One night, during the week between Christmas and New Year, our eldest daughter came bursting into our room. She was asking us to pray for a Xavier boy and his family whose house in Corinthian Gardens was on fire. Right away, we prayed and asked for protection over the family. We did not get much sleep that night. C1 was YM-ing her Xavier friends who were batchmates and close friends of the boy and she kept me up to date by text since I was upstairs trying to sleep (but not succeeding) while she was downstairs hogging the phone line.
Tragically, the boy, his Mom and younger brother (only 11) perished in the fire. The father, an older brother and an older sister (all away from the home at the time) survived. C1 later directed me to the blog of another Xaverian who was able to take sequential pics of the fire and my hair stood as I saw picture after picture until the last few pics showed the house being totally engulfed by the flames. There was no way the 3 trapped occupants could have survived the blaze.
Seeing those pictures, I began experiencing deja vu as the years fell away and I was brought back many, many years to a time when I was just a Grade One student in Davao City. My yaya had gone to the school to get me and we were riding in a jeep back to our home when, from afar, we saw thick, black smoke. Definitely a fire!
As we got closer, my yaya suddenly cried out that it was our compound on fire. We fought our way through the crowd and the firemen, all the while with my yaya crying out that my Mom and 2 siblings (all asleep at the time she left) were dead. What was a 1st grader like me to think? I was too young to lose my Mom, my family!
It was with a sigh of relief that I spotted my Mom on the street, sitting on someone’s saved sofa, clutching my younger brother and sister. The fire had started from a neighbor and crossed to our home, leaving my Mom with little time to save anything except to carry my 2 siblings to safety.
IT WAS DECEMBER THEN. My Mom had finished her Christmas shopping early that year. Everyone had a gift down to the youngest member of relatives. Gifts were wrapped and piled on the floor, neatly tagged. All gone. I only had my school uniform and school stuff on me. We lost our home. Miraculously, a Nino Jesus statue kept close to the bed of my parents survived the flames. We would always recall that years later.
But that was the bleakest Christmas for a little girl like me then. We were taken in by relatives into their homes and given hand-me-down clothes. I can still see myself in my mind’s eye walking around the house in sando and slippers which were outrageously twice the size of my feet. Dad and Mom were trying to get us back to normal life as soon as possible but we spent Christmas with very little possessions.
Fast forward to the present….
The thought of half of a family being lost in a fire during Christmas time really moved me and I could not imagine how the surviving members would cope with their loss during this season and for the rest of their lives. It made me reflect on what I myself had lost during the fire that also claimed our home years back and suddenly it all felt so trivial.
Sure, our Christmas was less than what we were used to and yes, we had to rebuild our home, our clothes, our possessions. BUT WE WERE A COMPLETE FAMILY. We had each other. And nothing was more precious than that.
It took this family’s tragic loss of 3 of their loved ones for me to realize how blessed I was then to still have had my own family intact after the fire. Perspectives sure change when seen alongside the experiences of other people.
I remember to thank the Lord for His Goodness and protection over our family then and now. I pray for strength for this family who lost their precious loved ones. I tell myself I should always try to make the most of the time I have with my loved ones for I will never know what the Lord has in store for them and for me.
Life is indeed a blessing from our loving God, every day, every breath…….
