lifetime was not so good to me, but it lightened a path and made me walk past through wisdom, eminent, and goodwill that I will carry on to the next life I will hold if given a chance.

Without a doubt, I’ve led my life with a league of one’s own. I know that the loves of my life will be reading my epitaph with heavy hearts, flood of tears, and broken souls– “Wind, gentle evergreen, to form a shade. Around the tomb where Shaine is laid. Sweet ivy wind thy boughs and intertwine. With blushing roses and the clustering vine. Then shall thy lasting leaves, with beauties hung. Prove grateful emblems of the lays she sung.” But they shall remember that my goneness is not the end of the world and the pause of their own lives.

It may be an end to some, but it is also a beginning for a few.