Loree Cruz-Mante

The view from my chemo chair

2012-02-24T20:32:00.000+08:00

Iwalk across a waiting lobby full of people toward a room where I would beprepared for my chemo session. After a few minutes, I walk out into the waitinglobby, a nurse beside me and another pulling the rolling IV stand to whichI am now connected. The people in the waiting room look at me with what Iinterpret to be somewhat resembling shock, pity perhaps, certainly surprise,that the woman who just walked in unaided should emerge looking so dependentand vulnerable. I smile at my husband James sitting in the crowd, and thenwave to my youngest son Samric who is taking a video clip of my momentous walk.

Inthe chemo room right beside the waiting lobby, some ten uniformly-upholsteredblue chairs are lined up against the wall. I look for my favorite chairsituated somewhere between two huge TV monitors. I check to see that my“survival” kit earlier placed by my chair is complete: a few books, a Bible, aneck pillow, a shawl, a box of tissue, a writing pad and ballpen—all neatly packed in a nativebag. I brought my laptop the first time but since I'd been sleeping the greater part of the time, I never brought it again. The contents of this bag have remained basically the same. It’s myunreasonable fear of nothing to do that keeps me bringing this bag each time.

Besideit sits a red insulated bag containing lunch and snacks. Again, a case ofunreasonable fear of hunger because, depending on my appetite or lack of it,the food is really quite a lot for a five or six-hour session.

Somewhatsettled, I figure the several bags hanging from the IV stand. I count four orfive different bags. The nurse approaches and gently whispers, “Ma’m, I willnow push in this first medicine. This should take care ofwhatever gastric difficulties may arise.” I nod, she pushes the medicine gentlyinto a little contraption set at a juncture in the tubes, which then lead to the venusport access imbedded in my chest. It is painless. After a few minutes comes Benadryl and it knocks me off almost instantly.The minute it joins the intravenous pathway, I can feel it traveling to the tipof my toes, then to the top of my head, a pleasant cool sensation which rendersme totally submissive. I keep thinking that this must be how lethal injectionfeels somewhat. I succumb to forgetfulness and fall into a deep, uncaringslumber in the midst of the activity going on around me.

Asin the past two cycles (of two sessions each), I wake up after a few hours. Isleep a good three hours or so each time. Now I wake up after only two hours, perhapsbecause of the unusually busy day that it is today, with several other womensimilarly hooked up to their own IV’s.

Onthe TV monitor, I see Bossing Vic Sotto talking from the studio to his “EatBulaga” cohorts carrying on in some depressed community, giving away wads ofmoney, food and other goodies by the box, sack, or crate, counting hope into the palms of the ecstatic poor. The hosts on locationdescend upon a lucky household and leave it richer by thousands of pesos,infused with new hope and a crack at starting anew such as they’ve never imagined.

Theside of the chemo room fronting me opens to a view of the street, made as it isof glass. What a stroke of architectural genius to have this wall made thisway! It not only lets in sunlight but also prevents an otherwise claustrophobicatmosphere which could easily darken an already undesirable situation.Ceiling-to-floor window shades of tiny basket weave design recolor the view,lessening the sharpness of the light and cooling the obvious heat outside.

Rightin front of me, the wide road forks to allow a small driveway leading to the Center, a small but important convenience for patients who must be delivered right at the doorstep for their treatment. A large treesitting at the fork lifts its branches and casts a welcome shade on a big partof the driveway.

Iwatch pedestrians traverse the sidewalk and note how most of them stop andtake a respite under the shade. Many of them make a call or read a text message.Others wipe their sweaty brows with handkerchiefs. Almost all of them lookstraight ahead before proceeding, surveying how far they have yet to go underthe heat of the sun. What this tree and this momentary rest must mean to wearypedestrians! What hope must it stir, assuring them that they can still go on andthat yes, they will reach their destination soon.

Acrossthe street, construction workers in orange work suits with bright yellow hard hats stream steadilytowards the left. I am certain that they come from the construction site towardsthe right, and this being about lunch hour, I surmise that they areprobably on their break.

Ithink of these workers, builders building buildings they will never live in. Theywill never be able to hold up champagne glasses and toast the projectcompletion. They will never be able to view the expanse of land and water fromthe large windows they install. Their only view would be from scaffoldingsstrung high by the side of the building, hopefully inspected to meet safetystandards.

Whatmust it be like to be one of these workmen? These young, burly men, and severalolder ones way past their prime, who never dream bigger than to land a time-boundcontract at a construction project so their families can eat even for a time? What mustit be like to live with uncertain employment, existing according to thestipulations of a work contract and specifications of daily wages? What,indeed, must life be for these workmen?

Andyet, a contract is probably enough for now. It’s all they can expect. Thatthere will be another when this one ends is a perpetual hope. It has probablyalways been this way for them, anyway, and they are still alive to this day,even on such a staccato-ed existence. And so they go on this steady streamheaded left, to some place I do not know. In a while they will return in theopposite direction back to where they came from and resume work, refreshed by awhiff of air. It does not matter much that this all ends soon because for now, itis good. They have a job, their children will eat and go to school, they have arespite from hunger. For now, they can forget what it is like to have emptystomachs that turn and churn on nothing.

Ilook around. A young lady with a bandana sits way to the right very near thedoor. One chair away from me is a middle-aged woman glued to the TV. I overhearher say that she is ready to return to work. I later learn from anotherpatient that she has Stage 4 breast cancer. On the last chair near the adjacentkitchen, a much older lady and her companion daughter carry on a hushed conversation.Like me, they are all hooked up to an IV stand.

Allof us are lost in a world all our own, seeking our own cure, sitting still inthe stubborn hope that we will be well. And yet there is something veryunifying in this kind of shared predicament. None of us is in despair for whyelse should we go through all this? What is the point if none of us believesthere is a way out?

Ipeer into the world outside through the slats in the window shades. Itcontinues to bustle in the noonday sun: the pedestrians under the shade, theworkmen filing back to their site. It is a world I can only participate inthrough this glass window recolored by window shades . . . for now, that is.

