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In memory of Cory

““I would rather die a meaningful death than to live a meaningless life.” Corazon C. Aquino

noemi-at-cory
That photo above is a screen capture of me taken from the Laban ni Cory documentary. I feel honored to be part of the memorable documentary. I had no idea that video was taken until someone told me. It looks like I was reflecting as I ventured out on my first attempts of citizen journalism.

Through all the combined 15 hours of coverage during your funeral procession, this has got to be the greatest outpouring of love that I have witnessed in all 52 years of my life.

I will not forget the people who sacrificed their lives for democracy.
I will make sure that my readers are aware of the implications of the Constituent Assembly before the 2010 elections, and that we should oppose Charter Change perpetuating President Arroyo and her allies in power.

I will continue with the fight, to help maintain our democracy.

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(Photo credit to Malou Escasa)

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No one can take away our love

He evoked in me a capacity for love I did not know I had. Those feelings did not die with him, nor will they, I pray, die with me.– Gordon Livingston

A tribute to Luijoe’s 10th angel year (May 27, 2000 – May 27, 2010)

Parents who have lost a child speak of the ““zero point”. Our lives are divided into the time before and the time after our children died. No event – no graduation, no marriage, no other death – so defines us. At one moment I was one person, then, suddenly, I was someone else. The task we face is to create with our new selves something that, in some measure redeems our suffering.

We see, always with longing, children who remind us of what our child was or would be now. (Gordon Livingston)
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Where I am today

DadoFamily214I often wonder how he would look like today. The young man as he often called himself even at 6 years old, is supposed to be an incoming college freshman, the last of my children to be in school.

Would he have been taller than my husband? Would he have the same gleaming smile? Will he still throw me kisses and give me a bunch of flowers with an ““I love you” note? Would he still be cracking jokes? I can’t imagine because I will always remember him as an innocent and beautiful 6 year old boy whose death caused my world to spin around and around. I still miss him dearly but the pain is not heart wrenching anymore. I don’t feel like I am drowning in pain. I yearn for him especially during birth and death anniversaries or when I see a boy similar to his age.

Like this very moment, I think of Luijoe. Tomorrow is his 10th angel year.

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““I don’t know how you’ve survived. It would kill me to lose my child.” Oh, to have one peso for every time I heard that sentence! I’d spend every one of those pesos for an answer, for you see, I don’t know how I’ve survived. What choice did I have? Each transistion has been work, hard work, sorting through what it means and learning to function in the face of these circumstances not of my choosing. Five years living as a zombie and the next five years in my new normal.

My new normal as a blogger served me well: my role as a bereaved mother is no longer the first way I define who I am, but it is ever-present in my life and cannot be separated from all that I am . . . for the rest of my life.

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Ambivalent towards Erap

I feel ambivalent towards Erap.

I neither like nor dislike him. My feelings has something to do with the memories of my little boy. My 6 year old son adored Erap. Luijoe thought the world of the former president. Luijoe yelled at the top of his voice that Erap was the smartest president in the whole world, in a jumpacked room at a plane ticket office ten summers ago.

In his booming voice, he threw his hands up in the air , twirling around the room, “Mom, President Erap is so smart, the smartest president in the whole wide world”.

awkward silence

Nobody in that room could deny not hearing my son’s adulation. It was May 2000 at the height of Erap’s unpopularity. I wanted the floor to open up and swallow both of us. I could feel the steely gaze and snickers surrounding us. My boy never sensed the awkwardness of the situation but I wanted to save face.

“So , why is Erap the smartest president in the whole wide world?”, as I squeaked the question to my naughty son.

“Mom, his jokes mom. He says the funniest jokes. That is very smart of him” (or something like that)

See my son had a great sense of humor and loved to throw a joke or two. Then he discovered the Erap jokes during one of our conversations. Luijoe overheard us laughing to our heart’s content on an Erap joke. He wanted to know why were laughing. He badgered to know the joke. So I narrated the joke

Erap: Miss, do you have a ballpen?
Clerk: Sorry, sir we don’t have any ballpen
Erap (angry): Why did you name your store “Penshoppe“?

royal_elastics 043.jpgHow my boy laughed! Luijoe loved to tell this joke to everyone . One time, Luijoe and I passed by Penshoppe ( a teen fashion store) in Glorietta mall and I teased him if he wanted to go inside with me , so I could ask the same question Erap asked. Luijoe tugged me away. hehe

I bought him the book , “Joke ni Erap” by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism in early 2000. Luijoe often packed this Erap Joke book in his backpack and kept re-reading those jokes that he could understand. He loved the book so much, he even labelled it with his name. Here are a few of his favorite jokes culled from that book.
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How my son inspired me to start a grief support advocacy

““My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ?”

