By Rex Catubig

 

(Note: In the wake of the Uvalde, Texas shooting that left 19 schoolchildren dead, a local business owner has donated customized caskets to honor them and to lessen the grief of the families. It’s coincidental that my post also touches on the trappings of death. But by no means do I intend to disrespect the dead and to belittle the kindness of a kind hearted sympathizer.)

MY head is spinning. So many things are happening almost all at the same time. And nothing seems to fit. Like everything is a square peg in a round hole. It is disturbing.

As I struggled with a medical issue, death, disease, destruction, color confusion, hovered and whirled around my mind.  Yet in the midst of this, I was given to arrogance, and unconscionably and  narcissistically contemplated the esthetic anomaly of a dimension gone awry by a millimeter or so.

When my house was being built, I insisted on minute correctness and sometimes unreasonable precision–as in the welded metal gate that wouldn’t open completely because the cement plastering of its post is off by a fraction of an inch. Sometimes, to the point where a done piece had to be torn apart and reworked all over again. Driving the workers to their wits’ end.

I bought a funeral plan recently and all I was offered were white caskets. I insisted on a natural-looking wood finish but was forewarned it  would cost an arm and leg. Unless, I wanted pink– yes, of all colors. I did not want that. And I didn’t want all these ornate metal trims, I protested. Just a plain, simple, nondescript box for me.

And yet on second thought, would all this really matter in the end? Would it matter if the dimension of your wooden box is off even by seven or ten millimeters? Would it be a big deal at all if you’re plunked into a yellow or purple eternal bed? Does it matter that the lid wouldn’t close perfectly tight? Or that the burial plot is less than the traditional six feet into the ground? It all seems crazy, totally insane.

Maybe, what I need is the acceptance of imperfection to find deliverance into infinite perfection.

I was a tiny particle of dust until I believed I was a giant boulder. I should rethink my own dimensions. The symmetry of my being against the bold design. Then my mind could stand still. And I could love sunsets once more, without having to quibble about the proper density of colors.    And that would make a world of difference.

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