Love in the time of corona

For Easter, I asked my son Roel, a writer and educator, to share his reflections. This is what he wrote, a moving message to their miscarried baby, touching and sad, yet full of “light and love”:

I ran into a former classmate in my favorite bookstore right before life under lockdown became our collective norm, and I mentioned upon prodding that we lost you early last year. He consoled me by saying it might have been for the best, considering the world largely being an unsuitable place in which to raise children.

Beloved poets and musicians – many of whom I was eager for you to meet – describe the world variedly: a cage, a fine place perpetually ending, even a vampire. Right now it would be hard to come up with an adequate metaphor. Things are uncertain. Overwhelming, overbearing, disheartening, even.

But it may startle some when I say it is a world I still would’ve wanted you to see, to grow up and revel in, and someday eventually conquer. You’d have been well-armed, surrounded by family who rarely lose their mettle, with faith rooted in serenity, courage and wisdom. You’d have known that, at times, aims of social forces may contradict your own, but they will never consume you. Knowing the line between the literal and the figurative would’ve been at the top of that list.

You’d have had good taste, assuredly. Waking to Dear Prudence or Ticket to Ride blasting throughout the house randomly, and be startled it’s the same band performing just for you. As early as possible, I’d have familiarized you with their discography, not only to save your Spotify playlists from future insipidness as you’d develop your own preferences, but so you’d have learned sooner than later that there’s nothing you can do that can’t be done, and there’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be. It’s easy. You’d have also discovered quickly that I am useless in math, nonetheless forced to memorize that the love you take will always be equal to the love you make.

As your wise grandparents did with me, you’d have been free to make many choices, to be reckless, and to stumble face-first when needed. But the stage dad in me would’ve urged you to be the Greta Thunberg of Tiktok. Though I’m confident of that voluntary decision once you’d have been able.

You would have heard a lot about light and love as I’d hold you in my arms and tell you stories each morning; I tend to wake up earlier than others with an undetachable concern for every second I close my eyes I lose an opportunity to witness light. Among tales of dark crystals and labyrinths, of dragon lances and forking paths, of recovery after an 18-year personal plague, I’d describe light that is concrete, tangible, purposeful. I’d tell you about 10-year-old Yelena who unfailingly writes poetry brimming with hope, and your cousin JM, a frontliner who sacrifices her own safety on a daily basis. Or Alex, an ISM 9th grader who spends her free time crafting face shields for health workers. Or Darth Alexa, a glorious misfit when I first met her, now an Atenean junior raising funds for a marginalized community. Over and over you’d have heard about how your radiant mom and I reunited after losing each other for 23 years. Which in our household has no need for the mundane – just hands, divine, touching hands, reaching out, touching me and you. People say this is a dark time, but those acts of light and love, of hope and courage, among countless others, prove them otherwise.

From our many riotous family gatherings, you’d have easily learned when to be either frivolous or grounded, as conversations range from our social fabric to UAAP triumphs, from teaching adult night HS students to favored late night hosts. You would have been born with certain advantages, but also learned that this only means to whom much has been given much is required. Your sagacious grandfather would’ve told you that relentlessly, training your reach to exceed your grasp like a true Animo Jedi.

You’d have been surrounded by literature of all sorts, from thinkers to story-weavers to caped crusaders, enlivening you on how reading is not a chore or a mere luxury, but a means to an end. Your own red pill to be fortified against an unending barrage of signs and static, to form your own hefty opinions, and contest those who deviously revise narratives and perception. At the very least you’d debunk the LeBron GOAT myth on your own, or discover that Friends is, frankly, drearier than Uncle Camus.

You’d have had a mighty, Joplin-esque voice not just for spontaneous living room concerts with me, but to benefit those rendered voiceless, to help distinguish between authentic heroes and villains, between choices and shackles. Your second name would’ve either been Macario or Marcela, after Filipino revolutionaries, a recent family tradition. Safely you’d have learned on your own that this entails fighting when necessary, less for fictional communities that argue to which house they belong, and more for real ones right outside who need it most. This would’ve run in your blood.

You’d have been in safe hands with your older brother Kirk, whose weighty voice proves himself immune to the inanities that traditionally mark his age. You’d have been proud of him, and inherited the nastiest PS4 ninja-fingers in town to boot. Along with the keys to a mean crossover from your indomitable Dublin cousins. While both your ever-illuminated grandmother and mother would’ve taught you more about grace, light and empathy than my favorite poets/spiritual mentors combined ever could.

Still, I wouldn’t know how to describe the world to you on this Easter Sunday. But it is a world we’d have faced together. Equal parts light and dark, old endings and new beginnings, knowing it could be whatever we’d want it to be.

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