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Grief

The Internet Hoax and Suicide

meganI first read Megan Meier’s suicide from my husband’s entry Online Hoax Leads to Suicide of Teenage Girl. The sad story starts with an online friend, Josh Evans who Megan never met in real life. Josh became mean to Megan and told her ““The world would be a better place without you.”. Sobbing, Megan ran into her bedroom closet. Her mother found her there, just 15 minutes later, hanging from a belt, another fatal teen statistic.

Six weeks after Megan’s death, her parents learned that Josh Evans never existed. He was an online character created by Lori Drew, the 47-year old mother of Megan’s former best friend, who lived four houses down the street from the Meiers. Mrs. Drew created the character ““Josh Evans”, according to a neighbor, because she ““going to mess with Megan” for apparently breaking up the once-close friendship with her daughter. Lori Drew did more than that. She drove Megan Meir to kill herself.

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Batanes (and Batanes, the movie)

When it comes to local showbiz scenes and Who’s Who?, I am totally clueless. Local Filipino movies just don’t interest me at all…unless I get invited by a friend or I know the people involved in the production. There is the movie The White Lady which we watched only because the director was Butch’s classmate in Law School. Then the last movie I watched was I’ve Fallen For You directed by Lino Cayetano because he is a family friend. This afternoon was a bit different. Together with some bloggers, I attended a grand press conference for Batanes, a love story co-directed by Dave Hukon and internationally acclaimed young indie-director Adolf Alix Jr. Written by Arah Badayos, the film is a love story between a Filipina and a Taiwanese and circles around how the waters of Batanes test their love and individualities.

batanes_movie.jpgThe film stars Ken Zhu of the Taiwanese boy band F-4 fame and Iza Calzado. At the press conference, I felt really out of place amidst the showbiz reporters. Haha, I was laughing at myself as I embarked on this latest adventure as it is so out of character. But wait, I attended the Press Conference as my way of helping promote Batanes Islands. The fastest route to Batanes is through Asian Spirit which is the only airline that flies to Batanes and other remote islands in the Philippines. [tag]Asian Spirit[/tag] is also the major sponsor of Batanes which is really nice gesture on their part to support an indie film.

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Suicide, Media and Mariannet Amper

suicide preventionI am disappointed in the lack of balance on how media (and some blogs) are treating [tag]Mariannet Amper[/tag]’s death. Even the Catholic Church, for goodness sake. Today is Mariannet’s burial but our beloved [tag]Catholic Church[/tag] in St. Francis of Assisi Parish Church in Barangay Ma-a is in a dilemma. She might not be given funeral rites despite being a devout Catholic because of some old-fashioned priest.

Is it because he or some of us are still living in the dark ages where [tag]suicide[/tag] is taboo? Or are we in denial, uncomfortable or just limited in our knowledge that some young kids like Mariannet may suffer from [tag]depression[/tag] or chemical imbalance which may have pushed her to die by suicide?

Much of this stigma is is a carryover from the Middle Ages. Victims were forbidden traditional funerals and burials, and suicide was considered both illegal and sinful by the laws and religions of the time.

Today, we understand that most suicides are the result of biochemical illnesses such as clinical depression. Yet, the stigma associated with suicide often forces family members to choose between secrecy about the death and social isolation. Even media avoids talking about it except for a few radio stations that invited a doctor to speak on depression and suicide.

I will emphasize my points below:

1. Focus on poverty situation is one-sided. Almost all the news and blogs talk on poverty or blaming the government (except for news reported here and here). What about the suicide awareness and prevention? We do not know for sure what caused Mariannet to die of suicide. For all we know, Mariannet may have suffered severe depression, which is not the same as merely sad or something that you can snap out of it in a second. Depression affects both the wealthy and economically disadvantaged individuals.

Media needs to address a balance of both the poverty and Suicide Prevention and Awareness as well.

2. Suicide is an illness, not a sin.. Fr. Zenon Ampong, their parish priest in Davao is uncertain about the request of the family of Mariannet for her to be brought to the church for funeral rites citing the policy of the Catholic Church on suicide. Not all Catholic priests are like Fr. Ampong. I bet he is the same type of priest who refuses to bless the dead if the death is caused by suicide but bless cars, pigs, houses…what hypocrisy! May Mariannet rest in peace even without that priest’ blessing.

(Update: November 11, 2007: Fr. Ampong’s gives funeral rites but his sermon shows his ignorance on depression and suicide.. How simplistic his reasons are! But then understanding suicide is not an easy matter either.)

