The acceptance of loss | Lifestyle.INQ

OCTOBER 27, 2022

No one is ever prepared to lose a loved one, whether a 90-year-old parent or an ailing spouse. But chances are, at about this time, many of us have survived such a loss.

Among my own classmates, most, if not nearly all, have lost both parents, and the number of widows is increasing.

Listening to widows tell about their losses, I observe a quiet and dignified acceptance, however difficult the circumstances of their tragedy. Some saw widowhood coming at the end of the partner’s prolonged illness, others were taken by surprise.

Curiously, I myself regarded my mother’s sudden demise in her sleep as a good death, and found consolation in that she did not suffer prolonged hospitalization and the physical pain that might have gone with it—or the medical bills, a burden she always said she’d never want to leave her survivors.

Mom and I had had an unusually pleasant phone chat the day before she died; she had warned me to keep an eye on Dad, who had a heart condition and dementia, a mild one, really. The next day, she was going to the sale at Megamall. In fact, it was Dad, three years after Mom died, who lingered in the ICU and went through prolonged home care, a situation too painful to watch.

High-school classmate Dina lost her husband at the doctor’s office while having his first post-op checkup after a heart bypass. She was waiting in the next room reading old magazines, with no reason to think of anything going wrong. They had just come from their daily Mass and Holy Communion and a light breakfast.

She was already thinking where to go for lunch. He should have a good appetite after the treadmill. He was hopeful to get a clearance to resume their golf.

Suddenly a commotion, and nurses were running to and fro. But when one nurse came toward her, she felt her heart in her throat. Her husband had collapsed on the treadmill; his heart had stopped. A very spiritual person who has a newly ordained Jesuit son, she picked up the pieces, sold their home and built a new one for her and a daughter and her family. On Facebook, I saw her proudly and happily playing golf with a handsome grandson, as she used to with her husband.

Plane crash

Our Vice President Leni herself lost her Jesse in a plane crash; no loss can be more sudden. And she has had to step into his role not only as a father but also as a political leader. She’s had to be strong for her children as well as her constituents, a whole nation now. Her background in law and economics and, most important, her work among the less fortunate in her province have served her well. More and more she seems cut out for her destiny.

She remains unscathed despite the ugly and malicious things hurled at her and her daughters; her womanly instincts seem to help her handle the sensitive and strained relationship with the President himself. When she was asked how she remained calm in the face of so many personal attacks, she answered, “I’m calm because none of the accusations are true. I have to be strong so my children will be strong. If I play drama queen, they will be, too.”

Surely her husband’s spirit and legacy keep her strong and purposeful.

Chona, my pediatrician friend, and her husband, a cardiologist, comanaged his medical condition, a rare blood disease he suddenly contracted out of nowhere. It soon became clear to both that there was only so much medical science could do. If he had his way, it would have been over in a month, but, understandably, his family of doctors could not but try everything to save him. He lasted 11 months.

Looking back now, Chona says that what they both had to endure, she wouldn’t wish on any couple. “Losing someone you love is hard enough, but seeing him slowly deteriorate and suffer is just too much to bear.” She now takes time off to travel with her sisters or daughters. When she’s home she surrounds herself with grandchildren on weekends. She still goes to her clinic.

Assassins’ bullets

But I worry most about Cynthia, who lost Mike to assassins’ bullets. Her loss was not only sudden; it happened too early in their lives. Mike was only 60, and, knowing him, one could only plead, how could it happen to someone like him? Such sense of disbelief and injustice is bound only to compound Cynthia’s pain and grief.

A former BusinessWorld managing editor, Mike, I understand, worked as a press agent for the Department of Finance, and his brother often drove for him. To see both of them, as young and good-looking as they were, lying in state in their elegant barong was as unnatural as their murder. Mike took eight bullets of the 30-plus fired; such hate and intent to kill!

Before leaving, Vergel and I went to give her a consoling hug. The pain and shock in her eyes were much too honest to not break our hearts—she was shaking her head slowly. By the wall, on the other side of the aisle, meanwhile, a sister of Mike’s moaned and sobbed.

There are definitely more shocked widows out there, many of them unheralded, unknown, just numbers, with little hope for justice, if at all.

At no other time than during wars are widows and orphans made. These are indeed murderous times.

 

 

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