Today I am a teenager again, marking 13 years since being diagnosed
with late-stage breast cancer. If my husband were alive, we’d be going to our
neighborhood sari-sari for a Coke date. I would again be hearing him boast
about his tactile abilities, having been the one who discovered my lump. He
would again joke about volunteering to do clinical breast examinations at my
doctor’s clinic, and then remember my doctor saying he could charge him with
illegal practice of medicine.
It has been a difficult year and a half without the hubby, but my
habits have saved me. Doing things just because I am so used to doing them has
kept me going. I do not care why or wherefore, but I have kept doing them—often
distracted (prayer), sometimes with errors (work), but never giving up (sleep).
I have been told that what I am experiencing is natural for those who encounter
loss, that it would take time, and that I still have a mission in this world
while that of my husband was already accomplished.
In his first encyclical, Deus caritas est (God is Love), Benedict
XVI wrote: “Hope is practiced through the virtue of patience, which continues
to do good even in the face of apparent failure, and through the virtue of
humility, which accepts God’s mystery and trusts him even at times of darkness.”
Whenever I feel low, I count my blessings: Mama is doing well, fully
recovered from her hospitalization and surgical procedure last month; son has
work and is enjoying the advantages of earning his own keep, among them saving
up for toys (for big boys); daughter is in third year, swamped by major
subjects and almost drowning in an ocean of reading and writing assignments (she
did save on matriculation this semester, thanks to the law mandating free
tertiary education); bosses, colleagues and friends remain as supportive as
ever.
Suddenly, I feel so unworthy… but at the same time, grateful.
I thank God Almighty for so many blessings, especially for all the prayers
and well wishes of family and friends.
And because of all these blessings, I can be patient, and humble.
Even as I grieve, I can hope.
Maybe the lost soul can still be found.
