Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers,
but to be fearless in facing them.
Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain, but
for the heart to conquer it.
― Rabindranath Tagore
I am writing this for my sister who is undergoing a tremendous amount of pain right now. I can't compare what I've gone through with what you are going through right now. But I know someone who went through the same thing. Two years ago, I witnessed a mother losing a child right in front of her, while her other two children lay bloodied a few feet away. In my darkest of days, it was her sobbing that haunts me the most.
She visited me in my hospital room a few days after, looking lost and confused. She was alone and she only speaks a few words of English, but she held my hand and told me she love me. Her companion soon followed and told me they are leaving to return to Indonesia in a few days. They have cremated her son and her two daughters are in stable condition. The mother kept repeating her son's name, somehow reassuring herself, and me, that he had existed. All I can remember after that is a cloud of tears as she requested everyone in the room to pray for me and my healing, when she herself has lost more than I did.
I've kept in touch with her through Facebook and in every milestone and important events, she sends me one phrase "I love you, Nina". I am in awe of her capacity to love and to keep going through life, when I would have been an embittered husk.
Sis, you ask me to teach you how to be strong, but this woman, and you, are far stronger than I could ever imagine. Despite my moaning and groaning and endless paawa moments, what I lost can, and have been, replaced. I don't have an easy answer for you, because grief is a bitch. It hits you when you least expect it. It wakes you up in the middle of slumber, like a vise gripping your heart. It makes you crazy, making you sob in the most joyous of moments. You're the only one who would know how it will truly feel like, despite other people telling you that it, too, will come to pass. And that time will ease the pain. It won't but it will make it bearable.
Mars, I may not always know the correct thing to say, and I'm super makakalimutin nowadays, but know that you are in my thoughts. Kung nagdadasal lang ako, sasabihin ko na din na in my prayers. You may feel that you have to put a brave front, for the sake of your children, and that you have to be the rock in your family. You don't have to be anything. Sabi nga ni pareng Rab ( short for Rabindranath), I pray not for pain in your heart to go away, but for your heart to be big enough to also let love in and share that love with those around you. It may not be soon, and it will definitely not be easy. But I'll be here to offer my shoulder to cry on (wag lang sa right side, di kakayanin ang combined weight nating dalawa) and a ref full of wine to on the days where you just want to be lukaret.
I love you, Jo :-)