Ina while, I will rejoin it. I will walk out of the Center and take in the air. Iwill feel the sun hot on my skin. I will be back in the world that just a whileback I saw only through shaded eyes. No one will know what is going on with me,but I will be glad to be back.

Ilean back in my chemo chair. I turn my gaze way to the left, where the windowframes the view. I take note of what I see, startled, wondering why I have notnoticed it until now.

ThereI see the side of a church, its steeple over the top of the window frame but I imagine to be stretching to reach the sky. It ismassive, even from its sideview. There is something very comforting in itsstability. An unexplainable confidence wells inside me.

This photo by Samric (Feb. 2012)

Andthen I come to a moment of grace. Here,where I sit in my chemo chair, I begin to understand what hope means. Like the blessed poorof Bossing Vic, and the weary traveler grateful for some revitalizing shade,and the workmen relishing the momentary respite of a temporary job, and me and myCancer-stricken seatmates—the church steeple beckons us to hope, to trust, tolive the faith that tells us that we don’t hold our lives in our hands. Someoneelse does, Someone bigger, Someone far more powerful, Someone gracious enoughto look at us in our seemingly hopeless situations . . . and give us peace.

Love and the Retrenched

2012-02-13T15:52:00.000+08:00

First published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, February 9, 2005

How does one who has just been letgo (a.k.a. retrenched), celebrate Valentine’s Day? Not too differently perhaps,love being a many-splendoured thing whether you are monied or penniless, employedor jobless.

But then again, perhaps Valentine’sDay will not—and cannot—be the same. Back then you had a job. Now you don’t.

No Excuse

The factthat you are out of a job on Valentine’s Day, however, does not mean thatyou should pass up the chance for love. It is, after all, a day to show yourbeloved that your love is not weather-dependent. It is for all seasons! Yourno-job situation just means you may have to do your Day of the Hearts somewhatdifferently.

These thoughtsmight help you celebrate Love without letting retrenchment impinge on yourresolve.

Don’t deny or pretend

At the coreof celebrating should be an acceptance of your current reality. The worst thingto do for this occasion is to deny that you are where you are, and to pretendthat all is well, that nothing has changed. The truth is that a lot haschanged, and it would be well for you to accept that as part of your presentsituation. The change may be pleasant or unpleasant (depending on your perception),but it is there. Valentine’s Day this year is like no other.

Get Real!

For those who walked away fromtheir companies with a fat retrenchment package, this may be the chance to dosomething you’ve always dreamed of doing but could not quite afford. This maybe the much-awaited time to indulge your spouse for many years of waiting forthat one magic moment of “wish ko lang” becoming real. Just be sure you canREALLY afford it, meaning you don’t indulge and then pound your head thinkingof what’s left in your coffers. And may I suggest that you do so within strictlimits you impose on yourself. Don’t take out your fantasy on your credit cardif you don’t know how to pay for it later! Pay in cash if you have to, if onlyto be very visual about money slipping out your fingers.

For those who walked away with nopackage or with practically nothing (after deductions for loans and the like),work out what you can reasonably afford. Showing love need not be expensive,and not having money should certainly not be an excuse. If you used to date ina fancy restaurant, this time consider a romantic after-dinner date in your ownlawn, porch, or veranda. Coffee or juice would do, even water for that matter.Just send the kids to bed, light up the scented candles, and enjoy the evening!

Or you can find equally enjoyablethrills that do not cost anything, like a stroll in the baywalk, the park, orthe mall, or a free concert, or a drive through the Fort at night. Even a dateof balut and asin at the steps of a building in UP sounds exciting! Or you may want to consider a group dateinstead, where you can jointly celebrate the day with other couple friends andshare in the costs.

Be creative

Creativityis something you will definitely need in looking for your next job, so startpracticing with Valentine’s Day. Convert your sala into a bistro, “kidnap” yourspouse to an undisclosed place, put a cartolina heart on his/her spectacles,write love notes on the bathroom mirror. Or why not do something outrageous,like giving a plastic ring to your girlfriend and saying that it will“transform” into a real engagement ring when you find a job, or write a poem toyour boyfriend entitled, “I love you even if…”

Don’tbanish even those thoughts you might consider corny at first. When your walletis empty (or will soon be), nothing is corny. You can’t afford to give in toconsumerism. The stuff in the malls are just shortcuts to spare you from thinkingup creative ways to get your message across. If you really dig deep into whoyou are, there are a million more ways that are far better and more uniquely personal.Let your beloved fall in love with you all over again, not your greeting cardsand fancy gifts of which there are a hundred others of the same edition.

Plan Ahead

Now, more than in Valentine’s Dayspast, you can ill afford to have fowl-ups. You can’t afford scenarios that willthrow you off your budget. When you had a job, you could probably consider ataxi when the jeepneys were full, or go regular course when the value mealswere unavailable. Sorry, but that’s not the way it is now.

For those for whom money is not anissue, you still need to plan. If a Hongkong trip or a diamond ring is how youwant to celebrate, that should be fine as long as you know this is part of aplan you have carefully worked out. Don’t let things go sour because you didn’tanticipate the snags. In the end, you are responsible for those choices and noone else.

Don’t let pressures driveyou

Keeping self-respect intact is oneof the biggest challenges of being retrenched. There are many ways to do this,but putting undue importance on people’s expectations is certainly not one ofthem. Being seen at a plush hotel for Valentine’s Day dinner is not the way toboost one’s self-esteem, especially if the reason is “so my friends and clientswill not pity me.” Retrenchment is not the same as being fired, and should notcarry the same stigma. Retrenchment happens because that’s the way things arein the world of work these days. Coping with such a matter-of-fact situationshould therefore be just that, a matter of fact.

If the pressure comes from yourbeloved, it’s about time you sit down and talk. If it is your spouse, explorewhatever happened to the “for richer, for poorer” part of the vow. Beingretrenched is bad enough; don’t let it eat up your marriage, too. If thepressure is from your honey (or—as they say nowadays—the other half of the “kami”), take a second look. If this ishow he/she copes with a situation like this while you still are not man andwife, perhaps you should think again. Like dengue fever, there is no immunityto retrenchment, and it isn’t exclusive to unmarried couples either.

