Quiet Reckoning

At 63 and newly retired, Rafael often reminded himself that aging came with expectations—physical decline, grief, spiritual testing, and the aching solitude of being the last to stand. But yesterday, he found himself spiraling again. His brother-in-law had sent a text—frantic, sharp: the hospice had called. His sister was not doing well.

Of course, Rafael knew this was inevitable. His sister was terminal. There would be episodes like this. But panic still surged through his chest. He had told his brother-in-law before: thank you for taking care of her, but I must be careful. Rafael had survived a mild stroke and now took great care to avoid stress that could spike his blood pressure. Yet here it was again. The call. The panic. The helplessness. He reached for the anti-anxiety medication his doctor had prescribed, feeling ashamed that even now, with the outcome as clear as daylight, he still struggled to relax through these moments.

Rafael reflected on the story of King David—not in triumph, but in sorrow. David, harried and worn, once fled from his own son, Absalom, who had turned against him and sought to seize his throne. David’s pain wasn't rooted in mortality but in the heartbreak of betrayal, of family undone. A daughter violated. A son was murdered. Another son exiled. And then, rebellion. And yet, David still called on God, still meditated, and—eventually—slept.

David wasn’t spared the cruelty of family dysfunction, nor was he promised peace despite his righteousness. And neither was Rafael. His sister was dying. His oldest brother had already passed weeks earlier. The losses were piling up like stones on his back.

He thought about the ones who had walked closely with God. Moses never saw the Promised Land. David’s legacy was splintered. Peter was crucified upside down. Paul, beheaded. And here Rafael sat, worried about a quiet, invisible ending.

The spiritual life, he realized, is not a promise of comfort in the physical world. Jesus himself once said, Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and unto God what is God’s. The physical world matters, but it is not the endpoint. Not the true measure.

Still, Rafael admitted, some days he found himself chasing formulas: Do good, and life will be good to you. But that’s not how it works. That’s not how it has ever worked. His good deeds—decades of supporting families in the Philippines, funding their futures, providing homes, shelter, guidance—had returned to him not with care, but often with silence, even indifference.

He no longer expected gratitude. He was learning to stop expecting anything at all.

There was a bitter clarity in this realization: no matter how much he had given—money, time, housing, even inheritance—none of it guaranteed love, comfort, or companionship in his old age. That belief, he told himself, was as outdated and foolish as his youthful bad habits.

To move forward, Rafael had to release those old expectations. He could not depend on others for happiness. He had to prepare for a future where he walked alone—but not without God.

For nearly a decade, Rafael’s life had been gripped by worry—first when his sister slipped into ketoacidosis in 2015, then again when cancer struck years later. Each new crisis interrupted his life, his rest, his plans. And then came his brother’s request for dialysis support—a permanent reminder that time was running out for all of them. Rafael’s recurring fear was: What happens to them if something happens to me?

But the answers were beginning to unfold. His brother was gone. His sister was in hospice, breathing shallowly. The pattern was painfully familiar—just like when his mother suffered terribly, her screams echoing in Rafael’s mind until he prayed for mercy and an end for her. He had seen her go. Then his father. Then his oldest brother. And now—his sister.

And always, he was the one who remained.

He had done it all before. Financial support, caregiving, moral guidance. He never complained—at least not out loud. He simply carried the weight. Even now, he refrained from traveling, skipping vacations, because of the emotional anchor of being needed.

Now, perhaps, came the final release.

Maybe this was his sister’s final gift to him: freedom.

But it hurt. More than anything, Rafael grieved the deeper truth—that even in his pain, there was no one in his family he could call upon for comfort. All his sacrifices seemed forgotten. If help ever came, it was always from him, never to him. Maybe they believed they owed him nothing. Maybe they thought of him not as a brother, but as a duty-bearer—an endless source.

So be it.

The Lord, he thought, was leasing him a new life—one finally free of obligations. His sister was the last tie. Soon, there would be no more.

He imagined his final days not with family at his side, but walking in solitude with God. That image had comforted him since he was fourteen. That was when he first met Jessie—a quiet figure in his make-believe world, a spiritual companion, not a person but a presence. Even then, Rafael had known: I don’t need the crowd. I only need the Lord Jessie.

Those who once benefitted from his labor and love had disappeared. Some may even wish him ill. Some, he feared, might quietly celebrate his decline, waiting like vultures for scraps of inheritance. But they would find nothing—because Rafael would not be there. Not emotionally. Not spiritually.

He would be walking with the Lord.

In silence. In peace.

God had given him strength and intelligence for a purpose—not to be repaid, but to carry out his part in the continuum of life. For years, Rafael had turned to prayer, journaling from a tiny Gideon Bible in the car before work, now through a laptop and a cloud folder. The medium had changed, but the devotion remained.

Yes, he felt resentment. Yes, he felt alone. But this wasn’t new. Even when the children he helped were young and unable to offer anything back, he had managed. Now, as they matured and couldn’t afford to be with him no matter how hard they tired. They have new families, they have new careers, they want to survive in this modern world depriving them the time and energy to care for a lonely or sick relative, he knew not to expect more.

His siblings were aging too. No one could be depended on. And maybe that was the truth God wanted him to accept: it had always been Rafael and God. No more. No less.

Moses didn’t see the land. David’s family unraveled. Peter and Paul died alone. So why should Rafael expect a warm bed and a circle of loved ones in the end?

No. That was never promised.

What was promised was God.

And Rafael’s strength, his unshakable center, came from that.

He still prayed. He still believed. He still endured. He was not helpless. He was simply returning to where he began—with nothing but faith, solitude, and a pen.
2025-07-01 04:18:28
popong

Popong Sunday

Ephesians 1:3–6
Praise for Spiritual Blessings in Christ

3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.