He said that the Mariannet’s death was the result of the sins of other people….The world has been overwhelmed by the sins of the people against others, and this has been paid by Mariannet’s own life, he added.

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Ghost Stories That Comfort: After-death communication

butterflyAs a child, ghost stories terrified me, often fearful that a ghostly white apparition would suddenly spring forth as the story unfolded. That all changed when a series of deaths in the family hit us. Signs that our loved ones are just around the corner brings so much comfort to me and perhaps the newly bereaved. Sure skeptics will say it’s a figment of your imagination. But whether it is an imagination or not, it’s comforting because of that distinct feeling that our loved one is just nearby, even though he or she can’t be seen or heard. With so many deaths in my family, I have had my share in after-death communication. According to Bill Guggenheim & Judy Guggenheim, an After-Death Communication (ADC) is a spiritual experience which occurs when you are contacted directly and spontaneously by a deceased family member or friend, without the use of psychics, mediums, rituals, or devices. ADCs offer dramatic new evidence of life after death.

The twelve most frequent types of after-death communication people report having with their deceased loved ones:Sensing A Presence, Hearing A Voice, Feeling A Touch, Smelling A Fragrance, Visual Experiences, Visions, Twilight Experiences, ADC Experiences While Asleep, Out-Of-Body ADCs,Telephone Calls, Physical Phenomena, Symbolic ADCs.

Let me illustrate a few of these ADCs I’ve encountered with the deaths in my family:

Smelling A Fragrance: You may smell your relative’s or friend’s favorite cologne, after-shave lotion, or perfume. Other common aromas are: flowers (especially roses), bath powders, tobacco products, favorite foods, and his or her personal scent.

The first death in the family was mom. A week later after mom was buried, I was with Gigi, my roommate inside our dorm room. As we talked in bed, I suddenly smelt a waft of a candle burning mixed with roses. Not about to scare Gigi, I didn’t say anything. But she jumped beside me I can smell candles burning and roses. So I didn’t imagine that. I just smiled at her and said Mom is here much to her horror.

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California Fires Post Trauma Recovery

california firesThe dark gray clouds was all I remembered that day as a 5 year old girl running around the garden in our old house in Cebu. In the eyes of a child, it was just an ugly dark cloud not knowing that the gas depot was burning a few meters away. I recall the evacuation, scurrying away to the front gate into the safety of my grandma’s car. I didn’t know the gravity of the situation then but I could sense the relief of my parents as we went back to our house. There in the front yard were all our furnitures and stack of boxes. Apparently, my mom stayed behind to pack up some of our stuff and even managed to haul off the furniture. She had the luxury of time to pack up unlike the victims of the Southern California Fires. We were probably lucky because our house didn’t catch fire. Our neighbors lost their homes. We were saved. No one died though.

Losing a home is not just losing a material possession. It’s losing the memories attached to the home. And like any loss, it’s a painful process. There is grief too. Any major event in our lives affects every aspect of our lives. They don’t know what is “out there” or how they’re going to be affected by this change somewhere down the line.

I have a friend who lost her 15 year old daughter in a fire. Unimaginable grief. Inspite of the horror of the tragedy, she chose to rebuild her home in the exact same lot. The loss of a house can easily be rebuilt but the loss of a child is permanent. I am not minimizing the victims who have lost their homes. True, they will face the same grieving process as bereaved parents face but there is hope. There is hope that they can rebuild their lives.

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Maningning, A China Lass

Traffic was unusually light that Friday Morning. Maningning reached the Far Eastern University from Diliman in less than an hour. Maningning plucked a stem of bougainvillea at the trellis and carried it with her as she greeted the clerk seated at the office on the ground floor of the Institute of Architecture and Fine Arts. She then took the elevator to the seventh floor where her class usually met. The quiz she would give today would be unlike all others.

She was fifty minutes too early. The Brigada Siete TV crew, which featured her later, took a picture of the flowers she left in the women’s comfort room. She walked along the corridor. To one side was the row of empty classrooms, to the other were the railings that guarded people from falling to the empty space below. I should think her heels ached, because stunned witnesses claimed that she removed her shoes. Wings grew from where she felt the pain. The wings lifted her to the railing where she sat for a while facing the classroom walls, to her back the gaping space into her underworld. I imagine how she imagined wings growing from her pained heart. She lifted her head and prepared to lie in the air. But hearts in pain do not grow wings. She fell to the awning six floors below. She was twenty eight.

