‘Grieve but stay awake’

In a week’s time, Good Friday will descend upon our lives as we observe the most solemn day in the history of Christianity, the death of the Redeemer Jesus Christ — a death so piercing, so heartbreaking, so flesh-tearing it grips the heart of all who read about it, watch it in movies and view its depiction in murals or pictures.

Some of us have already gone through the Good Friday of our lives — carrying our cross, or losing a loved one whose death was like a  spear to the heart of our hearts.

When Sheila Romero and her husband Mikee lost their eldest son Miguel at the age of 22 last December, they were inconsolable. They had just had a baby and they were moving to a brand-new house. Mikee was again serving in Congress as a party-list representative after a brief absence.

Miguel’s death was so sudden Sheila and Mikee had no time to “brace for impact,” so to speak.

Friends remember that nothing they could say or do could comfort Sheila and Mikee during Miguel’s wake. They would sob out loud. They couldn’t even let go of his coffin when the time came, just like then President John F. Kennedy wouldn’t let go of his infant son Patrick’s coffin in August 1963 after the funeral Mass was over.

(“God is good, Jack,” the priest told the President, and it was only then that JFK let go of his son’s tiny casket. Three months later, JFK would be assassinated and his widow Jackie would tell her confessor she was contemplating suicide, but decided against it because it meant she would never be reunited with JFK and Patrick in heaven.)

***

Early this week, a group of friends (mostly women)  had lunch with Sheila at her newly-opened Thai restaurant Nara (which means “women” in certain deities) at the SM Megamall Fashion Hall. Even on a Monday, the restaurant, with its authentic Thai dishes, was brimming with people. Though entertaining guests, Sheila was very alert to what each of the other tables needed or wanted.

“I’ve been very busy,” she replied after I asked her — quite stupidly on my part — how she was. “But I have not moved on,” she added. “I honestly cannot say I have moved on.”

“I think of my son the minute I wake up in the morning,” she continued, barely able to hold back her tears. “And my last thoughts before I fall asleep are of him.”

But she says that she had to — has to — go on because she has a husband, four children, and about 150 employees who depend on her.

“I cannot put everybody else’s lives on hold because I just want to stay in my bed and just cry all day,” confided Sheila. “I just want to do that, but my children also need a functioning mother.”

Her only request of family and friends is to understand if she retreats from gatherings, goes to a corner and cries. Then she composes herself, and rejoins the group.

How did you do it, Joanne? Sheila asked me. You see, I  once told Sheila that I lost a baby girl who I carried in my womb for only 5 ½ months. When she was born prematurely in 1992, the hospital and the doctors couldn’t save her. (I have read that the survival chances of very premature babies are better now.)

I told Sheila that I gave myself permission to grieve, and that she should, too. And that almost 26 years after I lost my baby Joanna, I still think of her every day. I used to think of her every hour, then the intervals between the thoughts grew longer and longer. But I still think of her. Friends who have lost babies and children say they are your biggest “what ifs.” What if she lived? What if she or he were saved? What if, what if.

My advice to Sheila and to other grieving parents is to shift from “what if” to “what now?”

What now? Now, you have to live for a purpose greater than your grief. For Sheila, she knows she has to live for her husband and her other children, one of whom is just a toddler, and the many people whose livelihood depends on her.

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Sheila and her friends have just returned from Siem Reap, where the majesty of the Angkor Wat somehow distracted her from her mourning. She would still cry, but she has found out that smiling is no longer a stranger to her. Yes, though her heart has yet to be pieced together, she can smile again.

She has learned to heed this advice, “Grieve but stay awake.”

Stay awake to the beauty of the world Miguel had left behind. Stay awake to the needs of his beloved father and siblings. Stay awake to be able to be the best that you can be.

Even with only lip gloss on her face, Sheila is beautiful. Pain added, not subtracted, to her beauty.

After I told her that, she showed me a text message from a friend, who was quoting another writer.

Messages like this are like warm fuzzy blankets that she wraps herself with amid the bitter cold of pain. It goes:

“She was beautiful, but not like those girls in the magazines. She was beautiful, for the way she thought. She was beautiful for the sparkle in her eyes when she talked about something she loved. She was beautiful, for her ability to make other people smile, even when she was sad. No, she wasn’t beautiful for something as temporary as her looks. She was beautiful deep down to her soul. She is beautiful.”

In the Good Friday of her life, Sheila Romero is looking forward to the wondrous Easter Sunday that will follow. And that is why she is wide awake and beautiful.

Legarda: Happiness should also be gauge of country’s growth

Happiness is wealth.

On International Happiness Day (March 20), Sen. Loren Legarda said that the government should also look into the happiness and well-being of Filipinos as indicators of the nation’s development.

In line with this, Legarda reiterated her call to adopt the Gross National Happiness (GNH) concept of Bhutan.

“There is a need for a comprehensive approach to measure the happiness and well-being of Filipinos in order to review the impact of existing policies and introduce corrective measures. The GNH concept used by the government of Bhutan measures progress by giving equal importance to non-economic aspects of well-being,” she explained.

Legarda said that aside from the impressive economic growth of the country that is measured through growth indicators such as the gross domestic product (GDP), the improved well-being of Filipinos should also be measured as a sign of inclusive and sustainable growth.

“Improving quality of life goes beyond economic growth and should include equally important factors such as good governance, equitable and sustainable development, environmental sustainability, cultural preservation and disaster resilience,” said Legarda.

In the 2018 World Happiness Report, the Philippines ranked 71st happiest nation among 156 countries included in the study of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

The Top 5 happiest countries are Finland, Norway, Denmark, Iceland and Switzerland. All the top countries have high values for all six of the key variables that have been found to support well-being: income, freedom, trust, healthy life expectancy, social support and generosity.

The four pillars of Bhutan’s GNH are the promotion of equitable and sustainable socio-economic development, the preservation and promotion of cultural values, the conservation of the natural environment, and the establishment of good governance.

The four pillars are further classified into nine domains: psychological well-being, health, education, time use, cultural diversity and resilience, good governance, community vitality, ecological diversity and resilience, and living standards.

“The quality of life of Filipinos remains poorly understood due to the absence of measures that will reflect the happiness and well-being of the people. Adopting the GNH index will help us pursue the holistic development of the country,” Legarda concluded.

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