E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
The family, and celebrating life
Sunday, 04 18, 2006
Holy Week at the Baguio Country Club certainly smothers one with that rare luxury of veering away from the concerns in Manila, whether it be the matter of GMA’s holding on to her seat at the Palace until God-knows-when, or the issue of who among those in the fractious Opposition is ripe for a changeover for leadership of our nation.
Holy Week, in such serene surroundings, puts one in focus on matters that tug at the soul and strike at the core of one’s being. Under the cold light of a waxing moon about to reach its fullness, the nagging questions fly: “Where does life lead to? What will happen when we get there?” And the passion of the life of the man nailed to a cross 2,000 years ago provides the answers: From wild adulation on Palm Sunday to unbridled derision on Maundy Thursday; from an unceremonious death on Good Friday to a glorious resurrection on Easter Sunday. These are the transformations that could have parallel events in our life.
Just like how whoever is in power right now — reveling in the adulation of people suborned by a few kilos of rice — might come to the Maundy Thursday of her life, when she will suffer the humiliation of being brought down her pedestal. Or how the sudden resurrection of courage from a benumbed populace — whose civil liberties have been trampled upon for so long that it feels like the pall of death has settled permanently over their lives — can only alter for the better the life of a nation. In the face of all these, what then is left for one to do?
The homily, after the lighting of the candle during the Mass on Black Saturday, said it all: “So must the family stand together in these times of uncertainty. In the darkness, we light the candle to see life thrive once more. The family should live life together, in darkness and in light.”
And so my wife and I stand by our daughter, who has broken to us the most welcome news that she is getting married to a fine, young man we have always wanted to be a son-in-law. Here is one special creature of God whose loss will bring a pain no greater than the love we inflicted on her ever since she was a suckling babe in her mother’s arms up to the time she grew up into a fine young woman who could confidently, and rightly, point out the error of her father’s outbursts. My wife and I cannot be more pleased than to see her stand proud, the way we always wanted her to, when that time comes for her to discard the parental crutches.
My wife and I stand by another daughter, who is in law school, trying to live up to a family tradition that calls for a lawyer in every generation. She is trying hard, as she must, because becoming a lawyer is not that easy at a muddled time like this, where experimentation with the Constitution has become the questionable occupation and overriding obsession of a number of scofflaws.
My wife and I stand by our son, who is entering college in UP, even as we are at once transformed to that time in the 1970s in Diliman when we started living a connubial life at a time of living dangerously. UP again is in ferment, as the seat of a righteous opposition, and we can almost see him going through the same challenges we faced when we were his age. Of course, he will be joining the Sigma Rho just like his father.
My wife and I stand by still another son, who is mad about basketball, who has the moves, and the height that has zoomed to a level where he cannot be missed by the scouts out there. His life revolves around the sport, and his father’s fleeting, murderous urge to bounce him around every time he sacrifices the study room for the hard court is at once extinguished by the inner satisfaction of viewing the certificates of achievement in sports which he keeps bringing home.
And I stand by my wife, who could not be any happier even as she, like a candle, sheds her caring light to her children and her spouse while consuming herself in living an altogether other life, among the battered women and the children caught in life’s cruel snarl. Hers is a backbreaking and exhausting accomplishment which I would not wish on any other wife and mother, but which I fiercely take pride in.
The fairways of the Club are beckoning. But it is Holy Week. The precious time with the family is there to savor. It would be criminal to spend hours whacking at a white ball whose erratic flight across the green takes you away from your family. The warmth and inner joy of being close to kith and kin — for that’s what they are to me: best friends and blood relations simultaneously — would probably never come again, given the uncertainties of life in general, and my life in particular. Every moment counts. The family matters most. And the Holy Week gives me that moment, to celebrate life with them.
Life is a never ending challenge, but we must treat it as a blessing. You give your family whatever you must to make them become what they want to be. You enjoy every moment they are with you, they being God’s and only yours to work on for God. What you make out of them is your gift to God as well as to yourself.
Many families who have gone on an Easter retreat are back in Manila by this time. Back to the horrendous traffic, and right smack into the harsh reality that some of us may not have been fully aware of, the New York Times editorial notwithstanding.
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