A personal resurrection

Happy Easter everyone! So what did you do during the long vacation? Wherever you were – in the beach, in Baguio or at home – I hope you used the break not only to rest your body but also to reflect and to recharge your soul. As for me, I did a lot of thinking. When I got tired of thinking, I meditated and prayed. I also read a lot of books. Then, I went back to thinking. I didn’t think only of myself though. I also thought of my daughter Liaa and her family, my daughter Pin and her third pregnancy, Mikee and her return to the political fray, Mai-Mai and her impending wedding and I thought of baby China and how she doesn’t have a love life. I also thought of my almost empty nest. Then, I thought of friends who kept me afloat through the hard times and I thought of friends who need to keep afloat.

We know that the meaning of Christ’s resurrection is the restoration of the body in some form after its death. But in the Catholic faith, resurrection has a deeper significance. It bears our hope to everlasting life. And we need to impart this doctrine of hope to those I call the "living dead" – those who are physically alive but really quite dead inside.

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I know of many people who fail to "resurrect" because they can’t seem to move forward because of situations that happened in their past. These past events not only haunt them but keep them paralyzed, and even killed them. Counseling hasn’t been successful in resurrecting their dead souls. To be truthful to oneself is to admit being in a situation like this. Like a fragile glass that broke into many pieces, it took me a while to wake up from this deathlike trance in the late 1990s, but having a high tolerance for pain and the ability to block out memories played an advantage as it does for others who are helpless and not all together. But I know that what works for one may not work for another. I believe we each have to discover the best way to resuscitate ourselves from consequential breakdown.

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Over the Holy Week I read this phrase while traveling from province to province. "It is hard to let go of the past if you have not learned from it. As soon as you learn and let go you improve the present." And the truth is no one can find the present for someone else. "The present is a gift you give yourself. Only you have the power to discover what it is." Our willingness to be healed often leads us to look for a great support system, a universal need it seems. Some may go to a psychiatrist, others to a priest, a pastor or imam. Me, I was sort of brought out of my pining by joining school activities, being with solicitous children and amusing babies. Their laughter and innocence breathed new life into me.

Then, too, I have great friends who don’t over sympathize. A great refuge was writing and reading. Reading can be therapeutic. From the mafia to anthropology to fiction, my books have kept me sane, never mind that I get confused with authors’ names. Reading teaches many lessons and at the same time diverts your attention from heavy burdens. In fact, two books I recently read did just that.

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One book from whom I quoted earlier was The Present by Spencer Johnson MD. Because of the packaging and its cover, you would think that it’s a book about gifts. Actually, it’s more of a book that teaches about the importance of the here and now. Really very appropriate. Stuck in the past, many of us skim through and barely live in the present. Here is one of the many important messages in that book: "When you do not use your feelings about the past to learn from your experiences, you lose the joy of the present." Maybe that’s the key. Rationalizing why a particular painful event in your life happened is probably a most important part of the process of healing. And this is also perhaps the most difficult one, especially if the episode that caused irreparable damage is of your own doing – a wrong choice made or the wrong words said. But that’s just it. We must come to terms with that painful event and forgive ourselves and others. Only then can we really let go and move forward.

The message towards the end of the book goes, "Remember that you did the best you knew how at the time. When you know better than you know now you can do better than now." The character of the old man in the book also said, "Yes, the good news is the more you learn from the past, the fewer regrets you have. And the more time you have in the present." I am gradually realizing, as the rest of the "living dead" should remember, that the past is past and we can’t turn back the clock. The only way we can right the wrong is to live the present and consequently improve for the future. Easier said than done but, hey, no one said that life was easy.

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Tuesdays with Morrie by writer Mitch Albom is another inspiring book about the "living dead". A story of hope, a book entitled Five People You Meet in Heaven is about an old man who lived and died feeling unworthy. This book gives light through five arguments to dispute the old man’s claim and is also for those who go on living thinking they are worthless. He says he had a "nothing life." Don’t we sometimes all feel this way? Well, this book writes something we’ve known all along. One of which is, we are in this world for a purpose, no matter how regimented our life seems to be. A father walks to the same jeepney stop, rides the same MRT everyday to work so he may put food on his family’s dinner table. The routine we go through as we know it may not be so after all but something planned by a higher being. Everything that happens has a purpose. Even bad things happen for a reason. A soldier dies for his country so others may live free from strife, just as we all fail so we may know who our real friends are. Just read the book and think about it as I’m running out of space and philosophical ideas.

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True, the present is a product of the past. A week and a half ago, I received my PhD in History at the University of Sto. Tomas. I don’t think I would be where I am if not for the downs in my life. I wouldn’t have tried so hard to rebuild my life if my dreams had followed that cute "yellow brick road" of Alice in Wonderland which I set out to tread. But a wise friend’s voice inside me said: Carpe diem. Seize the day. And I did. With a strong sense of commitment I returned to UST, my alma mater, and marched with the rest of the 183 graduate school students last March 31 for our conferment. What a sweet day after much bitterness. As I was being cheered on by my family and friends who remembered, many of them didn’t know they were witnessing my resurrection.