Due Dates, Deadlines and Flatlines

by Arnold De Villa
February 1, 2012
Today is my due date. I have a deadline. And if I do not do the former or the latter, I might soon find myself in a “flatline”.
Such is the angst of our daily ritual. We find ourselves in a quarry of mechanical “must do’s” while we begin a morning with the noise of a “should have”. Then we pass through a day with duties and obligations, until we finally settle down with the faint hope of “could have’s”.
Between the jargons of existential clichés, we earn a living, we live to earn, we learn in the process and then we yearn. We yearn for the fulfillment of our dreams, yearn for ambitions beyond our budgeted years, and yearn for more years to our limited life. Then it hits us back. We do have a deadline. We do have a due date. Life is not forever.
It seems like only yesterday when we threw away the old calendars to welcome the new. We rejoiced that the by-gones were gone. We grew eager with the things that were about to come. We finally had the winter storm that seemed too late, and then it hits us back in the face. We couldn’t wait for winter to be over. The novelty has turned old. School is back. Deadlines are all over.
Some of us were about to host a party, until a slip on the road almost became a mishap. Life is fragile. Life is frail. How nice would it be if we could only do as much as we want to, without the stress of doing within an expected time or timing the things that we like doing!
Two weeks ago, after having not seen a client for two weeks, I was more than eager to see him back. He was an old man with a memory younger than mine, with stories about small towns where my mother grew, and with a smile that smothers out the pain of his illness. Mine was a weekend overnight shift. I arrived at his place still filled with people, his close family, children coming from different States. He was sitting on his favorite couch, slouched and snoring, rather with a labored breathing. I held his hand and whispered to his ear, “Happy New Year! I am back”. He stirred a little as if to acknowledge my presence, but then went back to his slumber.
Two days before, I was warned about his condition. He was entering the last vestiges of life. His daughter introduced me to the rest of his clan. They were all there to share with the last stage of his journey. Midnight came. Everyone had to go to bed. There was no longer any reason to transfer him from his couch to his own bed. While the last instructions for the day were being given, I touched him once more, checked his vitals, counted the respiration, felt for the air from his breath. Nothing was left. He laid still. I held his pulse. I checked his veins. He was gone.
The process of dying is so gradual that it seems eternal. But the act of dying is so quick that knowing the exact moment when it actually transpires is like catching a whiff of wind. Now you see it. Now you don’t. It is a deadline that has a due date. And its due date is a flat line.
We seem to appreciate life better when we are confronted with its unwanted twin, the tandem of which is a perennial puzzle. Human life is inaccurate when viewed from a pseudo-eternal perspective.It is only understood through the unwanted windows of death. When the reality of life’s conclusive act arrives, myriad questions emerge without answers. Yet death is only understood from the perspectives of life. Without life, there is no death. Like shadows and light, there are no shadows without light, but shadows are only shadows because of the absence of light. Likewise, we know light because we all came from the darkness of our mother’s womb. First there was darkness. And then there was light.
Two days ago, the Year of the Dragon arrived. It comes only once every twelve years. It was the celebration of the Chinese New Year. In most parts of the world, somewhere in the corners of a China Town, gaiety normally fills the streets with dancing dragons and sumptuous food. Not in Tibet. One protester against Chinese rule was killed.
I have a deadline. My deadline is a due date. Without a due date, this deadline will never take place. We all have deadlines. Some of us deny it. Some of us ignore it. Some compensate it with procrastination, the fatal attitude of deferred execution, until time steals its own moment and then that moment is forever gone. How can time be gone when many times we claim that we don’t even have time?
Happy New Year folks, I mean, Happy Chinese New Year! I hope you have a prosperous year with a lot of red envelopes, good business and good luck! The year of the Dragon is the luckiest among all the Chinese Zodiac animals. Or so they say. Some will even go to the extent of scheduling the birth of a child on this day. I call it tampering with the due date. I guess there is nothing wrong with due date tamperings. As long as the end product has enough time for conception, enough days for preparation and formation, a day or two earlier will not matter. A day or two earlier is actually good. Doing and finishing things in advance has always been good. It is so good that it is rare. And it is rare because it seems that human nature does not want to do things in advance. I still have to meet someone whose due dates are consistently done in advance that those days in advance have been adjusted as his new due date. We are creatures of habit. We normally tend to revert on doing things in their proper time. There are seasons of life. These seasons are immutable. When nature tampers the timing of these seasons, the rest of earthly life goes into chaos. Plants will start blooming in a spring-like season even when it is winter, only to freeze when the more appropriate cold climate suddenly arrives. Animals that need to hibernate will not be able to do so. Migratory fauna could be trapped in a cold mass of air when the specific season for their activity does not come on time. Due dates need to be due? Not sooner, not later, but in the right season of the year. At least, during this time.
Do you have a deadline? When is your due date?