A Beautiful Nightmare

Delia O. Datuin

Fear…Fear? Fear!!!

Fear not, my friend….

Many times in my life, I experienced fear, I felt fear, I saw fear. Fear of losing my family, fear of failure, fear in seeing the bad side of my decisions, fear of humiliation and many more. Many of us afraid of losing our wealth, our health, our love ones, our career, our dignity and our freedom. We fear of losing the limelight, of stepping down from the pedestal and experience trash.

I often asked and worry how schooling can be with this present situation. How can I bring back the joy, the noise, the laughter, the busy movement in the school when every parent fears for the safety of their child?

How can I assure them that education won’t stop. How can I ease their doubts that at this very moment of pandemic, it is the feeling that prevails.

In the beginning of this pandemic, we lived in a nightmare, we woke up with a nightmare and we moved under this nightmare. Many thought, nobody will survive, nobody will cope with the changes and nobody can win against it. With the rising figure of positive cases, with more complaints on scarcity of food, on unsurmountable questions about cash assistance, our present situation is really a nightmare that nobody expected it to happen.

This pandemic is teaching us a lesson. A lesson we may not grasp at once or we cannot understand what the purpose is. One thing is sure, it teaches us not to be afraid.

This thing showed us many things and value many moments. It taught us to see light in the dark, love the unlovable, accept the gruesome truth and finally bow down to the power of the Lord God above. Yes, it only takes a second to say, “Lord, ikaw na ang bahala,” A nightmare it may seem, but had we not thought that from this, modern day heroes came out? Bayanihan came back and true neighborhood was again witnessed. We became alert on what every tick of the clock tells us to do. We heard heart touching stories of Filipino heroism, restored Filipino values and many behind the scenes and success stories of recoveries were shared, of volunteerism, of care and love. We saw heartwarming sight of father-daughter meet up, of mother-daughter air hug, of senior citizen yet a brave front liner. It opened our hearts to the joy of dining in with our love ones without holding gadgets instead sharing the laughter spiced with some untold stories. We came to realized that husbands can do errands and accept their shortcomings when buying things out of the blue and we now understood that behind the strength and aspirations we see from our front liners hide the excruciating pain they endure of being separated from their love ones. We witnessed how selflessness won against greed, recognized effort instead of flaws, appreciated rules and protocols, defied death through prayers, heard the cries of the needy and responded to the call of faith. We learned to stare the sky at night, praised the beautiful super moon and greeted the morning sun with a smile.

Yes, COVID-19 may had brought us a nightmare, but looking on the other side of it, it is a beautiful one. Overcoming fear amidst uncertainties, building bridges amidst gaps and seeing hopes in our failures. We learned to value life, health, family, friendship, camaraderie and most of all, we accepted God as our true Savior. It opened our eyes to the true meaning of life and faith. It touched our hearts on the real essence of happiness and humility. It made us accept what is going on and entrust our safety unto God’s hands. It brought out the creativity of the many, artists or not, children and the old.

So you see, COVID-19 is not the end of the world. It is just an instrument to bring out the best that is installed in us, to see success in every failure, to see hope in every defeat, to savor the palatable sweetness of brotherhood and to appreciate beauty in the dark night. It is just one beautiful nightmare that will happen again and again and we have to persevere, we have to build faith to God and be optimistic that tomorrow is another bright new world for all of us.

--oOo-

The author is Principal III at Casa-Tondo Elementary School