Tito Marcos lived a privileged and blessed life. And through it all he remained a kind and humble man

Even in death my parents are lucky. From my brother—and only sibling—and me, they get the best posthumous care; by some Eastern philosophical ways working through us, their spiritual journey to salvation is speeded and smoothed.

It’s been our good fortune as well that we’re able to make up for shortcomings we may have committed toward them when they were still living.

Sometime in midlife, I became fascinated by Eastern spiritual teachings and was attracted very seriously to Mahikari, a Japanese-based spiritual practice that, interestingly and rather admirably, attracts whole families, instead of tearing them apart as in other cases.

My brother’s own family, down to grandchildren, are all committed to it, and those of proper age have become kamikumite (hands of God), so-called because through their hands the purifying and healing light of God works.

At no time is this spiritual help more intense as in one’s death; a ceremony of purification is performed continuously, from the very moment of death until well beyond. Ancestors are enshrined in a home altar and given spiritual sustenance for the afterlife.

Beautiful practice

It’s a beautiful practice of unbroken loving, honoring and caring from those on this side of life and protection from forebears on the other.

Recently my husband and I, despite having left Mahikari many years ago, had an occasion to revisit their beautiful center in Cubao, and once again received light. We ourselves have proceeded on our spiritual journey and joined a meditation group called Siddha Yoga, an Indian-based practice that also acknowledges karma (roughly, retribution) as a fact of life. A meditation teacher descended from a line of Siddha gurus going back from well before Christ is the acknowledged spiritual leader.

It’s mantra (a devotional incantation) and meditation that in our case help one obtain an easing, if not a complete erasure, of one’s karma and, consequently, spiritual transformation. As in Mahikari, everything and everyone, living or dead, benefit.

In our own way, my brother, Danny, and I are grateful to be able remain devoted children to departed parents.

I’m comfortable in my spiritual practice, and I’ve never stopped being a Christian—they’re not mutually exclusive, certainly not from the former, and hopefully not also in the latter point of view. I myself see no conflict of spiritual interest, and more so now that the all-embracing Francis is at the helm of the Catholic Church, trying to tear down brick by brick the wall human minds have built across the millennia.

Last night, at the wake of a good, decent and lovable man I’m proud to have as an uncle—96-year-old Marcos Roces, a daily communicant who prayed the rosary every day since surviving the war—no further spiritual ritual seemed necessary. Despite the short notice, the chapel filled to capacity.

Tito Marcos had died quietly that Sunday morning, and further typical of him to not bother anybody, he had settled for a night’s wake and a Mass.

His only living son, Marc, said he had died with a big smile on his lips, no doubt happy to be reunited, after five years, with his wife, Teresa Prieto, our beautiful Tita Tuting. Marc asked that we all smile and be happy for him.

Instead of church music, his favorite love songs played in the background even at Communion, indeed a loving farewell for a true romantic. Not only did he love to listen to music, he couldn’t resist singing along.

In his homily, Fr. Tito Caluag, encouraged a “sacred space” of complete honesty in every human relationship, but especially in our relationship with God, a space in which we can be our true selves, without fear of judgment. Francis himself asks the clergy to meet and welcome us their flock where we are, as we are. How I wish all homilies were as brief and relevant as Father Tito’s.

Long friendship

Bob Garon, the former priest, whose lifelong work in the service of young people is well known, spoke of a long friendship with Tito Marcos that seemed rooted in that precise sacred space where Tito Marcos welcomed him unconditionally at the most trying time in his life. When he most needed a friend, he got a family—Tito Marcos.

It was now his turn to take his love for Tito Marcos one step higher: He does not pray for him, he prays to him.

“They don’t make them like that anymore,” he said, and he was so right. In fact, Tito Marcos brings to mind another of his special kind, his own uncle, my own grandfather, Rafael. Indeed, Tito Marcos was the most like Lolo Rafael of anyone in the family.

Tito Marcos lived a privileged and blessed life. He also fought in the last war, in Europe, where his familiarity with the place and its languages put him in perfect position to be most useful in US military intelligence. He loved and laughed a lot and, literally, had it all, rubbing elbows with the rich, the famous and the powerful. And through it all he remained a kind and humble man.

Genevieve, his eldest granddaughter, in her little speech, brought him back to how he may have wished to be remembered, both in life and in death. He was handsome, always smiling and bien peinado (well-groomed), she said. He will live on in the songs he cherished, she added, and gamely sang the last romantic lines of one of his favorite Spanish songs, “Usted.”

After his ashes were placed at the family niche, in the same cove where my parents lie, a sumptuous dinner courtesy of Casa Roces awaited the guests.

It was the happiest wake I have ever attended.