Popong found himself adrift in a sea of modern distractions. The buzzing, flashing world of social media called out, a siren song tempting him away from the quiet corners of reflection. It was a typical Sunday morning in his life, a day meant for rest, yet the insistent question nagged at him: What should I post today? His thumb hovered over the social media app icon, poised to plunge him into the endless scroll, the barrage of opinions and curated images. But something made him pause. A whisper of intuition suggested a different path, a turn inward rather than outward. Perhaps, instead of seeking validation in the digital realm, he should acknowledge the quiet victories, the personal milestones that often went unremarked, even by himself.

Yesterday's struggle with the ancient ASUS laptop came to mind. It was a humble task, not one that would garner likes or shares, but it was his. He had wrestled with the stubborn machine, its innards refusing to cooperate. The SSD upgrade, meant to breathe new life into the aging device, had initially presented an infuriating series of roadblocks. The first attempt at cloning the drive ended in failure. The new, sleek SSD remained stubbornly invisible to the system. Countless retries followed, punctuated by moments of frustration and doubt. Just when he thought he had conquered one challenge, another loomed. He discovered that only a fraction of the new drive's capacity had been recognized, leaving hundreds of gigabytes of unused potential. A frantic search for free, reliable partitioning software ensued. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he had merged the unallocated space, completing the upgrade. A wave of deep satisfaction washed over him, a quiet triumph in a small corner of his world.

The late-night hours spent hunched over the laptop had been a fog, blurring into the present. Now, as the new day dawned, he was eager to return to his ordinary rhythm, to the small rituals that grounded him. While waiting for the final software installations to complete, he had briefly engaged with social media. But this time, he had approached it differently. He treated his posts like fleeting thoughts, casual conversations tossed into the digital air. He understood now that most people consumed content mindlessly, their eyes gliding over the screen, their minds elsewhere. He refused to be held captive by that dynamic. His goal was to share, then detach, to let his ideas drift without clinging to the hope of validation.

The silence of his early mornings was precious. It was during these hours that he felt closest to a sense of inner peace. He spoke to the Holy Spirit, a silent, unwavering listener who offered no judgment, no interruptions. These conversations, often accompanied by a strong cup of coffee, were his most cherished form of meditation. They helped him untangle the knots in his mind, to quiet the anxious voices that clamored for attention. It was a time to recenter, to remember what truly mattered.

His relationship with technology had begun long ago, in the nascent days of the internet. He remembered the excitement of his first PC, the thrill of hearing the modem’s screech as it connected to the world. Each morning, he would eagerly check his AOL inbox, the messages flickering onto the screen like tiny miracles. That era had ignited a passion within him, leading him to pursue a second degree in IT. He dreamed of blending his love for storytelling with his fascination for computers, envisioning a future where he could create new worlds, new tools for expression.

The reality had been different, of course. Those grand ambitions had morphed and matured, taking on a quieter, more subtle form. He still tinkered with tech, but his enthusiasm was tempered by a newfound awareness of its potential pitfalls. He had learned to set boundaries, to limit his screen time, recognizing how easily it could deplete his energy. The desire to create remained, but it was now accompanied by a deeper questioning. Why do I go online? What am I searching for? Is it simply a way to escape the silence?

Meditation had led him back to the present, to the tangible world. He made a conscious effort to spend time in nature, to feel the earth beneath his feet. Silence had become a refuge, a place where he could reconnect with himself. After his morning quiet time, he ventured to John Prince Park for a long walk. The exercise cleared his head, washing away the digital cobwebs that had accumulated over the previous days. The lake breeze made the Florida heat bearable, though the swarms of gnats were an unwelcome presence. He watched as young runners passed him, their strides effortless. I used to feel like that, he thought, a nostalgic pang in his heart. Invincible.

A trip to Publix followed. He noted his changing relationship with food. Gone were the days of indulgent comfort eating. Now, he prioritized healthy choices, limiting carbs, and increasing his vegetable intake. His bulk purchases of fish, though economical, had led to a monotonous diet. He hoped to find more variety, more inspiration in the kitchen. Back home, he felt a sense of quiet satisfaction. He had spent his day well. He had walked, he had saved money, he had resisted the pull of aimless scrolling. Social media had not held its usual allure. He knew now that a few posts a week were sufficient, that he didn’t need to perform for an audience. Fewer people engaged with his content these days, and he was strangely at peace with that.

He thought back to the early days, to his excitement at discovering Linux, the joy of building his own computers from spare parts, the sheer exhilaration of learning. The internet had once felt like a vast, unexplored territory, full of promise and possibility. Now, it seemed more like a stage, a place for carefully curated personas. People chase followers, not fulfillment, he mused. He hadn’t learned to code for likes and shares. He had learned to build, to create, to understand. The web had transformed from a frontier for thinkers to a carnival for performers.

In this new chapter of his life, he found himself drawn to older, more solitary pursuits. He recalled his childhood notebooks, filled with stories and poems that he had never dared to share. Writing had never been about fame or recognition. It had been a refuge, a way to make sense of the world. The computer, too, had originally entered his life as a tool for writing. Now retired, and with little to show in the way of tangible achievements, he felt no regret. Instead, he felt a profound sense of release. Anonymity had become a comfortable cloak. His work no longer needed to impress, it only needed to be true.

Yesterday’s laptop upgrade and short reel on knee exercises had felt productive. Today, he had meditated, walked, and returned to his personal diary. He toyed with the idea of turning these entries into fiction, sharing them on his old blog, even if no one read them. Later, perhaps, he would revisit his abandoned Node.js project, the one he had left untouched since 2021. It would be like starting over, but this time, it would be for himself and for the Spirit who listened in the quiet spaces of his heart.
2025-06-08 21:05:48
popong