All Souls' Day

Saw my cousin Vito yesterday at Tagkawayan. I felt inadequate watching him and my family, my well-off family and my cousin in poverty. I felt sorry for him. We're first cousins and yet there he was, asking my dad for money so that he could go back to Pasig.
The feeling was like that when you watch a beggar knock on your car window but you only knock back. Only difference is that we are relatives, we even shared summers a couple of times during our childhood. And there we are in completely different paths. I wish we could help and do more, he, afterall, is family.
He had his chance to change his destiny like my father did, but he threw that opportunity away, he didn't take advantage of the help that was given him, the sacrifices made so that he could have a better future. So who to blame? Now we could only feel sorry for him.

Also went to Yato's wake last night. The death of someone you know sobers you up, doesn't it? During All Souls' Day though, people are more in festive mood, rather than in a reflective one.