I can easily relate to one of the last words of a dying Christ.

Who has not, at some dark hour, cried out to the heavens in anguish and pain and wondered if indeed we have been cursed and abandoned by God ?

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Image taken from Luijoe’s prayer book

The image of a dying Jesus Christ , a sorrowful Mother Mary and a comforting John never fails to bring me tears as poignant memories of my son drift into my mind. I wrote this story when I first started this blog 4 years ago and I think it is worth sharing again.

Being a “cafeteria Catholic” my religious faith was at best mediocre. Luijoe, my innocent and religious 6 year old son often chastised me for not praying hard enough . I felt like a terrible mother who led a ho-hum religious existence. Gosh, we learn so much from our children , don’t we? It is Good Friday , one of my treasured memories that remind me of my son. The image of the dying Jesus when he blurted out ” “Woman, behold thy son, Behold thy mother” struck a chord in my son’s heart.
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Grief Gone Viral- Tweeting a Child’s Death

I’ve been there. I’ve been judged. I understand the anger of @Miltary_Mom when people started to judge her when she tweeted on the drowning of her two-year old son Bryson Ross in the swimming pool of their home in Merritt Island, Fla.

Shellie Ross otherwise known as @Miltary_Mom and who blogs at blog4mom.com tweeted the following:

5:22 p.m. – a breezy update about the fog rolling in and spooking the chickens as she worked in her chicken coop.

16 minutes later, , a 911 call was placed from her home saying that Bryson was lying at the bottom of the pool.

6:12 p.m. ““Please pray like never before, my 2 yr old fell in the pool.”

5 hours later, she wrote in tweeter ““remembering my million dollar baby” then posted photos of the little boy. (Some of these tweets and photos have since been removed.)


Then violent reactions errupted:

Not long after that, a firestorm erupted on Twitter, with strangers wondering what kind of mother tweets during a crisis. The debate has been going on for days around the Internet, with critics calling Ross callous (and suggesting that if she had been paying as much attention to her child as she had to her Twitter account, her son would not have come to harm) and supporters (many who know her in real life, and others who have never met her) describing her as a caring mother who reached out to her virtual community during a tragedy.

A local paper quoted Madison McGraw saying that ““If she didn’t want questions raised at such a painful time, perhaps she shouldn’t have tweeted immediately after her child died. A child is dead because (of) his mother’s infatuation with Twitter.”

In Madison’s blog, she points out that “Between the hours of 8:37 a.m. and 5:22 p.m (her first and last before son was found drowned in pool) she tweeted 74 times. ”
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When Friends Leave… Let Go!

“The friendship that can cease has never been real.”– Saint Jerome

You would think 50-year olds act maturely in the face of adversity. I am sure most of us can. A recent misunderstanding among old friends (including myself) jolted me. We are talking of years of friendship. It started with a gossip. If there is gossip among friends, clear the air instead of being defensive and ignoring the issue. What’s funny is that they chose to place the scapegoat on the ““informant” which is immaterial because the issue is the malicious gossip. A mere explanation or an apology would have cleared the issue.

The reaction was “anger” . Feelings of anger is normal if it leads to a positive resolution. Instead of talking like two mature individuals, the angry friend including others involved in the gossip removed my friend (let’s call her Alpha) from Facebook including myself. Friends are supposed to exert all efforts to resolve matters, if they were friends to start with.

Consider my other friend, whom I will call Yadda. A similar misunderstanding happened. Sure there were hurt feelings on both sides but Yadda chose to talk it over and over like a broken record until we were both satisfied with the resolution. The friendship is still there.

See the difference?

You cannot say you’ve lost a friend. If a friendship is capable of ending, it is because it never existed.
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