Lleva: On losing a loved one - A tribute to my brother

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

"IT WAS the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was a spring of hope, it was a winter of despair." I quote from Charles Dickens' A tale of two cities. I don't intend to write on the classic novel but to express a winter of despair and a spring of hope in our family.

All things that happen in this world occur at the time God chooses. He sets the time for silence and the time to talk. He sets the time for love and the time to hate, the time for war and the time for peace.

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What do we gain from our work? We know the heavy burdens that God has laid on us. It has been four years now since I lost my only brother Roderick Garcia, a medical doctor. He met the grim reaper in a vehicular accident along the North Luzon expressway. A very sad and unbelievable incident and it happened at the prime of his career. Our family struggled and sailed on the rough seas of sorrow that the agony of losing someone is inevitable.

As I reminisce our childhood days, the fun we had together, our high school life spicing it up with mischief and escapades, our teacher both in the secondary and tertiary levels, my brother and sister Carol who were both in the medical school, were nostalgic moments.

With the love and guidance of our parents, the three of us siblings enjoyed every moment being together. Although it was perfectly normal to have rough spots and conflicts among us, our parents inculcated in our lives Bible verses as we tread on the paths of our career. These were, "Study to show thyself approve unto God, a workman that needed not to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth." II Timothy 2:15 and Proverbs3:5-6 which says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths." Such wonderful are God's words and through our parents we have been successful.

Rod, was the essence of a Christian doctor, husband, father, son and brother. As a boy, he wanted to enter the Lutheran Theological Seminary and dreamt to be the first Filipino dean of the seminary since all the past deans were Americans. He told my mom of his ambition and this made my mother so delighted. But after graduating from high school, he changed his mind and instead enrolled in the medical school at St. Louis University. They were the first batch of medical students at that time. His becoming a seminary dean did not push through because according to him he could serve the Lord as a doctor and be a preacher of God's word at the same time.

This was the pattern of his life, following the footsteps of my mother, who gave up her career as a nurse supervisor at the North General hospital now the Jose Reyes Memorial hospital in Manila to become a missionary nurse of the Lutheran Medical Mission in the far-flung Ilongot Valley, the head hunters haven in the North. A busy bee and committed to his profession, my brother was to oversee the medical laboratory to be opened at Subic a month before he was called to God's Heavenly Kingdom.

Life for us has gone through the best of times and the Lord tested our faith just as He tested Job in the Old Testament. This devastated us all and every minute, every hour during those days and months, we adjusted not seeing him, not communicating and not being with him anymore tore our hearts apart because we were a family and will always likely share a very special bond and connection.

There is a reason for this because God's thoughts are higher than men and He knows best. The Lords gives and the Lord takes away. What more for his wife who lost both parents after graduating from medical school, then losing a husband after some years later. Leaving behind a son who will someday take his place.

But then prayer was the currency that moved the hand of God on behalf of my brother to give us the love and the comfort, t for we know he is in the gentle arms of Jesus.