Too early, too soon

A young doctor almost my age—plus-minus a year or two—has died. Someone shot him one night: a bullet that killed him right on the spot, piercing his heart. Four years of medical education, one year of internship, all these on top of the four or five years of college undergraduate education—and then this: an armed man who, for whatever reason, pulled the trigger at him, leaving him defenseless as he lost blood and eventually his consciousness.

He was, I later learned, a gentle soul: a towering six-footer but whose voice was sonorous, whose ways were charming. And charm the entire Lanao town he did: the people he served loved him, for who would leave his family to ease the suffering of his lowly Mindanao community, many of whom hadn’t met a doctor in the flesh until his arrival?

There is no escaping death, but there are good ways to die—and his came too early, too soon.