You’re entitled tocelebrate Valentine’s Day!

People whohave been retrenched have every right to celebrate Valentine’s Day, just likeeveryone else. Retrenchment is just one of the many seasons of life, andchances are you will be out of it sooner than you think. The important thing isthat you do not allow it to destroy the one cherished and valued loverelationship that can be a potent force in helping you cope with this and otherpeiods of testing in your life. Your partner is still your best bet for successfullyfacing life and its challenges head-on.

In fact, ifyou so choose, you can make this Valentine’s Day the best ever! Unearthing yourcreativity and challenging your resourcefulness to look for wondrous ways tosay “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…” is one of the most memorablelessons you can learn from being retrenched.

It doesn’tseem likely that love and retrenchment are compatible, but you can prove thatthey can be. Love does not discriminate or single you out fordisenfranchisement. Valentine’s Day is Valentine’s Day, and don’t let anyonetell you that you can’t own the day simply because you’ve been retrenched.

Photo by Samric 2.7.12

Surprises

2012-02-02T22:42:00.000+08:00

I love surprises! Always have, always will. Surprises I pullon those I love. Surprises that people pull on me.

JL, James, Sam & the giant birthday card

One recent surprise came on my birthday last year, December 10. I was then confined in the hospital, the 12^th day of whatturned out to be a 17-day stay. I was supposed to be in for just two days for“excision, debridement, and biopsy” of a mass growing on my inner right cheek. Itwas actually a dental chair procedure, but because of past difficulties withlocal anesthesia, the doctors thought it best for me to be under generalanesthesia. I also had an open wound near the site of an impacted toothextracion earlier in June which hosted a chronic infection.
My all-male care crew of husband James and sons JL and Samric whowere staying with me at the hospital had dolled up the room with colorfulballoons; planned an in-hospital dinner for family and a few friends; chaseddoctors, nurses and other staff to sign a giant birthday card hush-hush. I evenhad three cakes, a huge bouquet of red roses, and deep red poinsettias in a pot. Everyone did everything tomake me feel special. They surely succeeded!

Birthday girl

JL, Sam, Crisel, Kiril & James

I didn’t think much about celebrating my birthday in thehospital. As my son JL wrote in his facebook entry: “Spending your birthday inthe hospital is still as awesome as spending it anywhere else. Happy birthdayto my dearest mom. Luv you…”

Except for one item: the biopsy report. I have to admit thatI did not quite see the humor in God’s birthday surprise. The biopsy done onthe mass in my right cheek reveals: “Squamous cell carcinoma on both tissue and bone samples,well-differentiated……..” The report was dated December 9.

Carcinoma! I didn’t need to access a dictionary or hit thegoogle button. I had a vocabulary large enough to include the word in my brain’sdatabase.

James was called out of my birthday party and told of thediagnosis. I was told two days later, thank you. No wonder James was acting alittle strangely. On December 11, he went up and down four flights of stairsseveral times. (My hospital room was on the fourth floor.) I scolded him forhuffing and puffing his way when he could have used the elevator at least onceor twice. He said he needed the exercise. That evening, I came out of thebathroom with James carefully pulling the rolling IV stand beside me. Hesuddenly stopped, hugged me tightly, cried. But he said nothing.

The scene of the “announcement” was unreal, right out of aHollywood movie. The view was from the top, the camera hoisted on a crane. Icouldn’t make out why my best friend (and my pulmonologist) was there; I even beratedher for visiting when I knew she was going back and forth because of feedingproblems with her 102 year-old mother. She was then called out by the nurse whosaid that the oral surgeon wanted to see her. Huh, they knew each other? (Ilater learned that James had brokered the meeting.) Then they all came in: mybest friend, my oral surgeon, my ENT. I was propped to the maximum sitting position of my fancy push-buttonbed. Directly in front of me was my oral surgeon, beside him my ENT, then mybest friend. James was somewhere behind the ENT, I think. They babbled on andon. They talked a long time. Although I thought I was picking it up, actually Iwasn't understanding a thing. Until on some nth repetition, I heard thewords—loudly and clearly: “Squamous cell carcinoma…it’s in all the samplestaken from the oral cavity: the tissue, the bone…… Of course, we suggestyou go for a second opinion…”

About an hour later, a second conference was held, this timewith a cancer surgeon and longtime friend, together with my infectiousdisease specialist. My only brother Kuya Ani walked in on cue. And James, of course. He hadarranged for all these meetings. The cancer surgeon asked me what my concernswere. I tried to be objective, logical, my interest more in the “what to donext” issues, beginning with how to tell my sons. We worked out a game plan forthe following day where my best friend (JL’s ninang) would break the news tothem. As for the malignancy, it would be surgery set for January 3 right after the holidays. It seems the doctors all wanted me to have a merry Christmas.

I didn’t sleep much that night. The word “CARCINOMA” in bold,uppercase letters kept flying before me. I narrowed down my focus to “Be stilland know that I am God.” Sometimes it helped; most of the time it didn’t. I couldn't keep still. The reality was too unreal. Idrifted in and out of forgetfulness and woke up with “CARCINOMA” seeminglypasted on my pupils. I thought of the day just beginning. I thought of my sons,especially my youngest, Sam, who was still recovering from fresh fears of arecent hold-up in the FX where at knife-point the robber took his cellphone, iPod and money. I monitored where Jamesand the children were at any given point and got especially nervous around thetime I thought they were hearing the news. I was only too glad that neither JLnor Sam suspected anything strange about having to leave me at the hospital togo see their Tita. My daughter-in-law and a niece recently sworn in as a nurse stayed with me duringtheir absence. They, too, remained unsuspecting.

I checked out on Dec. 15 after 17 days in the hospital. Itwas almost Christmas. I had never felt so spent in my life. I even naivelythought that people were hospitalized and then checked out healed from whateverwas ailing them. I left the hospital unwell, unhealed and facing a fearsomeprognosis.

