Storm Stories: Smiling Sun

Here today is a very talented writer and an extremely gifted poet who, literally, lives half a world away from The Northeast of America.  (Don’t you just love the Internet?)  Her words are so authentic and so revealling, I was delighted when she chose to share a Storm Story.  As it turns out, however, she has had so many storms that it was difficult for her to chose just one.  She is a beautiful woman who lives in a beautiful country, though one so mired in economic struggle it has affected her family tremendously.  Through it all, she has been a shining example to me of hope amidst despair, of endurance among desperation, and especially of the willingness of the human spirit to survive and thrive under the most difficult circumstances.

MANY STORMS, ONE FAMILY

by Sherma

In my thirty years of existence, my family and I have been through a lot–good and bad. I do not know which of the storms we’ve been through is the worst, or most difficult, as they all had been at the time we were battling them, but I have chosen to talk about that time that left an indelible mark in our collective memory. 

Let me take you back to that Christmas Eve 16 years ago when a kind of glowing seed planted itself in each of our hearts. 

We were gathered around the dining table, about to eat the modest food we’ve prepared for the Noche Buena. The food wasn’t the kind one would expect on a Christmas table, even among ordinary Filipino families.  But to us, what we had constituted a fiesta. 

We bowed our heads–my brothers, Mom, and I–as my youngest brother, then 10 years old, led the prayer. It was his first time.

He asked us to bow our heads, then started. “Thank you Lord for…” 

As my brother led the prayer, I heard a muffled sob inside the only room of the garage-turned-house we lived in, and slowly, tears started flowing down my cheeks. 

It was my Dad who was inside that room, unable to stand on his own, could not even get up of his bed without assistance, feeling deeply sorry, not for himself, but for the fact that he could not buy us our Christmas gifts.  

But who would care about Christmas gifts when he was there in the battleground, having a one-on-one with death and we were there watching him slowly losing, feeling so helpless that there seemed nothing we could do to help him? Inside our hearts there was a huge fear, gnawing at us, whispering into our fearful ears that we would lose him. 

But still, my brother started his prayer by thanking the Lord. 

Inside of us, there were also some other secondary concerns–where to get our next food as my mom had been illegally laid off from work three years before, and we had been eating law terminologies for lunch and dinner as our parents decided to fight Mom’s employer in court. 

With one parent very sick, and another reduced to selling household wares hulugan* (installment) style in the market to support us and buy dad’s pricey medicine–unlike in other countries, our government does not have a good medical support for the poor)–we kids also had to do our share, helping in the house and doing what we can to help mom make both ends meet, while having to care for our father, and maintain our schooling. We were almost certain that we would have to quit school sooner or later, which was very sad, as we had been doing well in school, and we had big dreams for the future, and getting a good education was our only hope of rising above our situation. 

But somehow, at that moment, right after my brother uttered the first word of his prayer, something miraculous happened. A different kind of strength surged through each of us, that as we dined, we started telling each other we will get through it. 

I can no longer remember clearly how that night ended, but I remember feeling a kind of lightness inside my heart I could not explain. It was as if we did something good. It was as if I was sure we weren’t losing our father after all. And that we will all triumph over those multiple storms. 

And yes, we did make it. All of us. Dad miraculously recovered. After three years, he completely regained his strength. And we didn’t drop out of school. And Mom, she won the court battle nine years after she sued that company. 

It could be said that that court battle jeopardized our schooling, as it made things extra hard for us while we were going to school (she got her back wages not when we desperately needed it but after we had graduated from the university and dad had completely recovered). But then, looking at how strong and determined and close we have become as a family despite–or because of the things we’ve gone through–I now look back at the things we experienced as planned in detail to help us become better persons, and to understand how it is to be human, to be vulnerable, so that if ever we would become successful, we would always remember to identify with the vulnerable.  

The road after that Christmas Eve proved to be long and difficult, but we just continued walking forward as a family, believing that the sun would soon rise and smile brightly upon us.