As we’re approaching the Holy Week, we’re preparing ourselves to take part in the suffering, death and resurrection. How easy is that? Suffering and death – death and resurrection? Can we glimpse a hint of an understanding of what that really means?

The other day a young fellow man was brought to our Centre. His body was signed with the weakness of Aids: too weak to eat, too weak to walk, too weak to speak, soon too weak to breathe. It’s painful to accept that this condition is leading him towards death and there isn’t much left to do. Insecurity is what his relatives face, and what we all face, as we somehow have banned death from our life.

Something really struck me when I got to learn more about the Tai Dum People, known as people without a country. Some groups migrated to Thailand where we now live in the same area. When I visited their Cultural Centre, a Tai Dum Woman took a traditional garment and started to explain how it is worn. The word ‘dum’ in their name Thai Dum refers to black. Black is the dominating color of all their clothes. How surprised I was when she flipped it over, inside out. It was all colourful! She then explained that people are dressed with this colourful side of the garment after they have died, while the black side of the garment is worn during life. Isn’t that amazing? One piece of garment used both for life and for death. This simple garment taught me a lesson. Life and death go together, just like two sides of a coin. And I assume we live better with the awareness the two sides. Rather than banning the death side from our life, we could integrate it. I trust it would give us life.

When I saw the dying patient and the loving care of his family, I also saw so much care and so much love. We sometimes may forget to express our love and care for others as we take life for granted. If we would live more in a way of ‘this could be the last time’, we may live more peacefully. We may ask for forgiveness more often, we would love more often and maybe laugh more often.

The Holy Week leads us through all kinds of emotions. We experience God as someone who knows best what it means to go through dire straits. And we can be assured that there is always more to that. There is more to pain and death, because we believe in life, redemption and the resurrection to the eternal life.