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Monday, May 09, 2005
Dacawi: Paying it forward
By Ramon Dacawi
AFTER months of quiet rage against the night, my older brother Danilo, passed on the other Thursday. He was like my father, whose work as plant propagator at the Pacdal Forest Nursery inherited when the old man died.
Both must now be helping pot seedlings and coax plants to bloom up their in the great gardens of the Almighty.
When my friend Lito Mon succumbed to the same illness way back in college, I knew the disease is much more complicated than simple anemia. Doctors qualify it as aplastic, and if my brother understood its gravity, he hardly showed fear of the inevitable during those days he was in and out of the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center (BGHMC).
Just before and immediately after the fight was over, my nephew Ronald had to rush home twice from the Army's Officer Candidate School to perk up his dad's spirits and for the wake and the burial.
Three nights before his dad's passing, Ronald told me he had understood what the diagnosis meant. It was said to console and assure me he was prepared to wear his father's shoes. So like his mother, Fely and younger sister Janet who are no strangers to poverty and suffering yet reluctant to unload their burden on others who have their own to bear.
Those who knew came, to replenish what the disease was eating up with their own blood, meager resources, faith and prayers that everything would turn out fine.
They were relatives, some of whom we haven't seen for years but rushed as soon as they learned, so did neighbors and pony boys. Strangers arrived, some of whom the family will never really know and, therefore, won't be able to recognize, much less thank when we meet or pass them by on the street.
The Wright Park pony boys readily skipped working days to be of help. It was difficult for some who had to struggle overnight against the urge to reach for the bottle just so they could pass the blood screening the following morning.
Workers at City Hall also took time out for the life-saving procedure, so did police trainees and officers. Barangay chairmen personally escorted their Type B constituents to the BGH laboratory, while the local Red Cross staff patiently did the washing or segregation of plasma and red and white corpuscles during those emergencies.
The family can't repay the kindness of Dr. Jasmin Igama and the rest of the BGHMC medical staff who were there until the end. Like many of the blood donors, we don't know them by name. We won't be able to remember the faces of some those who came for the wake and the funeral. We won't be able to thank the nuns who prayed or those who were away from the vigil and the final rites as they had to do the other preparations, like cooking food.
The family will be forever grateful, too, to colleagues in media and the country musicians whose voices broke the silence and pierced the pre-dawn darkness during the wake.
As Manong Joe observed, our brother Danilo's happiest years, aside from seeing his children grow and watching his pine seeds sprout, were those spent with his brothers in the Holy Name Society and the Pinehurst Council 5379 of the Knights of Columbus.
Manong Danny's lack of professional stature and material resource notwithstanding, they embraced him as their own, as a peer and co-equal. They supported his son's education and even honored Ronald at the final rites by presenting him the Knights traditional sword. The gift will be a treasured as, the family's fitting reminder of who its father was to the KC and the parish he served.
In a moving ceremony, the Knights presented Manang Fely a chalice. In keeping with KCs tradition, the widow and her daughter Janet will turn over the cup to a parish priest so that the same may be used during communion rites.
Our kin will never be able to repay those who touched Danny's simple life. They can only - and will - take on from novelist Richard Paul Evans observation that the best antidote for grief is to turn it inside out and help somebody else.Instead of paying back, the family will pay it forward so that they won't break their part of the chain of kindness that Catherine Ryan Hyde presented in her fascinating book.
(May 9, 2005 issue)
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