The Last Remaining Hours on Earth The verdict of death sentence was read to Rizal on December 29, 1896

(Romero et al, 1978). At the outset, Rizal refused to sign it owing to his innocence and objection to his being labeled as a Chinese mestizo. Later, realizing that the law required it, he affixed his signature on the notification of the courts decision. With only twenty hours remaining on earth, Rizal sent a note to his family, as he wants to see them before his execution. The day proved to be hectic one for him as visitors come and go: members of his family; journalists; his defense counsel; Jesuits and other friars who were convincing Rizal to go back to the fold of Catholicism. While busy attending to his visitors, he took time to write his last letter to his best friend and confidante, Blumentritt. The letter runs this way (National Centennial Comission, 1962) When you receive this letter, I shall be dead. I shall be shot tomorrow at seven oclock, but I am innocent of the crime of rebellion. I am going to die with a clear conscience. Farewell my best, my dearest friend, and never think ill of me. Later in the afternoon, his mother, together with Maria, Trinidad, Narcissa, his niece Angelica, and his favorite nephew, Mauricio, visited Rizal. First to see him was his mother, Doa Teodora, who was then crying, approached Rizal to embrace him but the cell guard separated them. Rizal knelt and kissed his mothers hand. After a brief silence between them Rizal asked Doa Teodora to secure the permission of the authorities for his family to bury his dead body. She, then, left the cell afterwards. As his mother could not accept Rizals fate, she even tried seeking executive clemency for her son. Nonetheless, her attempt to secure such pardon from the governor-general proved futile. After his mother, Rizals family members came one at a time. As a person who is about to die, he tried to give them each something that would make them remember him. He gave a wicker chair to Narcissa, while Angelica, his niece, receive d a handkerchief from him. To Trinidad, Rizal gave an alcohol burner and told her that something important was inside it. It was inside this alcohol burner that Rizal placed his last poem, which came to be entitled later as Mi Ultimo Adios or My Last Farewell. Only Maria, however, was not given a gift by Rizal as nothing was left for her. Josephine came later for a brief visit. Rizal kissed her before she left. Josephine was in tears, knowing that Rizal would soon leave her. Knowing that his message and poem could be left for posterity, Rizal then rested, feeling that his mission was over. One by one, his memory of the distant and immediate past flashes back to him. His tranquility, however, was disturbed by the footsteps and voices outside his prison cell. Meanwhile, the Jesuits came back to see Rizal to convince him to retract his alleged religious errors and return to the fold of Catholicism. Rizals last day was indeed an exhausting one for him.