Fast Forward

The 24/7 pump

My bionic body bag

I will reserve the in-between stories for a later date but Ijust can’t end this blog entry on this note. A lot has happened betweenDecember 15 and today. I can’t believe it’s been that long…and so full ofmiracles!

I had my first cycle of chemotherapy on January 17 for six hours,through half of which I slept soundly! No vomitting, nausea, or any of thehorror side effects I was warned about. I went home “bionic” with a littleblack body bag containing a pump that delivered medicines 24/7 through a venusport access connected directly to a vein. The port was surgically inserted under the skin a week earlier. Thefollowing Tuesday, January 24, I went for a second session of chemo, this time for five hours.Like the first one, I was asleep half the time, no vomitting or nausea.Although the doctor had told me earlier that the pump would stay with me fortwo weeks, he surprisingly removed it that Tuesday, setting me free from my bionicstatus, at least until the next chemo cycle on February 7.

My current status

Me! Jan. 29.2012

I am no longer in pain, except for an occasional shooting and throbbing in my jaw and cheek. An “opiod analgesic” pain patch (obtainableonly through a special prescription controlled by the Dangerous Drugs Board) goodfor three days at a time keeps the pain in check. The swelling in my cheek issignificantly reduced; that’s because the mass inside my cheek is also verymuch smaller. The open wound which refuses to close since October hasmiraculously disappeared (closed?); at any rate, we (and that includes my oralsurgeon) can’t find it. My mouth opening which, at its month-long worst wasjust fingernail wide, now takes in my whole index finger freely. Appetite,which has almost completely disappeared, is back more often, and with a widermouth opening, I can take in bread and rice for the first time in months!

Nothing much has changed with my appearance except for a discolored tooth and, of course, the anticipated loss of hair which seems to be starting already. Otherwise, 23 pounds lighter, I think I look just fine!
When yet another needle is pushed into my body, I take a deep breath and offer the pain for cancer sufferers among the Typhoon Sendong victims. My suffering is way too small compared to theirs.
My prayer warriors are incredibly busy banging on the doorsof heaven on my behalf. I cannot imagine how many peple are praying for me onany given day. My family has rearranged their lives around being available forme 24/7; my Kuya Ani and only sister Ate Lil, cousins, nieces and nephews, and otherrelatives stand by me with incredible devotion. I also have the most competent and caring doctors who give me confidence that I am in the best care.
I often smile at the thought athow spoiled I have become: everybody down on their knees praying for myhealing, and me just sitting here, going about my daily business as thoughnothing was happening inside of me, and taking in the miracles as they come.
Although I didn't appreciate God's unpleasant surprise then, I now understand it a bit more clearly. Miracles need a launchpad. And God's abiding presence? Well, who ever said that was a surprise?

Mentor muses on the joys of mentoring

2011-11-05T23:19:00.000+08:00

(First published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, August 14, 2005)

The mentoring relationship has lately occupied my mind sinceone of my colleagues recently introduced me to the training class as “mymentor.” I had been called “mentor” many times in the past, but for some reasonthe introduction hit me with a different poignancy this time. Perhaps becausethe person I was coaching was a seasoned trainor with impressivequalifications. Perhaps the attribution came at a time when I most feel theonslaught of age and diminished energy which becomes most obvious during thechallenging stretches of training. Perhaps the comment just caught me in asomber mood.
I was flattered, to say to least, but nevertheless feltapprehensive as I pondered on the responsibility of being called one’s mentor.I also became suddenly aware of how fast the years have flown indeed, for hereI was, a trainor, consultant, coach, and yes, mentor, often engaged in musingsabout whether I will ever leave my mark on this planet.

The coach at work

At about the same period that I was called mentor, I was regularly taking a 16-seater aircraft on official business to service a customer company's outplacement requirements. After the initial misgivings about flying on a dragonfly of an aircraft, I learned to enjoy the plane rides and to bask in the feeling of being high above the ground and yet close enough to see the trees and terrain. The ride usually took all of just 20 minutes, and the thought that I was in my destination so quickly eliminated much of the hassle associated with traveling.

The Otter plane looked somewhat like this.

Photo taken from aviastar.org.

On one such trip, I noticed that the captain seemed pretty oblivious of what he was supposed to be doing: flying the plane. (The cockpit in this type of aircraft was partly visible to the passengers.) Just as quickly as I took notice, I also saw that his assistant was in charge, which was why he wasn’t paying attention. The captain was engrossed with a few sheets of paper on a clipboard. I surmised that they may have been evaluation checklists. As I had suspected, the pilot in command of the aircraft was the senior pilot’s trainee.

Journeying with the tutored
I don’t rememberfeeling particularly fearful since I knew that the “real” pilot was just by andwould be able to take over at any time that the plane needed more experiencedhands.
The plane ride,however, was bumpy. This is an understatement since the aircraft, being small,was more easily susceptible to the influence of clouds and winds. The rocks andsways were more easily translated to bumps and thuds which the passengers couldfeel sick about, if not mentally tortured altogether.
There was nothing,as far as I could appreciate, that seemed particularly different from theweather conditions in which I usually flew. The weather was perfect, as it hadalways been in the times I took the same ride.
I could onlyconclude that the bumpy ride was due to the trainee pilot’s yet untrained handsthat did not quite have the same feel, the same fine touch of hands that knewthe plane and how to work it to their bidding.

Oncea Trainee

Mentoring—thethought crossed my mind with some distinctive power. We all need the wisdom ofexperienced hands that have worked themselves to perfection through years andyears of practice. There was a time when this now aging pilot was also like histrainee, probably sweaty to his underpants on his first training ride or on theride he would be evaluated and given the passing grade. His flight must alsohave been as choppy. The passengers he had then, as I was a passenger now, mustalso have felt the difference between the master’s and the apprentice’s touch.

We all need to gothe rounds of being the tutored, the one whose performance would be judged, the one whose every move must bewatched, critiqued, refined, purified by fire, chiseled with the fine,weathered hands of the master craftsman. And slowly, slowly, the trainee willemerge better and better at his craft, enriched and enhanced by the mentor’ssensitive coaching and expert eyes for bringing out the best in the yet raw anduntested mentee.

