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Recovery Tips

Finding the Compassionate Friends

compassionte friendsA primetime show in Channel 7 invited me and my husband to appear for their Christmas episode. The production staff were so visibily touched by Luijoe’s story that they practically read the whole website. This TV show will portray how a bereaved couple celebrated Christmas without their loved one. I’ve noticed how grief is not a taboo subject in our local TV or magazines. Just a few years ago, the only grief article you will read in our local papers are by Cathy Babao-Guballa. I turned down the invitation because there are other touching stories from a lot of bereaved parents. I referred the production staff to a newly bereaved couple. This parent whose adult son died a year ago on a December month will be featured for that Christmas epsidoe (I will announce the schedule of the show later on). I can talk all I want about The Compassionate Friends, our local grief support group and how it helps bereaved families but it won’t have an impact unless a parent actually shares on how the group has helped them with their grief journey.

The parent didn’t believe in sharing her grief. Grief is a private matter, they thought. She didn’t even want her deceased son’s visitors to cry during the funeral. They were fine for a month or so until they could not handle their pain anymore. One day they read our article in the Sunday Inquirer . They cut the article and pinned it to their bulletin board. Looking at the pinned article everyday for two weeks, they finally found the courage to contact us. The rest is history.

compassionate friendsToday marks the first year anniversary of The Compassionate Friends Philippines. Co-founded by Cathy, Alma , myself and our spouses, we continue to bring monthly meetings to newly bereaved or seasoned grievers.

A year ago, when I first told my eldest daughter about The Compassionate Friends, she seemed worried ” So what will you be doing? Talking about your dead babies?”

My other daughter asked “Won’t you get depressed hearing sad stories?”

I stopped and thought for a minute… it is incredibly sad to hear the stories of loss and pain, but it does not depress me. I ache for those families whose loss is more recent, where the pain is a heart savagely torn into raw pieces and where the pain seems relentless and like it will last forever. But I am further along in my grief journey and I have gone through so much pain that I have learned my lessons well. I don’t know how I made it this far . I don’t know how I kept my sanity, through the past years when there were no grief support around. I know for certain that my grief journey, as hard as it has been, was made easier, and my burden lighter, through the grace of God. He was the one who enlightened me to start this support group.

Making sense out of my son’s death was the only way to understand the “why’s”.

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Remembering Our Loved Ones

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All Saints Day seems more like a school fair to me except there are gravestones, tents, picnic tables all over the cemetery. The mood at the cemetery is festive with children running around, the ice cream man ringing his bell, the taho vendor yelling taho, kids playing with melting candle, teens surfing at the SMART BRO internet booth, food vendors raking in some sales from the crowd. It’s a yearly ritual for our loved one whom we love, miss and remember always. Once a year, we share that common bond with families with a similar loss.

The first All Saints Day for Luijoe in 2000 felt surreal. The marble tombstone felt cold to the touch but the laughter and the crowd reminded me that Luijoe is never far from me. To my dear son, my dad, my mom, brothers Oscar and Ruben, they have not really left us but just gotten ahead of us to their real home. The memory of my loved one is a part of my life forever. Today is a celebration that love never dies.

all saints day

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The Taboo on Grief and the Filipino Culture

butterflyA few days ago , a friend ( a member of The Compassionate Friends) and myself agreed to have an interview with Sociology students from the University of the Philippines Diliman . They are currently taking the course Sociology 182 on Qualitative Research Methods. As part of their requirements, they were tasked to accomplish a research paper with a topic of their interest. They chose the topic, “Death and Dying: The Experiences of a Mother at the Sudden Death of her Child“. That’s not a usual topic that students might choose and I was pleased at their choice. Five of us at the Compassionate Friends agreed to help out with their paper. I learned that two members of INA Foundation also participated .

What surprised me is that their professor discouraged them at the choice of their topic. In fact, they were told to drop this topic and choose another one. The professor said that they will not be able to get mothers to talk about their [tag]grief[/tag]. She added that grief is a private matter. But these girls defended their topic and believed that they will be able to get the cooperation of bereaved mothers. True enough, they got the interviews from members of INA Foundation and The Compassionate Friends. In fact they got more mothers than they initially planned.

Unfortunately, we still live in a world where grief is a taboo topic. People who don’t outwardly show grief are said to be ‘strong’ and ‘brave’ while those who show and express feelings are spoken of in derogatory terms such as ‘falling apart’ and ‘going to pieces’ or ‘breaking down’ etc. “She’s not moving on”…In reality the latter are the strong ones, as they don’t care what people think of them when they are responding to grief in a way that is right for them, (crying or being angry etc.) It takes courage to show our emotional pain in public.

Why was it not difficult to talk about our grief? [tag]Bereaved mothers[/tag] (or even fathers) need to talk about the child they have lost. It not only gives us something to do with the energy of grief, but also establishes the continuity of memory and spirit of one who was so much a part of our lives.

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