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The Grieving Child

siblingsThis photo was two months after Luijoe’s death. Here are my two daughters in their early teens about to release balloons on Luijoe’s 7th birth Anniversary. The sunny skies greeted us as we celebrated that day with balloons, his favorite gummy bear, flowers , candles and incense sticks. All of us signed something on the smiley balloon by Luijoe’s grave. As I look at this photo, I could not imagine my children’s grief until many years after. This was how Lauren expressed her grief 3 years after the death of her brother:

Everyone has their own way of dealing with grief. I chose to deal with my sadness through writing down what I felt in my journal. I suppose I could have talked to my friends about it, but I knew in my heart that they could not comprehend the magnitude of my sorrow and guilt unless they themselves have experienced death, which they haven’t.

During my bereavement, one thing that exasperated me was when people would tell me things like, ‘At least your brother is an angel in heaven now.’ Though I know they meant well by these attempts to comfort me, I did not want to picture Luijoe hovering in and out of the clouds with a pair of wings and a halo. I wanted him to be alive, to be as annoying as little brothers are; anywhere but inside a wooden casket buried six feet under a fine carpet of Bermuda grass.

Grief is a never-ending process. The beautiful thing about grieving is that even though you will never get over the death of your loved one, you will learn to move on and live without that person. Death like any great wound leaves a scar that will heal with time. But the mark will always remain, and so will the memories of your loved one.

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Loida Nicolas Lewis Talks on Grief and God’s Love

Loida LewisYesterday, I caught up with Loida Nicolas Lewis at her condo somewhere in Makati just before her flight to New York. I have heard so much about her as an industrialist and philanthropist. It was my task to interview her for a University of the Philippines’ (UP) centennial book project to be launched next year for the 100th anniversary of the state university. I read up on her before our meeting to make sure that I didn’t repeat facts already found in the internet or her books. Based on my research, Loida was married to Reginald Lewis, considered as one of the most successful and richest African-Americans and has been described as instrumental to her husband’s business success. After her husband died from brain cancer in 1993, Loida took over the family business and was successful in the company’s growth. At the moment, she is the Chairman and CEO of TLC Beatrice, LLC (the Lewis Family investment firm), TLC Beatrice China (operates retail convenience stores in four major cities in China) and TLC Beatric Foods Philippines (operates a meat processing plant in Naga City).

I am fascinated with her life, her success and faith in God.

tattlerHer secretary showed me the September 2007, 6th Anniversary issue of Philippine Tatler. It features their 834 Fifth Avenue Manhattan home which the Lewis family moved in a few weeks before Reginald succumbed to brain cancer. Reginald became the first African-American to live on Fifth Avenue and one of its “A-plus apartments”. But let not this wealth fool you. Loida is busy with the family-run Lewis College in Sorsogon where they offer college courses and a nursing assistant certificate. Not only that she funded a part of a micro finance project in Sorsogon called PALFSI (People’s Alternative Livelihood Foundation of Sorsogon, Inc.)., She is also Chairman of Business for Integrity and Stability of our Nation Foundation, Inc. (Bisyon 2020). She is such a busy woman and I am indeed fortunate to have been accommodated for this interview.

My interview with Loida lasted for 2 hours which you will read when the book comes out next year. In the course of the interview, I asked her about the loss of her husband and how she dealt with it knowing it can help a lot of readers in this blog. This is what she told me.

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Multi-Sport Celebration in Memory of Gabriel

Sometimes you never know where friendships lead you to. My friendship with Pia started when my husband and I went on a date with Pia and her then boyfriend/future husband, Butch (now legally separated), who happened to be my husband’s best friend during their Law school days. I never dreamed that the four of us would sit down literally under the mango tree and conceptualize the law office of Sebastian , Dado, Cruz and Batalla (now CASElaw). I was their first accountant while Pia was the Office Manager during the first months of operation as our husbands struggled to make ends meet. Our husbands were busy being the lawyers , of course.

Though we were not exactly as close as our two husbands were, Pia consoled me during the wake of my son and gave me grief reading resources. You know, there were not many people who were tactful and compassionate during those days. I felt comforted by her words. Who would have thought that two years later, our husbands would now share a maddening experience of losing an only son? And both us would have two surviving daughters. Gabriel, Pia and Butch’s son had a rare chromosomal disorder called trisomy 13.

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a mom blogger who advocates constructive engagement in issues on family & society.
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