Now a coach

And so it is thatthe mentee then becomes the mentor, for how will the world be if coaches did notcoach and mentors did not mentor simply because we were afraid to suffer thebumpy ride and journey with the clumsy trainee until he could do things as wellas we did? We would have missed the privilege of being a mentor!

There is a time toteach and a time to learn, or perhaps to teach and to learn, and to learn andto teach—all at the same time.

Theneed to mentor

The older membersof workplaces should be able to mentor the younger ones because that is how weensure that the richness of lessons learned through years of work will findroot in those generations of workers to follow. We need to coach and helppeople discover the latent potentials they possess and use their gifts tobenefit society. We need to share openly and willingly those experiences thathave taught us many wonderful things that can benefit others and inspire themto make their contributions in their own terms, in their own appointed time andspace.

Trainors, tutors,coaches, mentors—we all should be, if we are not yet. If we do this role well,we know we will have made a difference in the life of one whom we now coach, inthe future a mentor like ourselves.

The MSU Golden Jubilee: Repositories of Memory

2011-10-20T15:54:00.000+08:00

(Third and last of a series)

There are some people in the Mindanao State University who may be easily regarded as repositories of institutional memory. Where even the landscape fails to document history, there are those who walk around as living storybooks of what has transpired. Hopefully that status would remain for long, as memory fades swiftly by the day.

Unfortunately, I have no sense of this institutional memory (not being an MSUan) but it was still equally exciting to meet four of them during the recent MSU golden jubilee.

Datumanong “Manong” Sarangani

Manong and Dina

I first heard of Manong when James was leaving for Marawi one time and asked me what book we can gift him and his wife Dina with. Of course, I didn’t know because I hadn’t met them yet. As is characteristically James, he rattled off Manong’s biography, his role in the university’s history, his and Dina’s life and love story, accompanied by a visual point-point in his photo file. “This is Manong, this is Dina, and this, this, this,” with a comprehensive annotation of each photo’s backdrop.

I met Manong years later during the MSU golden jubilee trip. Although Manong was exactly as James had pictured him to me, experiencing his gentleness was a gift. As he shook my hand, he said: “Dina and I would like to thank you, Loree.” Huh? For what, I thought. We just met. I suppose there are more stories between him and James that I don’t know about, but it’s enough for now that however James has described him, it is never an exaggeration but an understatement, the personal encounter far, far superior to any description I’ve heard. Manong is as he has been pictured and then much, much more.

Holding my book The Muted Cry:

Stories of Working Children,

our gift for her grandchild

Henrietta Ele

“So where are you staying in Marawi?” I would ask. “At Mrs. Ele’s,” would be James’ usual reply. Whatever time of year, whatever the itinerary, whatever the reason for the trip to Marawi, James’ visit would always include a stay at Mrs. Ele’s. It was no wonder then that when I decided to go with him for the golden jubilee, we would stay at Mrs. Ele’s.

I thought that meeting Mrs. Ele would be just that, meeting her. I was unprepared for her warmth that felt like a sound-surround audio system, the kind that so enveloped me that I was totally immersed in her hospitality. She said she had secured our luggage and would have them brought up, offered coffee, made me salivate with the breakfast menu planned for the following morning, told me about the fresh towel and malong that sat waiting atop a fresh pillow. She led me to our second floor quarters, negotiating the stairs with nary a huff, her 70 plus year-old body swaying with her kaftan.

One evening, past midnight, over coffee, donuts and homemade ice cream, she told stories of the Darangan Cultural Troupe, her early days in MSU, her art, her life. “Have you ever thought of getting these memories down in a book or memoir?” I asked. She said she didn’t really write and would much rather talk. I then asked permission to take a footage of our conversation, to which she obliged. I just felt that there was just no way to describe her. Only a video could capture the enthusiasm, grace, and lust for life that she exuded.

In the next few days, I observed that everyone who entered her front door was offered coffee, water, breakfast, a clean restroom, a bed, whatever, all offered ala Mrs. Ele, with the trademark booming voice and laugh, and a tight, warm hug that assured you that you were somehow one of her own.

Rufino “Sir Ruffy” Ignacio

I first met Ruffy and his wife Marlene at the Victoria Suites in Cagayan de Oro. We were to go together for whitewater river rafting the next morning. There were many things I later learned about him (like his “balikbayan” stint to teach at MSU after he had retired, his involvement in campus sports in the past, and his bringing in the PBA Legends to the campus for the jubilee) but these were eclipsed by my initial impressions of him on the river rafting trip.

He struck me as adventurous, daring, with a passion to live it up in this memorable return to his roots and anywhere else he goes. I thought it was remarkable at his age to be so unconstrained and to have the physical stamina to match his zest. It was easy to forget that he and Marlene were senior citizens for indeed, they were more physically fit than many younger than they, and certainly more go-go-go than me who had real and imagined constraints. He saw through that, I know, because he joked about the visible panic on my face during the rafting trip.

Thank you, Sir Ruffy and Marlene, for teaching me during that short encounter, that fearlessly challenging one’s definition of the safe and comfortable makes for an active life that goes beyond the youthful years. You have redefined the meaning of “the senior years.”

Bob Lim

Long before I met any MSUan, I knew Bob Lim. Hopelessly devoted to MSU and the alumni, Bob is ubiquitous in anything that even remotely smacks of MSU. He doesn’t seem to tire of planning and executing MSU affairs, faithfully trudging to Dome in EDSA Shangrila Thursday after Thursday for their tapok-tapok, rallying alumni to whatever event he is organizing.

Whoever does not know Bob is probably not an MSUan.

Repositories of memory these four people are, and MSU is so favored by their presence.

Note: Here ends my series on the golden jubilee celebration of MSU. Here, too, begins my change of status from "outsider" to insider. Thank you to all MSUans who have welcomed me to a world that I had, for all these years, only dreamed of inhabiting.

