The Fate of an Iron Lady’s Faith

Miracles do happen.

I am a believer of this irrefutable verity despite my not being a very pious person. With the events that have transpired in our family through the years, I have been convinced that God can always do the impossible. You just have to keep the faith.

Thursday, May 4, I received an sms from Johanna, my eldest niece when I was about to have my night training run at Daang Reyna. It contained the news and details about her mother, my sister. Jocelyn, Olen to us siblings, met a vehicular accident on her way to Manila Wednesday night and suffered from multiple fractures in her arm and leg. She was operated on and was initially stable but would soon have her fixation surgery according to the update. I immediately called my niece up for a clearer and full account of the mishap as I began feeling the weakness in my legs. There were several “What if’s” which popped out from my head and I only warded them off when I decided to push through with my run after the phone conversation. 

The talk with my niece confirmed the mystery behind one’s existence, anointed to be long or cut short. It’s likewise an avouchment that each of us is given a chance to reflect on the hidden message of whatever unexpected circumstances we have encountered in the course of our lives. Once pondered on, we have the leeway to make the neccesary atonement and changes.

Well, I would not be giving a long narrative and preach-like entry about one’s epiphany here for I don’t see myself a pundit on this matter. It’s enough to share with you that I am extremely happy and grateful that my eldest sister is still with us because of God’s intervention and she’s bent on recuperating fast. Her faith did not show sign of dwindling when we personally visited her yesterday at Mother Seton Hospital in Naga City.

It was practially an emergency overnight road trip last Saturday from Manila to Camarines Sur to solely show our concern, support, and love to her and her family.

A very brief reunion of sort for us, it’s a rare opportunity that we couldn’t allow to simply slip away. We failed to see our brother Joseph, who also drove all the way from Manila to Naga with his daughter to be with Olen Saturday afternoon while our group was still travelling. As you can see, the trip also became a window for me to re-admire the rural ambiance and nature which was a part of my younger years when I would regularly go home to Bicol via southroad.

Full twelve hours of  stay in Naga City, inclusive of the six-hour stay in an apartelle. This was all that we could allot, yet we made it worthwhile. Our visit made Olen in high spirits and stronger. The latter adjective describing what she truly is to me as the youngest of the family. Secretly called “The Iron Lady” by me when I was under her guardianship in my last two years in Bicol University High School (BUHS), she became a living testimony to the maxims “No guts, no glory” and “Only the strong survive.” Olen is a fragment of me. I am who and what I am today because she reinforced and impressed in me the good values our parents taught us. Thus, I cannot bear to see her in agony and just give up without a good fight. It would be out of character.

We said our goodbyes and left the room all controlling ourselves to be emotional for we would rather be exchanging jokes and amusing stories than be serious. Then, after a couple of minutes I returned to her bed and seized that once-in-a-lifetime moment as her sister. I kissed her forehead and whispered “I love you.”