By Rex Catubig

 

IT was sometime in the mid-1990s that a friend of mine, while I was on my holiday vacation, invited me to join him and a couple of other friends to do some charity work for the season. He warned me, however, that it would not be a simple task and would require me not only to spend personal time and shell out some money but would “keep the hands dirty” and do actual work as part of the project.

We shall be feeding the children and elderly in the missionary house of the Sisters of Charity — the religious order of Mother Teresa. It’s a simple chore. BUT, it entailed doing the marketing ourselves, personally preparing the ingredients, and actively assisting in the cooking.

I did all and passed the first year feeling I had done something good. And by the following year, I found myself taking the lead with the help of my Kumare Linda who acted as the go-between and all-round trouble-shooter.

Many Christmases hence, with New Year coming and going, we are blessed to be still working our way to this haven for the underprivileged–although for some years now, we have relegated the food preparation to the real cooks.

But we continue to break bread with Mother Teresa’s wards and enjoy the simple pleasure of partaking in the Grace of the Lord with the innocent children and helpless elderly He beseeches to come to Him.

But the onset of the COVID pandemic changed all this.

The missionary closed its doors to visitors. The residents, young and old alike, are vulnerable health-wise and it would be foolhardy to risk exposing them to the malevolent malady.

But, somehow, love found its way. We bundled food, cleaning supplies, and other essentials in boxes and were allowed by the Sisters to drop them off in a quick turnaround.

We missed the personal touch, the mingling with the residents, the impromptu programs we would hold to engage their participation. But we took comfort in being united in spirit. We held on to the thought that maybe they remembered us, too, even in the blur of their flimsy memories.

When the plague passed and the gate to the Missionary was opened again, we hastily prepared a visit. With my classmate, teacher Dette, another classmate, and a friend, we happily explored once again the familiar place—the nursery where the children are, and the home for the elderly.

The regulars recognized us and were just as excited to see us. The more aggressive ones readily hugged us, while the others flashed their brightest smiles and waved at us.

In the midst of all this, we missed some friendly faces, those whose journey in the Mission house we were privy of. Their transition from the nursery to the adult center seemed to have happened overnight, and without realizing it, in between our visits, the once young had grown up. But worse, those who grew up beyond our gaze, in the fast flow of time, were now nowhere to be seen. They are gone—forever.

Of the couple of children whose passage we most mourned, the child turned adult we missed most was Ganda. He, whose only utterance is the word Ganda, meaning beautiful, which earned him the moniker. He was a beautiful savage—wild, driven by tantrums, yet one could see that beneath the unkind and cruel condition he was trapped in, lay a gentle spirit that struggled to reach out and be felt.

Confronted with cases like this, we couldn’t help but feel conflicted. Should we be saddened by the demise, or be glad that the ordeal was over for him? He never had the privilege to ripen into old age. But even if given the chance, would he have been better off, or would it have just prolonged the challenging life he was gifted with?

Conjectures at such instances do not puzzle solve. But merely induces doubt and insecurities and causes faith to falter.

We never question why even colorful leaves fall off the tree. Life, and beauty, do not conform to our whim. They teach us the hard contradictory lesson of letting go. Because only then could life, beauty, and our Ganda, could assume what they were meant to be and go on forever.

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