Not your usual Christmas story Finding Lola Nita

MANILA, Philippines – Sometimes, Christmas gifts don’t come in festive wrappers topped with a bow.

Last Dec. 24, Josephine Llorca was driving her way to her family’s Christmas Eve dinner in Marikina when she noticed a woman in front of Sta. Clara Church. She stopped, initially just to give the woman alms or food.

“I stepped out and decided to check on her condition… If she was just a regular beggar or an old, lost soul on Christmas eve,” Llorca narrated.

Suspecting from the woman’s responses that she may have Alzheimer’s disease – a condition that slowly strips a person’s memories and later their sense of self – Josephine brought her home.

Josephine lost her mother in November 2015, and as this was to be her second Christmas without her mother, she was feeling the pain of loss. In that frame of mind, she believed that the woman’s relatives would be missing her on Christmas eve.

“I brought her home because I didn’t want her to spend Christmas on the streets. I was afraid some people might not understand her situation and hurt her,” she said.

Making the decision to open her home to the woman, whose name is Lita Panganiban, made Josephine feel good. “When I finally brought her home and made her wear my mother’s clothes, it felt good to have a mother in the house again.”

Lola Nita reminded her of her mother, who also went missing once. “I thought for sure that her family would be looking for her and that they would be worried sick, like what happened to us before,” she said.

Josephine found Lola Nita to be “generous,” offering to buy her something or to fix something in her house. “Magalang at malumanay din siyang kausap (She speaks gently and with respect),” she said.

While she posted a call for help on Lola Nita’s behalf on her Facebook page, it wasn’t until after Christmas that she proceeded to Lualhati ng Maynila, a government-run home for the aged in Marikina City, to inquire about having Lola Nita transferred under their custody.

Josephine was talking to officials when a priest came in to bless her and those around her. As she walked with him out of the home, she spotted a poster on the bulletin board: It was a Missing Person poster with Lola Nita in it!

“I was shocked but happy,” she said, describing the incident as nothing less than “miraculous”.

Josephine told the official, whom she identified as Mrs. Borja, “Ma’m, siya po ang matanda na nasa bahay ko! Siya po! (Ma’m, she’s the old lady in my house. She’s the one!)”

The official then contacted Lola Nita’s relatives, and Josephine offered to bring Lola Nita to her family in Tondo, Manila. There, she found out that the woman had been missing since Dec. 12.

Josephine believes she was an instrument of God’s love on Christmas day to Lola Nita and her family.

“She’s kind, that’s why the Lord did not abandon her. It’s good to know that her relatives were looking for her. That she was not totally abandoned. It’s not easy to take care of someone with Alzheimer’s. It’s expensive and you need a lot of patience. Only real love will make you go on and do your best,” she said.

As for what Josephine got out of the experience, she believes Lola Nita was lent to her “for a few days to make me feel my mom again. It’s a warm gift from heaven.”

Josephine initially did not want to be interviewed, but later agreed, saying she hopes the good deed “will encourage others to do some kindness and not be afraid to help.” Dulce Sanchez