The MSU Golden Jubilee: A shared past

2011-09-30T10:08:00.001+08:00

(Second of a series)

The view from the second floor balcony of Mrs. Ele’s house was a pretty panorama of the campus landscape: buildings and open spaces bounded by busy streets, and in the far distance to the left, the golf course, trees, mountains and the lake.

This being my first time in Marawi for the golden jubilee of the Mindanao State University, I thought I’d explore not only the landscape, but also what alumni were thinking and feeling at this momentous homecoming.

“How does it feel to see your campus again after all these years?” I asked an alumnus as we stood in the balcony. He looked away, far away to the left where the lake painted a postcard picture and said: “Sad, but I don’t recognize this place anymore.”

I was initially saddened by the thought of his coming home to a place he no longer knew, a strange place that no longer held his memories. Home was somewhere we should all recognize somehow, no matter how the years have intervened.

Looking out from the same balcony a day later, another alumnus said: “All of us who studied here were here because this was the only way we could get an education. That is something we all share.”

It was then that I somewhat understood the bonds that hold the alumni so strongly together. Many things may have changed and become unrecognizable, but many more things have remained. One of them is the shared experience of the MSU years, a rare time of learning through both books and life as lived on campus.

There are many threads to this experience:

the struggle to maintain scholarships semester after semester, knowing that MSU was the only hope there was for an education
the agony of waiting for allowances from parents that seldom came on time, if at all, always knowing that their cash-strapped families most likely had little to send
the communal nature of dorm life, of living with other people 24/7, of sharing days and nights away from family and home, of being on one’s own, of tolerance for differences, of the value of responsibility and friendship, of looking out for one another because they were now each other's family
the diversity of origin, orientation, culture, religion, and social stature which posed challenges in mutual respect, understanding and acceptance
the privilege of having nature in all its grandeur as the backdrop of learning pursuits, of enjoying the soothing relief offered by the breathtaking view of mountains and the calm of the lake any time during a stressful day, of being able to sit and walk on grass instead of cold concrete, and of being spoiled by the cool weather and occasional fog
the walking and exercise around campus that have instilled the preference for the natural and the free, making for stronger bodies attuned to healthy ways
the privilege to have emerged—amidst deprivation and difficulty—as products of a quality education delivered by a dedicated faculty that did its best to rise above the inadequacy of provisions and to make the best of what was there
above all, the gift of participating in “an experiment in social integration” that watered the seeds of appreciation for the ties that bind rather than separate.

Even as I have no sense of this shared past, I am extremely grateful to be its beneficiary. The warmth and caring I received, especially after a minor accident during the Pagana Meranao that gave me much pain, leave me awed by gestures of concern from many, many alumni, most of them I had just met. Through the years I have also seen how MSUans have shown their support for the grieving, among them the families of the late Rolly Mirano, Glenn Rosauro, Major General Juanito "Nitz" Gomez, and my own father. I interpret this to mean that alumni are, almost by instinct, adequately prepared by their MSU circumstances to be sensitive to need and to address it whenever possible.

It excites me that as I look into these alumni faces, I see the sum total of many living experiences shared, which although experienced at different times and with different groups of people, continues to bind the alumni across colleges and generations. The camaraderie is there across the years, whether one graduated in 1966, 1974 or 2010; with a degree in engineering, chemistry, or social work; or from Marawi, Iligan, Naawan or any other campus.

Perhaps this is what a golden jubilee is really meant to celebrate: the spirit that is born of a shared past and imbibed deeply as alumni go forth from the university prepared to take their appointed place in the sun, all the while keeping true to the gift that has been their privilege to enjoy.

Celebrating 50 years is also best when done with new eyes and a new way of looking at the now seemingly unrecognizable vestiges of the past, a beautiful thought that T.S. Eliot wrote in Four Quartets:
We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.  

See happy alumni faces in this slideshow:
the MSU golden jubilee faces

The MSU Golden Jubilee: An outsider’s view of the inside

2011-09-16T23:09:00.001+08:00

(First of a series)

How do you celebrate when you’re not a celebrant? How do you “come home” to a place that you’ve never been before? How do you get into the nostalgia everyone else is feeling when you have no reference point to feel nostalgic about? How do you own someone else’s moment and make it your own?
The answer—surprisingly—is easy, that is, if these questions have to do with the Golden Jubilee celebration of the Mindanao State University (MSU, 1961-2011). The golden affair brought its celebrating alumni to Naawan, Misamis Oriental, and the cities of Cagayan de Oro, Iligan, and Marawi in Mindanao, and Quezon City. The various events were all intended to “bring home” the alumni to where life started for them all: in this learning institution uniquely nestled on rolling hills overlooking the beautiful Lake Lanao.

By most definitions, I am an outsider. I have never been to MSU, never studied there (I have an A.B. English degree from UP Diliman), and would probably never have visited there.

And yet, I am no stranger either. From the early days of courtship to 28 wedded years, James (A.B. English, 1969) had talked of little else outside of MSU. I have listened with excitement to his stories of campus life, visualized the fog as it descended and snuffed out the campus from view, cringed at the thought of having only one glass of water to do everything (as in everything), thrilled at his achievements in athletics and student politics. I also marveled at his six-year stint as a member of the Board of Regents representing the alumni at age 20. (James’ storytelling, by the way, was never just about names and events. He would recite each one’s resumé, complete with details of educational attainment, work experience, training, even awards and career movements.) His romantic dates by the golf course at twilight and haranas to pretty ladies in the dorms I gamely admit as part of the life of a sought-after campus figure. Art Cassanova and Frank Rivera could not have put it better. They say I bested all of James’ swooning admirers and fans who would gladly do whatever it takes to win his heart. I was marked as the woman who stole him from them.

Throughout the hectic trip, James was constantly checking up on me. Was I having a good time? Was I having fun? Was I feeling out of place? Was I enjoying myself?

To be honest, I was having the time of my life! On my own, without compulsion or a sense of duty, I just went with the flow and found it simply wonderful. Why? Again the answer is simple. It’s the people, the alumni, the hosts. It’s who they are and where they’ve been. It’s what they have become and how they have essentially remained much like the young boys and girls that they were many, many years ago. I felt one with them. I felt at home.

