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Saturday, December 31, 2005
Dacawi: Little birds among us
By Ramon Dacawi
IN A confused world that breeds cynics, liars and thieves, we need stories that uplift. An anecdote I heard from Ruth Abram is definitely one of them.
It's a story for Christmas, for this day of rebirth and renewal. It's for all seasons, not only for anniversaries but for the everyday life. It's for all ages, beliefs and persuasions. It's for anybody wanting to make a difference but doesn't know how. It's for us, self-anointed development leaders and workers, who proclaim we know how to proceed but don't or won't - unless there's something for us.
Ruth's story is worth being told and retold. I'm sharing it again, for the process of retelling is quite self-redeeming. Kids exploring what remains of Baguio's forest and urban heritage love hearing it. They relate well to the story, more so after they've experienced picking up cigarette butts and trash thrown along their way by adults.
A man came upon a little bird lying on its back, with its feet in the air. "Little bird," said the man, "what are you doing?" "Can't you see, the sky is falling and I'm trying to hold it up with my feet," responded the little bird. "That's ridiculous," the man shot back. "You can't hold the sky with your little feet." The bird looked at him directly and said, "I do what I can."
The story set the tone of a paper on "The Preservation and Restoration of Conscience" that Ruth presented during the 11th International Conference of National Trusts last October in Washington, D.C.
Ruth works on the conservation of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum of Manhattan, the initial home of immigrants from over 20 nations who arrived in America between 1863 and 1935 to flesh out their dreams.
In telling her story, Ruth echoed the point of Sierra Leone story teller/history keeper Kewulay Kamara: "What is the use of telling a story if it doesn't help people transcend?"
Ruth's maybe a fairy tale but there are still little birds in the real world. They still live among us even in this poor nation that, many believe, Santa Claus abandoned a long time ago for fear his bag of goodies would go to the wrong hands.
I've met little birds in unlikely places and in trying circumstances.
Several years ago, some inmates got wind of the plight of a young boy suffering from a congenital heart defect. They passed the hat and counted over a hundred pesos in coins they turned over to the boy's father, a pony boy at the Wright Park.
Somebody familiar learned of the jailbirds' collective act and grudgingly took the bumpy, seven-hour ride from Bontoc, Mountain Province to reach my cubicle.
"Apay kunam balud laeng ti makatulong (Do you think only prisoners can help)?" he shouted, feigning lack of civility. "Ni, ited mo man daytoy ken diay tatang ti ubing (Here, hand this over to the child's father)," he directed, shoving a P1,000 bill into my hand.
Before I could say a word, engineer Abraham Aquileth was already out of the door. He must have hated hearing me bursting at the seams.
Also some years back, a driver from Benguet found himself languishing in jail in Saudi Arabia. His service truck had developed mechanical trouble and accidentally killed a man. A court sentenced him to death, but the family of the victim was willing to accept "blood money" in exchange for his freedom.
When they learned of his plight, pupils of an elementary school (its name skips me) in Mankayan, Benguet decided to skip their mid-morning snacks. They pooled their stipends to help raise the amount.
I don't know if Lorie Ramos, then a 43-year-old widow and mother of a 10-year-old boy, is still in this world. Chances are, she has already taken flight on angel wings, as did her friend Noney Padilla-Marzan on Mother's Day last year. Lorie called up three years ago, saying she had something for Noney, who was then battling cancer.
"I know how difficult it is for your wife and you, so let me share a little of what I have with her," she told Conrad Marzan, Noney's husband. She had a bandanna wrapped around her head when we saw her at her rented house in Scout Barrio. "I've licked breast cancer and I'm on my second round, this time in the lungs," she admitted calmly.
Less than a week later, another lady at the University of Baguio asked if Conrad could pick up her support to Noney. A hat covered her lack of hair, a tell-tale sign of chemotherapy.
Lorie and Noney immediately linked up, quietly sharing their rage and hopes even as their conditions were deteriorating fast. Oblivious of her own predicament, Noney used up her time offering solace to those at the children's cancer ward.
Several times a year, another little bird calls up, advising me to pick up her check for P10,000. Despite my protests, it's always pay-to-cash, and up to me to decide who among seriously ill patients it should be allotted to. "My family can only share a little, so kindly don't mention where it came from," she always reminds.
A common friend recently told me the anonymous lady Samaritan is herself in distress over an ailment she hopes to recover from. May her family find comfort in the fact that there are other little birds out there praying for her deliverance.
Last week, world television recalled the tragedy of last year's tsunami that killed some 200,000 people. Aside from running footages of the devastation and the statistics, I wish the networks would also replay, again and again, the selflessness of little birds in the wake of the calamity.
Among them were nameless Thais who lost everything except the shirts on their backs that they pulled off for foreign victims who had nothing to wear. These ordinary, amazing people held back their own grief and set aside their own search for missing kin to guide and help foreigners who arrived in search of their own.
Recalling their sense of humanity will be a powerful antidote to the tsunami of grief that just returned and will recur at next year's end when the images of a horror of such magnitude are flashed again on the TV screen.(e-mail: rdacawi@yahoo.com for comments/feedbacks)
(December 31, 2005 issue)
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