It feels sooo good to wake up late on a Monday morning. Today is All Soul's Day, a day when all the Catholic faithful troop to their dear departed's final resting place to pray, light candles and most of all, a chance to get together with immediate relatives they haven't seen for quite some time.All Soul's Day used to be a big gathering in my family. When I was growing up, we lived in BF Homes in Parañaque which was very near the Loyola Memorial Park where both my fraternal and maternal grandfathers were interred. Come October 31, cousins and aunts and uncles head for our house to sleep-over in preparation for the November 1 trek to the cemetery. It was a festive atmosphere...a lot of cooking going on in the kitchen by the women with my Mom leading the pack, me and my brother playing games with my cousins and all talk and beer with the men. The following day, everyone is hauled into their respective vehicles together with the food, utensils and boardgames and off to the cemetery we go. There, the story-telling and games continued. Sometimes, we kids would just go around the park, looking at names on tombstones, and running into schoolmates.Each year passess and noticeably, the once big group that goes to Loyola Memorial dwindled until it got reduced to just me and my parents. A lot of my uncles and aunts, together with my cousins, have migrated to North America for a better life. One uncle got shot in a jeepney robbery incident and is interred at Manila Memorial Park, a few kilometers away from Loyola. I no longer visit my grandparents (both pairs by now) at the height of the occassion as traffic is horrendous and the parks are just tooo crowded. What used to be a regular part of the trek when I was young turned into a challenging test of my patience. My parents and I now normally go to Loyola in the afternoon when the sun is no longer as hot and a good part of the cemetery crowds are headed for home. I don't know if my brother (with his erratic schedule) ever goes to visit my grandparents. He hasn't visited with us for the longest time. As I write this, he is still asleep in his room.So, like past All Soul's day in recent years, my parents and I will go to Loyola Memorial Park to pay our respects to both sets of grandparents, arrange the flowers, light the candles, say a prayer, and spend time with our own thoughts recalling a memory spent with the "olds" when they were still alive. I have a special place in my heart for my Lola Scion, my maternal grandmother, who was the last one to pass away. She lived to be 83 and she saw me through all the events in my life. I miss her the most and she's the only one whose passing I cried for.Tomorrow, everyone goes back to work and in the next few days, expect the houses in Metro Manila to be adorned with christmas decorations.