'How time flies! How fast time flies!'

Anniversaries birth, death, even wedding anniversaries  are a time of reckoning. On these days, we stop to take stock of our lives and relationships. On death anniversaries, we take stock of how the year just past has been without the person who passed away; how his legacy endures, or how it sadly has been forgotten. Sometimes, we measure a person by how he lives on  or fades away  after his death.

Even if she didn’t die the sudden death that usually immortalizes leaders (like JFK) who are cut down in the prime of their lives, former President Cory Aquino definitely lives on. She speaks through her legacy of empowering the poor through micro-lending institutions; she speaks through her only son, President Noynoy Aquino, who personifies the moral leadership she had.

The commemoration of her first death anniversary last Sunday at the La Salle Greenhills gym was joyous, although not jubilant. You could see it in the sea of yellow that was in the gym, in the bright yellow outfits Cory’s children, Ballsy Pinky, P-Noy, Viel and Kris, were now wearing in place of their mourning clothes.

A year after her death, Cory still triumphs in those who seek to perpetuate her legacy. Last year, a downpour escorted the funeral car that bore her casket from the Heritage Memorial Park to the same gym. Last Sunday, the skies, though overcast, did not shed tears.

It was not just because Noynoy is now President. It was not a personal triumph for Cory because she did not yearn for that position for her only son. She did not offer her life so that Noynoy would be President. But because Noynoy’s election to the presidency reassures that the values of Cory will not be “interred with her bones,” her death anniversary did not cast a pall on the people who attended the Mass. It cast, instead, a ray of hope over them, and the 15 million other Filipinos who voted Noynoy into office.

Like many others, I was moved by the homily of Archbishop of Lingayen-Dagupan Monsignor Soc Villegas. Because he was close to Mrs. Aquino and to the late Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin, and is still a trusted spiritual adviser of the Aquino family, Villegas spoke honestly and from the heart. What he asked of P-Noy and Kris was detailed on the front pages yesterday. How he wants Cory’s death to impact on us, Filipino Christians, I will share here. Excerpts:

How time flies! How fast time flies! It does not feel like it has been three hundred sixty five days since President Cory left us to return to the house of the Father. The grief is still fresh. The tears on the cheeks have dried but not the tears in our hearts…

When we remember the death of President Cory, we remember how time flies, how everything is fleeting and trivial and unimportant. One thing alone is important — God in our lives. Everything else will pass away.

Everything is temporary. Life is a journey. This world is not our home. Remembering President Cory today gives us a good occasion to be reminded of the truly important things in life and the things that do not really matter. Death is certain for all of us. We do not know when and where and how. We are only sure that some day we will die like President Cory. Anytime God can say to you and me: ‘Your life will be demanded of you in a few minutes and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?’ Indeed, Ecclesiastes in the first reading today reminds us: Everything is vanity. The Sunday readings today help us to focus on the truly important and lay aside the trivial and fleeting.

The memory of Tita Cory teaches us the greatness of simplicity. Her memory is a sterling lesson of detachment from power and prestige. Her life was a story of full and unconditional dependence on the power of God and the strength of prayer. She was our most prayerful President who never missed a chance to encourage us to pray and whose example of prayer, translated into her life, was a source of inspiration for so many. She gave us her best when she was our President and yet she remained detached and unaffected by the trappings of power and prestige. Everything is vanity! God alone is enough!

Today, brothers and sisters, Tita Cory teaches us: I died last year. Someday you will die too — mamamatay rin kayo! — sooner than you think. All things will end but do not be afraid. God will always be there for you without end. God is more than enough!

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I asked Gawad Kalinga founder Tony Meloto to share his thoughts on Cory’s first death anniversary. “God really loves our country because He gave us a woman of faith and integrity,” he said.

Businessman Ramon del Rosario said he had “mixed feelings” as he marked Cory’s first death anniversary. “I miss her. But I feel her presence because of where her death brought our country to.”

With her only son Noynoy as President and his resolve to fight corruption, the business sector, according to Del Rosario, “is bullish, full of anticipation.”

Civil society leader Dan Songco of the PinoyMe Foundation, for his part, says, “A year later, I feel a big burden of responsibility to pursue her advocacy to promote entrepreneurship among the poor.”

Actor Dingdong Dantes said he was answering the call of Cory Aquino to be part of nation building when he established his Yes Pinoy Foundation a month after her death. Like Meloto and Songco, his foundation got seed from the Ninoy and Cory Foundation to mark Cory’s first death anniversary.

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Cory, according to Kris, accepted God’s will the moment she learned of her cancer.

Cory likewise told me in one of the last interviews I had with her: “If this is the end of the road for me, so be it.”

Aug. 1, 2009 was the end of the road for Cory Aquino. But the road continues on for those who believe, like Cory and many of our forebears did, that the Promised Land awaits Filipinos, not just in heaven, but also right here, on earth, where we still belong.