Diminished

It’s been six days and she still hasn’t come home. We were never close. As a matter of fact, she seemed forever oblivious of my existence. Of course she knew me to be her niece.  But we never got to bond as an aunt-niece would.  Afterall, she and mom are just first cousins.  But you see, when we got news that she was among those declared missing in the devastation of typhoon Yolanda at Tacloban City, I sobbed.  A sharp and almost unreal pain hit me.  I could not believe I had a relative who was actually a victim…

Friday morning, November 8^th, she along with her husband and second child were still inside the premises of their family-owned restaurant located within the Tacloban City Airport.  She was reportedly on the phone with her sister at 5am saying the storm wasn’t as strong as it was first reported.  By 7am, she was on the phone again, this time to report that the winds and the rains were indeed strong.  But she didn’t seem alarmed or scared at all so her call did not cause concern.

Saturday afternoon, her sister in Manila received a call from my cousin, my Aunt’s second child, that they were already in Cebu having been rescued by some military personnel….and that his mother could no longer be found.

And that was it.  All the relatives have been informed and have been asked to fervently pray that Tita may have survived…

Days passed and still no news. And over and over and over again, the TV news showed how much devastation has actually occurred in the hardly hit areas – especially Tacloban.  Dead people are strewn all over the place.  The whole city has seven been declared unsanitary already because the decomposing bodies of the victims lie rotting beneath the pile of debris and garbage and have not yet been retrieved  by the authorities yet.  The whole scenario was chaotic, very much a semblance of the apocalyptic movies conjured up by some director/writer’s wild imagination.  Everything seemed unreal.

But my Tita still hasn’t come home.  Her husband’s last glimpse of her was on that Friday morning itself….as they waded through the flood waters brought by the storm surge.  He and their son were able to cling on to a sturdy post but Tita got washed away by the raging waters. 

To see her son’s post at Google Yolanda Person Finder breaks my heart.  I cannot imagine the feeling of having to look for a missing parent. 

But yes, others have lost their entire family.  Many still have lost many more relatives.  One thing I just realized though is that no matter how many loved-ones has been lost in that tragedy, a loss is still a loss.  It is painful --  achingly painful, and the lives of those who lost them is never ever the same again. For as John Donne aptly wrote:

No Man Is An Island

No man is an island,

Entire of itself,

Every man is a piece of the continent,

A part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less.

As well as if a promontory were.

As well as if a manor of thy friend's

Or of thine own were:

Any man's death diminishes me,

Because I am involved in mankind,

And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; 

It tolls for thee. 

John Donne

I am diminished by the lives lost in that catastrophe.  But for now, I could only hope, that anytime soon, I'll be able to hear the happy news that my Tita has come home.