How many storms could break a heart?

Science will always be prepared with some possible explanation for what caused the floods, most likely even their links to climate change. Science could begin by recounting our city’s natural history which points to the Pasig River continually caressing the lips of Manila Bay. Science could readily give you a litany of elevations across the cities of the metropolis, technically illustrating how Cainta and Marikina could be natural gigantic basins. Science could be reminding you right now that our overpopulation, and the way all 10 million of us have carved our own abodes in every nook and cranny of the city, has aggravated the tragedy. But all these ideas, as they lurk in my head, all take the background for now, as I think of my friend whose family got trapped in De la Costa, Montalban during the storm.

De la Costa, Montalban is one of the areas worst hit by “Ondoy.” I saw it on television — the nearby saturated hills caused landslides which buried houses and their inhabitants. During the storm, my friend’s husband tied their kids to a tree to keep them from drifting with the strong flood currents. They said they saw their friends and neighbors pass them carried by the strong currents. It painted an image I can never forget. Two days after, when I met my friend and Marijoe, 11, one of her daughters, I did not know what to say to Marijoe who celebrated her birthday tied to a tree. A few years ago, they were victims of another tragedy — their house burned down and their family had to sleep in a basketball court for weeks. I found myself telling her that she can face anything from now on. And when I left them, I wondered to myself if what I said were true.

Do our chances for happiness decrease when we experience such deep tragedies like Ondoy? A few weeks ago, someone sent me a very moving article. It was published in June 2009 issue of Atlantic under Psychology. It was an ongoing study of 268 men and how they have fared for 72 years since their days at Harvard. The study followed them through youth, shifting careers, changing marriages, parenthood, grandparenthood and old age, and all the joys and heartaches that came with those rites of passage, until death. Some of them are very famous men — like Norman Mailer and John F. Kennedy (although JFK’s records cannot be opened until 2040). The study’s writer, Joshua Wold Shenk, began his piece by asking if out of these life stories, there would emerge some formula for happiness.

The research hoped that maybe leafing through an archive, browned by the passage of 72 years but constantly visited to be updated, would give us wandering and wondering humans some clues to what makes for a happy life. Maybe it wanted to know how many shots of tragedy could we take before we break our hearts irretrievably? How healthy should we be to consider ourselves happy? If we lose a limb or the control of our bodies, do we inevitably lose our balance, not just for space, but also for life? How much money really helps in living our desired life and how many coins over is it when it begins to be a burden? How fulfilled should we be in our chosen work, in the people we have chosen to love and be responsible for in order to come out happy?

There was no formula. Of course, there isn’t any. Seventy-two simultaneous years of 268 men fall short not just in terms of how their stories could apply to the rest of us, non-Harvard beings and unmale. They also fall short in measuring up to how each of the subjects viewed their own complex lives. They themselves were lost in the passion and gravity of their own lives to consciously think of proportions that could be the recipe for lasting glee.

It was not even the absence of obstacles and tragedies that made for happiness. The only thing that was clear is that for those who thought they were happy, they raged with life. In the words of one chosen case, he “squeezed that lemon.” They were the ones who consciously lived fully, storms and sunsets, summer days and sunrises. They fought earth, water, air and fire and their combinations, and these souls prevailed.

I seriously doubt if a science column or a 72-year-old study could ever console 11-year-old Marijoe who just lost their house and saw her friends drift into oblivion. But I saw fire in her eyes and I hope the fire stays.

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