This feeling came in the intense solidarity fostered by the sea of color-coordinated yellow, gold, green, black, maroon and pink T-shirts that marked the alumni as one. It came in the endless hugs and beso-beso, the shrieks at being able to get one’s name right, the joy of recognizing a face after decades of mere memory, the thrill of reconnecting lives separated by graduation, of filling in the blanks of many years of silence. It came in the impassioned singing of the Himno ng Pamantasan, arms raised, fists clenched and voices ringing, coached by the lyricist himself, Prof. Lito Flores. It came in the colorful elegance of Pagana Meranao, the breathtaking grandeur of décor and ritual that showcase the Maranao culture, the sanctity of a meal shared with another. It came in the pompous showoff of form and figure in the Rigodon de Honor. It came in the honored task of recognizing distinguished alumni for various distinctions, aptly embodied by the Sarimanok. It came in the raucous laughter, tireless chatter and organized chaos during the alumni parade through the campus, and the thrill of breaking ground for the dream of an alumni center. It came in line dancing that brought everyone to the floor in wanton abandon. It came in the smaller, more homogenous celebrating in the college homecoming events and hostings of small groups like Griffins and other fraternities. It also came in side events like dinner hosted by the Lims and Salvañas, breakfast at Manong and Dina's home, a tour of the Amai Pakpak Medical Center and the Naawan campus. And who can underestimate the bonds created as we battled the rapids during the whitewater river rafting experience, my first taste of an extreme sport?

But much of this feeling came in nice, quiet, sedate conversations one-on-one or in small groups, over midnight snacks, breakfast of bulad and fried rice, or 3-in-1 coffee breaks any time of day. It came in staccato getting-to-know you exchanges while waiting for one’s turn in the bathroom, packing, or putting on make-up. It came in hushed communions in the balcony, carport or kitchen amidst the stillness of the night or riotous laughter in the wee hours. It came in Mrs. Ele's motherly doting on all of us whom she welcomed to her home like her own children.

In these forms of tête-à-tête, it didn’t matter that I was an outsider because in many ways, each one was an outsider to something and an insider to something else.

I am deeply warmed by what I saw in these MSU alumni I met for the first time or got to know in a different way at this golden jubilee stretch. I am warmed by the simplicity, humility, gentleness, kindness, concern for MSU and fellow-alumni (and even for outsiders like me), for each one’s striving to make the most out of an MSU education and making a difference wherever he/she may be, all of these always marked by a deep sense of fondness and gratitude.

I suppose that when I am finally able to match faces with names and stories I've repeatedly heard, and the storyline begins to have a definition and a shape, then perhaps I, too, can say I am home. Because I've seen the beginnings. Because I’ve made sense of the fragments. Because I now see the whole.

See my personal chronicle of the golden jubilee events in YouTube:
the MSU golden jubilee.mov

Renewing ties

2011-09-09T22:38:00.000+08:00

I still remember vividly the painedlook on Eileen’s face some seven years ago as she announced:

“Norenz has asked me to join himin Malaybalay as soon as possible.”

We were stunned, even though weknew that Norenz had been away for almost three years to establish hearth andlivelihood in Malaybalay, Bukidnon. “We” was a handful of friends who had beenmeeting almost every week in their Quezon City home for some time, for regularecumenical fellowship and study with friends from the Focolare Movement. Weknew that sooner or later Eileen would have to follow her husband, but nothingever prepares friends for an announcement like this.

What will I do there, she mused aloud. I can’t just pack up and leave. Howwill we survive? The rubber trees are just an inch tall!

All of us could easilyempathize. What about food on the table? What about tuition? What about mallsand friends and eating out and movie dates?

Back at their place a week later, welistened intently as Eileen made another announcement:

“I have said yes to Norenz, and Iam at peace.”

Then followed the frenzy ofselling the house, packing, loading, shipping, saying her goodbyes. Everythingshe did in the next few days was labeled “NOW.” Not even "Forward." Only "Fast forward." There was no tarrying or turning back.

Most difficult of all was gettingEileen’s father to accept the idea of her moving away. Getting him to give hisblessing was a long shot. Her father even mocked Norenz with: “Where on earthis Malaybalay? Do they have electricity there?”

On some other occasion, I rememberNorenz saying, “But it’s God who makes the trees grow!” I thought then of theinch-tall stubs of rubber that nurtured his hopes for a plantation someday. Heobviously had a vision none of us could see.

Last week, James and I visitedNorenz and Eileen in Malaybalay, Bukidnon. Exhausted from a packed seven-dayfestive schedule through Cagayan de Oro, Naawan, Iligan and Marawi for theMindanao State University’s Golden Jubilee celebrations, we relished the ideaof renewing ties with them even as we sought a much-needed slowing down inpace.

I thought of Eileen’s leavingseven years ago as I stepped out onto the driveway of their Malaybalay compound.It was early evening. There was a slight drizzle; a hint of fog nestled in thefine branches of abounding pine trees. The smell of fresh evening air that isnature’s gift to weary travelers spelled welcome in bold strokes.

There could be no better backdropfor this renewing of friendship. The warmth of a lovely country home—elegantlyand tastefully put together by Norenz and Eileen themselves, with every pieceof furniture and décor pregnant with a story all its own—was restfulnessitself. The foyer table made from wood that was insufficient to complete it (soit ended up as a beautiful U-shaped table); the cantilever stairs with nohandrails; the wooden divider that rolls into place to conceal frenzied kitchenactivity; the valued paintings on the walls by both the known and the lesser known; the unusual sculpture of a father and his children, contrasted with a set of plates depicting the Madonna and Child; the fresh flowers newly-picked from the garden; the ubiquitous photos thatchronicle the story of a family; the homely fragrance of a home that knows thesecrets of its residents well. On top of the visual feast, the endless banterof friends desperately trying to piece together the stories of the absent years… here indeed was rest.

We retired to what I called “ourfirst real bed” and “first real bathroom,” having gone through seven days of“communal living” with all the MSUans who came to celebrate the golden jubilee.That had a magic all its own, but it was now time for missed privacy and space.

