Racing after time to put out the raging fire. (Picture courtesy of Yahoo! News)
Days ago, it had me wondering, what is Christmas like to families and to individuals whose homes were snatched away from them at the time when the world is merrymaking. What does it really feel like for these now-homeless folks?
On the morning of 23 December 2009, over 800 families living in Pasay City, Philippines lost their homes to a raging fire that gutted through residences. In all effort, the residents threw buckets upon buckets of water onto their houses, and tried salvaging as best as they could everything they could still get from it. The waters did somehow accomplish its intended purpose, but it wasn’t enough – far from enough. The residents did salvage some, but gone were the rest, along with their houses. For all they know, they find their struggles in vain.
Click here to read the story.
These families will find it difficult to accept that just when the year is about to end and they were about to get ready to meet the new year, a fiery nightmare hit them at the time they least expect it – a nightmare that they can’t shake off easily from their minds. It is something that history has forced its own script to be written upon the lives of these folks. Hard as it may be, but fate has played a serious joke.
Fire victims in evacuation centers. (Picture courtesy of GMA News)
To think that this happened on a month that millions would agree to be the happiest season of the year is one that completely breaks my heart. Just two nights ago, in a TV news interview, one of the residents narrated that during the onslaught of typhoon Ondoy last September, as the floods reached neck-deep in height, much of her belongings were destroyed and rendered useless. Now, as another one struck, it left her and her family desolate. Not only were her things destroyed, it was turned into ashes. The only thing she could say last was that this is her saddest Christmas ever.
For the greater part, I feel pity over the many children and infants who, in this early stage of their life, have incurred much trauma already. This trial, if we take it this way, is something that adults could somehow manage to process and, later, understand and cope up, though it will take time for some. But for the young, this amounts to a shock, they whose lives are still oriented towards play and imagination of the great and new wonders of life. Besides, what wonder will a child get from seeing her own house burn before her very own eyes?
This is not to sound morose over these incidents. It’s just that there are really instances when the Christmas of some can turn from laughter to sadness. We then who are blessed with a home and privileged to celebrate this season of giving – as we often say it – are invited to lend a hand, be it in money or in kind, to help these folks and the many like them who are suffering the same fate.
No comments:
Post a Comment