“Tag-hubas man o amihan, yang gugma ko kanmo way utlanan…”
(In summer or rainy season, my love will forever wait for your return.)
- From a Davaoeño song “Gatagad Kanmo”

A five-year old Mandaya, one of the ethnic tribes in Mindanao, would climb on a rocky hill every day to visit his mother’s grave. He would sit there for hours in silence; cold tears would well up from his delicate eyes, staring expectantly on the pile of rocks where his mother was buried.

Some passersby, moved with pity by the boy’s ordeal, would take a detour from a long trail leading to the barrio and climb up on the same hill. They would sit beside the boy for a while without speaking a single word before taking their long journey toward the plane.

Years had passed and gone, the routine of taking a detour at the burial site on the hill had become a bizarre ritual for the native villagers.

One day, an American Maryknoll missionary, who visited the place, noticed the uncanny behavior of the natives. He asked an old Mandaya woman what they were doing on a rocky hill instead of taking a shorter route down the trail. She politely responded, “We are waiting for the boy’s dead mother to come back!”

What does waiting mean in our lives and what is life without waiting?

Definition and Elements of Waiting

Waiting, by definition, is an emotional and mental state, which is preconditioned to anticipate someone or something to arrive at a particular time and place.

There are three essential elements of waiting: the waiter (the subject of waiting), the occurrence of event in time (subsidiary element of waiting), and the waited (the object of waiting). The “waiter”, as the main subject, is the one who anticipates the object (the waited) to arrive within the designated period of waiting.

The “waited”, on the other hand, even if it occupies space and time, does not possess the material presence because it has yet to arrive or occur within the expected time and place where the subject of waiting tangibly exists.

Time, event, and distance are subservient element to the state of waiting. The occurrence of “event” in time during the state of waiting can either be definite or continuum, depending on the kind of waiting (empirical or metaphysical) that the waiter is subjected to.

The period of waiting can be analogically described in a linear distance between points A and B, the waiter and the waited. The distance between A (the waiter) and B (the waited) is the duration where the event (meeting point) is expected to occur at any given moment. The occurrence of event in time is the most crucial element of waiting because it is where all other elements converge to complete the waiting.

What if the waited arrives and the waiter is absent, can the waiting be completed? In this case, the “waiting” becomes transferential and the “waited”, if it is a person, becomes the “waiter”, because in the state of waiting, it is always the “waiter” who is the real and tangible actor, unless the latter ceases or stops waiting.

The Empirical and Metaphysical State of Waiting

There are two kinds of waiting: empirical and metaphysical. The empirical aspect is the material form of waiting where the certainty of the waited and the occurrence of event are tangibly expected to happen within a particular time and place of the waiter.

For instance, Mr. A has made an appointment with Mrs. B on a particular time and day at the Luneta Park. Mr. A arrives earlier waiting for Mrs. B. Later, Mrs. B arrives on time. Consequently, the “waiting period” of Mr. A is completed after the arrival Mrs. B at their appointed place and time. (The completion of waiting is the convergence of the three elements: the waiter, the occurrence of appointed time, and the waited).

What if Mrs. B had an accident before she could meet up with Mr. A, and the latter had no way of knowing whether Mrs. B would come or not at their appointed time. Perhaps, Mr. A would wait for Mrs. B for an hour or two, if he had enough patience. Shortly, however, after realizing that Mrs. B won’t come anymore, he would leave. (The two elements, the waiter and the occurrence of appointed time, had arrived but the waited is absent).

Suppose that Mrs. B is a very important person in Mr. A’s life; the latter goes back to the park the following day even though their appointed time had already expired. But this time, something strange is happening with Mr. A. His desire to wait for Mrs. B is becoming habitual, and he is optimistic with expectant hope that, soon, she would turn up at any given moment.

Here, the elements of waiting are getting narrower and what is left is the waiter sans the appointed time and the object of waiting. The waiter, as the inherent element of waiting, can still perform the act of waiting even if the other elements were absent or uncertain.

This intangible form of waiting, which is beyond the empirical certainty of the two elements (the waited and the appointed time), is the metaphysical aspect of waiting. It is, in itself and for itself (sui generis), preordained toward the future, as an open-ended condition from the perspective of the waiter.

Even if the chance of the waited to come were nil, something ineffable and “magical” could happen to the waiter, because the metaphysical aspect of waiting possesses a transformative power, enough to motivate the waiter to do something worthwhile within the process of waiting.

Human Existence within the Period of Waiting

From the conception of a child until birth, from birthing to the development of consciousness, from puberty to adolescence, and from adulthood to dying – all this is characterized by the progression of time and events within the period of waiting.

Human being lives and measures the value of life through the succession of events in time and space. From the moment we become conscious of our existence, we begin to explore and anticipate something consequential to come or happen in our lives. This “anticipation” is an act of will and freedom from which all our actions are subjected within the period of waiting.

It is during this period that our lives become restless until we have found what we have been waiting for. Our “restlessness” gives us wisdom to dissect and rationalize the purpose and meaning of our existence. However, coexistent with our quest is the harrowing tension in between; the tension of despair and anxiety, boredom and activity, joy and sorrow, victory and defeat, and so forth.

At times, the tension pulls us away from our direction, purges our belief into doubts and confusions, and pushes us at the edge of our crucial responses to life. Subsequently, was it not the tension of life that keeps awake? Was it not despair or sorrow that gives us wisdom to seek for a meaningful existence? Was it not suffering that gives us hope to dream a transcendent life?

Despair, for instance, is not an affliction of human soul, but a window to see the strengths and vulnerabilities of our humanity. We cannot separate joy from sorrow or defeat from victory because each component is as important as our commitment and freedom to live. All these polarities comprise the condition of what it means to be human and how to embrace and live with our humanity.

And it is only during the process of waiting – between nurturing and healing, forgiveness and understanding, humility and acceptance – that we are given time to retrospect and reconcile our past with the present, reshaping and redefining the value and meaning of our lives in anticipation of the future.

No one can hope or dream what was in yesterday, but the splendor and beauty that today promises to bring tomorrow.

The Eschatological Meaning of Waiting

Eschatology, as the study of the  “Second Coming of the Messiah”, comes from Greek word “eskhatos”,  which means “last” or, in religious parlance, the “Last Judgment” where the sinners and the good ones are separated on Judgment Day, and the “saved” is assured of eternal life in heaven.

Conversely, the passing of life from this ephemeral world into a new dimension is what constitutes the eschatological meaning of waiting. It is, in literal sense, the arrival of the “last day” of individual existence — the summation of all human struggle and sacrifice — the completion of life and meaning onto Death and its consequent promise of a sublime life.

Human existence, in as much as it is empirically programmed to wait and live amid the succession of time and events, is eschatologically preordained toward the promise of the future. It is where all human actions converge — however remote or distant — toward the promise of a transcendent world where there are no more tears nor hunger nor pains or sorrows.

To sum, the emotional and psychological state of waiting gives us a sense of direction and meaning to look beyond the present. It is, generally, the primordial motivator of one’s will to live, a gauge to measure how a particular hope or aspiration in life develops and progresses from one time-frame to another time-frame of individual existence.

Whether the waited (a person or a thing, a wish or a dream, luck or fortune) comes today or never, we subsist within the period of waiting because it gives us a reason to live and live with a reason to hope and hope with a reason to love with others in faith, hope and charity.

In the end, we can humbly say: ‘Blessed are those who wait because they have something to wait for!’