Day 5

Waking up to CNN's Anderson Cooper's coverage of Typhoon Haiyan's aftermath in Tacloban  has paved the way for gloomy thoughts to come.

Today's rain seems a fitting backdrop, too, highlighting patterns of grays and blues, and grays again. I have been told to stop following the news, but an inner voice is telling me that isn't the way to go. That I have been spared by this catastrophe should be reason enough to be in accord with what is going on. My sense of decency tells me that anything in proximity to celebration (the sumptuous lunch we just had, the weekend party we've been planning), luxury (that expensive gadget we've been wanting for months now), and pettiness (the headaches and traffic we normally complain about) have absolutely no place in the middle of all the grief, desperation, and destruction that the people in affected places are currently going through.

photo from www.nationalreview.com

But let me stop there before this turns into a lugubrious and preachy post, if it isn't already one.

Aid continues to come from all over the globe. People are braving the backwash of the storm, setting aside differences and comfort and safety in order to rebuild. The days and nights to come will be long and dreary (as they have already been), but so long as there are people like the ones out there who are lending out hand and limb and heart, the sun will shine again.

Hope Floats: Baby being rescued in Tacloban.

I found this on Ninotchka Rosca's Facebook wall, and was haunted by the image.

Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda has ravaged so many, but hope lies in those who help bring to shore whomever, and whatever, can be saved.

*Photo posted by Armand Bengua Frasco, courtesy of Gen. Charly Holganza/ via Willy Ramasola

Sheltered by this roof

In the wake of the typhoon that has passed our way, the slightest darkening in some patch of sky now brings with it some foreboding of disaster.

The mind's eye conjures an entire city well on its way to being wiped out of the map; the heart remembers the shudders that came with the images flooding the news; a little fist of conscience recalls the shame one felt while digging in to a tub of popcorn to chomp away the fury one felt because the internet connection during the last few days was faulty, when distances away, families may have lost everything they had worked all their lives for, death tolls have come up to alarming heights, psyches have been forever tainted by the trauma of having lost so much, of having been lashed at by winds and rains so merciless, that living will never be the same again, even after the wounds have become scars.

It seems almost a sacrilege to be surrounded by so much warmth and safety, and to still be wanting more than what comfort and luxury there already is, when one has become aware of the loss and devastation that has been gone through by countless others, in one single afternoon, within the stretch of one night. 

If one were to look back at the headlines, one would see the glaringly sorry state that our corner of the world has come to: Trailing the Napoles brouhaha, typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda comes along. Do not mistake me for blaming one for the other; because in the scheme of things--where, after all, there is no scheme--there is no connection, whatsoever. I juxtapose these two events not out of superstition, but merely to illustrate--and highlight--the outrage that the former ought to incite in us, and the contemplation that the other inevitably brings with it.

It is at times like these that one, in spite of oneself, is made to pause, and reflect on the the significance of living: what is it that truly matters?