Busto: Loving life

Saturday, February 19, 2011

TWO days ago, I celebrated my 38th birthday. While I feel old being two years shy of being 40, I could not thank God enough for giving me another year (and hopefully more years) to appreciate how beautiful it is to live life. I have always prayed for a long life so I may be able to enjoy being with my family.

I want to see my son all grown-up and finding his place in the real world after getting a college degree. I want to see my parents, especially my mother, enjoying their older years having already sent all of us through school. I also want to see my siblings and nephews stable in their lives, although I must say me and my four siblings are pretty very well paced in our own comfortable levels now.

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I always tell everyone I know that there is so much to live for. When I have female friends who feel like the world had crumbled, or ended even, after breaking-up with their boyfriends and partners; I always tell them my classic line: if you have lived so many years without that person in your life, there is no reason why you cannot continue living without that person in your life further.

Of course, heartbreaks are normal occurrences. Everybody, you, and I at one point in our lives go through that stage as we are not rocks who have no feelings. But I feel it is senseless to feel worthless in times of adversities. I know a number of us had been through our lowest ebb and when we are at it, we feel like we are the most hopeless individuals in the world. And that we think that the entire weight of the world is on our shoulders.

For every dark moment, I know there will always be light at the end, but sometimes we do not or could not see the light as fast as we would wish for. Maybe because we need to have realizations as to how things should have and should not have been.

I do not know the former Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes that well. But for the several people who knew him, they thought of him as brave, courageous and strong, among the many superlatives that he was often described. I had heard and read of his exploits when he was still in the service and later when he pursued government service.

Like the rest of a number of people, I am appalled with his suicide. For somebody who was able to weather military life over the past three decades, he could be the last person people would have thought of taking his own life. Whatever his reasons were, only he and God alone know why. But for me, life is sacred and I would not trade it with death.

I have known other people who would have wanted to live but could no longer do so because they are just too sick to be alive and too poor to afford medication. They struggle to live because they know how beautiful it is to be alive.

When my family was agonizing a year ago on whether to subject our mother to cranium surgery, even if the result does not promise anything certain, we gave our approval to the surgeon. Now, our mother is alive and we are very grateful even if she needs to be religiously taken care of 24/7. Although our mother used to say that she would not like to be subjected to such helplessness, we feel in our hearts that we made the right decision.

Recently, my father brought a priest before my mother. The priest is known for his ability to read minds. He talked to my mother and read my mother's responses through her mind. We all felt very relieved that she did not blame us for prolonging her life although it would take a longer time to bring her to her normal self. What she said though was that she would like to spend time eating out with her grandchildren and how she misses hearing my younger sister's voice reading to her the Bible verses. Those revelations are enough for us to be at peace with our decision on her surgery for almost a year now.

Never did we think that prolonging our mother’s life would be wasted, as she herself has so much to live for. If we could just have the lives of those who had thrown away theirs, we would gladly take them if only we could to prolong the lives of those who want to live longer.

These are the things I pondered upon when I turned a year older. I do not wish to live through 100 years old though. My only wish is that God give me and each member of our family several more years to live and enjoy life.

As I always believe, there is so much to look forward to in life.