Today, I take a PAL flight back to Manila from Brisbane, with a stopover in Darwin. I think I have made it quite public that I don’t like flying. I am one with those who believe that if God had intended for us to fly, He would have given us wings.
As much as I have loved every minute of my Australian jaunt, I look forward to getting back home. No more suitcases (for a while, anyway), no worries about excess weight (well, except my own) and nothing to do except enjoy the luxury of a leg massage, manicure and pedicure, and the rest of the beauty salon stuff. We are truly spoiled.
Better news
Like the rest of you, I hope that, by the time this sees print, there will be better news about the missing Malaysian Airlines plane. This has done nothing for my fear of flying, by the way.
For the last two weeks, the whole world has been breathlessly waiting for any clue, any trace of the aircraft that mysteriously disappeared. Speculations have been at fever pitch and theories about what could have happened have been in every conversation, viral and otherwise. Stories about the Bermuda Triangle have resurfaced. None of these “what ifs” have made sense.
Statements from experts and authorities connected to the now humongous search have been far from encouraging. There are no dots to connect. The prospects look grim. Our prayers continue.
Why is it that in these most stressful events, wackos want to steal the spotlight? Their timing is just as sick as they are.
These characters, with nothing better to do, spin their stories from the bowels of their warped minds and get their thrills posting hoax newsbreaks about alleged sightings. A few days ago, an advertisement that was supposedly taken by the airline itself appeared on social networks. Sick joke!
The families of all 239 on board are undoubtedly going through the most hellish nightmare imaginable. How can anyone make up tall tales that will cause even more pain? These perverts ought to be in straightjackets. Someone should lock them up in a padded cell and throw away the key.
Connections
In my search for links to the past, and while in the middle of long and deep conversations with cousins, I was astounded at the way lives that once connected and then separated, can and do reconnect.
No matter the vast oceans that mark our boundaries, we are one. When there are memory gaps, someone is there to remember. While one gropes for a name or an address, another fills the blanks. We sometimes finish each other’s sentences. That is family.
I found treasures among faded photographs. One such is on yellowed and frayed pad paper, written, I venture to guess, with a Parker pen loaded with old-fashioned blue (Qu)ink.
I came across letters written in 1942 by a 15-year-old boy to an uncle interned in Capas and Camp O’Donnell after the Death March. He wrote about conditions at home on Calle Legarda, very careful not to mention the Occupation forces then reigning supreme in Manila. The letters were meant to boost the morale of a tired, sick and defeated soldier.
This was the cousin who teased me incessantly but was all heart; who coached me through difficult assignments, urged me to write and was supposed to take me to my graduation ball. But it was not meant to be.
Grown-up
The boyish handwriting was more grown-up in an essay he wrote six years later. His youngest sister, now in her mid-80s and living in Australia, shares the words of the boy who became a man in the span of one year.
“Today is April 3, 1948. One year ago today, I was born. I was born into a different world, into a new way of life. All (the rest) of my 19 years became that day a thing of the past. All the years I had lived, all the things I had learned to like and all of what I had taken for granted I had lost. I lost my right to live the way I wanted to live, because I wanted to live.
“One year ago today, I fell sick. I fell victim to a disease that has taken a big toll of millions of people. I was the victim of a plague—a plague that requires patience to defeat. If I had written down my feelings that day, I would have given vent to the hopelessness of which I was a victim.
“I thought that day was the day I had died. I knew I had lost all I loved; but little did I realize then that I would discover an entirely new world in the coming months. Little did I think of the many things, before insignificant to me, which would change my way of thinking and acting.
“The day I thought I had died I was really born.
“My birth was not a sudden awakening but a gradual enlightenment that gave me a rich understanding and a wealth of thoughts and a different personality. My birth was a gradual awakening, caused by the setback in all of my plans, my ambitions, and my ideals.
“I was really a young man with all the boldness and ambitions of all young men, but lacking the sense of responsibility and the perseverance that was required to materialize all that I dreamed of.
“Last year I was a boy. Today I am a man.”
—Jesus A. Razon
May 8, 1927-Sept. 17, 1948