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Sunday, March 26, 2006
Dacawi: E-mails with a heart
By Ramon Dacawi
Benchwarmer
YOU must be my age, if not older, to think e-mails, despite their speed and convenience, remain poor substitutes to the handwritten letters the now -extinct postman used to deliver when we were younger. We still long for snail, stamped postal mail as much as we yearn for homemade pie. Their form and substance are often more authentic and personal, and therefore richer.
Sure, the pain inflicted by a scribbled "Dear John" letter may be greater than one sent through the Internet. Yet it is painfully sweeter, for it appears more honest and genuine than one set on italics and looking like a business offer to sell insurance or Viagra, if not spam or scam.
Recently, however, my computer screen popped with e-mails with a heart and soul. They're mostly from kids and ladies who saw the urgency of turning to Internet technology in reaching out and giving hope to the needy here and now.
Meet siblings Elana and Bryan, 10 and eight-year old kids of Joel and Emily Aliping in El Sobrante, California. They e-mailed back with dispatch after I told them 10-month old Baguio boy and kidney patient Rheyvien Jave Villanueva was spared from surgery.
Rheyvien, youngest of four children of a jeepney driver here, was the focus last month of Samaritans who boosted his chances of recovering and growing up like any other normal kid. He was supposed to be operated on when doctors found his condition dramatically improved - from severe to mild - and recommended oral medication and regular monitoring.
"Yay! I'm very happy that his condition has improved," Elana said. "I am very glad I've helped Rheyvien. It may have come from our savings, but it was worth helping someone who needed a lot of care."
"Me and Elana wish we can see the baby when we go for vacation," wrote Bryan. "I hope this baby will build a lot of strong bones and health."
The siblings had earlier asked their dad to deduct $100 from their savings and send it, through Western Union, for Rheyvien's fund.
"Elana and Bryan feel good in their own grasp of little things shared - all the more knowing things are going fine for the little boy," Joel said.
Over in Santa Clara, within the San Franciso Bay Area, nurse Pilar Manno briefly told her son Nickolas about a sick baby in Baguio. The six-year old kid started counting pennies from his piggy pencil.
"Hard to count - not much though," Pilar, who works at the Stanford University Medical Center, later wrote.
Finding the coins didn't amount much, Nickolas took out his dollar gift from his ninang and had his Ma change it into pesos.
Emily, who was here recently for a reunion with her relatives, brought home Nickolas' gift - P4,000 and US$1 -, together with Pilar's note.
A young Ibaloi mother in Kentucky, who is on chemotherapy for breast cancer, wrote of her relief knowing Rheyvien will no longer go under the knife. She had sent US$120 saying her being a mother and her own condition made her relate well to the toddler's plight.
"Am so touched by his mother's very kind gesture to donate some of the donations she received for Cynthia," she wrote.
Cynthia Miguel, a 35-year-old nursing graduate, was diagnosed for cancer last September and was in Manila last week for her therapy. She stood by the late journalist Noney Padilla-Marzan during the Marzan's last four months against breast cancer.
Rheyvien's mother Emilia celebrated her baby's dramatic medical improvement by turning over P5,000 to speed up Cynthia's delayed internal radiation therapy.
The latest on my e-mail box came from a lady and Baguio expatriate who had figured out an innovative, practical and effective internet approach - which she's now working on with her on-line buddies - to raise P150,000 for another boy's surgery.
"I don't believe in coincidences," she wrote after learning of the boy's plight, which Jerry Mayona posted on his http//www.baguiocity.com. "I believe that we're all part of God's plan so I felt there was a reason for me to see this article at that time and prompted me to contact Jerry."
Online, she's "Princess Lea", but the lady requested anonymity through her e-mail last Wednesday, "I'll let you in on a secret - I'm not really a princess," she said.
With her grasp of patent ductus arteriosus - the medical term for the boy's congenital heart ailment, I presume she's a nurse or a physician. With a heart like hers, she may well be a princess.
"So far, we're almost halfway there," she said, hoping the full amount would be raised by the end of April.
Spring will be in full by then. I'll let you in by then on how Princess Lea, her sisters and her Internet buddies pooled their hearts together for the boy - nine-year old Santy John Tuyan.
If that's too long a wait, you may click on Jerry' website and then feel your heart also throbbing for the ailing boy's deliverance. (e-mail: rdacawi@yahoo.com for comments).
(March 26, 2006 issue)
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