I woke up to a fantastic view oftwo country houses in the distance (Eileen’s relatives’), chirping birds, pinetrees, and the promise of an unharried day.

It has been a long time since thisfamily uprooted itself from the jungle of Manila to plant itself on the stillunspoilt soil of Bukidnon. From what I could see, I am convinced that they havedecided rightly. The rubber trees have grown as God would have them grow, nowyielding their sap to serve the needs of the civilized world. The coffee shopwhich they opened has taught this highland community to drink gourmet coffeewhere earlier it only knew 3-in-1. The adjacent gym they put up fills the nichefor a fitness and wellness regimen. Above all, Norenz, Eileen, and theiryoungest Joaqui (Nicole and Coby, the older children, now both live in QuezonCity) have found their way to the Christ Commission Fellowship where they sharethe joys and tribulations of remaining faithful believers. Serious in theirattempt at true witness, they have chosen to journey where the exercise ofshowing genuine love and concern for each other and for God’s creation is whatgives meaning to all of life.

As we left Malaybalay, I carriedin my heart the precious time with what Eileen calls “kindred friends.” Back inManila, as we told our stories to our sons JL and Samric on the way home fromthe airport, and as JL skillfully maneuvered his way through the hopeless traffic of Metro Manila,I wondered why I keep insisting on this “punishing” life in the city, when thefresh mountain air and rich foliage of the countryside are forever begging tobe claimed.

See the slideshow of that visit:

renewing ties

Transitions are life-changing experiences

2011-08-19T22:24:00.009+08:00

First published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, July 23, 2006

Transitions. They are the stuff that life is made of. They color our lives from birth to death. We go through them painlessly or painfully, depending on how well we accept them as part of being alive. We either victoriously lord over them or cower helplessly under their control.

Going beyond

The word “transition” comes from the Latin word “transire” which means “to cross over” or “to go beyond.” Coined in 1551, the word remains very much in modern-day usage, for there seems to be no substitute word to describe the life phases all humans go through. A baby transitions from being infant to toddler, the young boy to a teenager, the single lady to a wife, the man to a father, on and on and on. The final transition is from life to death when we graduate to eternity. A special kind of transition is when one moves from being employed to unemployed, or from being employed to retired. Within this category of transitions is the often unexpected change brought about by retrenchment. Thrust into a situation where one is forced—often unwillingly—into a new career search, people who have been let go face the unfamiliar territory of looking for a new job, starting a business, or retiring. All of these may be fraught with pain.

The idea of “going beyond” is one that can have a dramatic impact on how one views retrenchment and the transition that it brings about. When one goes beyond something, we think of someone able to pass through a hurdle, leap over an obstacle, land safely on another shore. We think of a triumphal crossing of the bar and moving on to wherever is the next stop.

Change and transition
Change triggers transitions. A change event starts off a transition process, the primary mechanism for the human spirit to deal with change. Transitions are necessary responses to change. They can either be painful or painless. Everyone decides how he/she wants to transition.

Nothing seems to be truer of transitions than that one must go through them and eventually, one can actually succeed in going beyond them. As many of my retrenched clients will testify, career transition can be one of the most meaningful times of one’s life—that is, if those who go through them fortify themselves with the faith and courage on which the ability to go beyond is anchored.

Transient and temporary

A related word, “transient,” also comes from the same Latin root word. It characterizes transitions and denotes something temporary, fleeting, impermanent. Transitions are transient. Their very essence is movement from one point to another. They are never static nor permanent.

So, if the act of going beyond is transient, then there seems to be no sense in belaboring the grief, tarrying on what is past, and getting hooked on phantoms. To go beyond is to move forward, to forge ahead, to charge fearlessly into the unfamiliar.

Dealing with Transitions

We can all benefit from facing transitions head-on, talking about them, understanding them, using them to our best advantage. We can make our inevitable transitions the life-changing experiences they are meant to be. We want to go through and beyond transitions with a sense of exhilaration and gratitude, rather than with pain and grief.

And, after we have moved on and then look back to the time when we were standing at the threshhold, we can say confidently: I have crossed the bar. I have gone beyond. I have leapt and landed safely on another shore.

Music as Chiaroscuro (Juxtaposing darkness and light)

2011-08-07T22:53:00.000+08:00

First published in the Music Congress Newsletter
October 23, 2002

I don’t know exactly why this principle I learned from my Literature studies long ago suddenly wafted into my memory as I sat listening to the beautiful worship music. Chiaroscuro is a principle in painting which has to do with the play of light and shadow in the rendering of a face, a figure, anything that is immortalized on canvas. The juxtaposition of the dark and light hues gives the captured image a character, a voice, a face, a feeling, a spirit.
Perhaps it was because the music transported me from thoughts of the reality outside--the reality of war and rumors of war, of famine, greed, abuse, alienation and apathy--to a place of healing where the soul feeds upon the hope that God so graciously allows us to fathom in the awesome experience of prayerful music.
Music takes us to that space and sphere where God banishes the darkness of our soul’s sorrows, and replaces it with light, pure light, rekindling light that reinvigorates, soothes, and assures us that the contrasts and ironies of life, like the juxtaposed dark and light, are mere shadows in moments of our disbelief. Music in worship bridges the gap between an all-powerful God and a powerless, inconsequential me. It redefines the stark, frightening, crippling shadows of fear and anguish as sunlight and daylight in God’s embrace. It alters the shapes and textures of all that we know to be human to become visions and voices of all that is heavenly.
As I spiraled into that realm where God sits waiting for my return and promise to stay, my eyes release tears, and in my heart I proclaim, at this moment of my communion: “My Lord and my God!”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deAOhQ7s5Gc

Handel's Hallelujah Chorus

Performed by the Chancel Choir of the National City United Church

Conducted by our son Nikos, with my husband James singing tenor

July 31, 2011

Dealing with Feelings

2011-08-02T21:51:00.000+08:00

Jobseekers, especially the young, often go through a roller coaster ride of feelings as they go about looking for a job. They could use some help in managing their feelings during job search. My book Guiding Youth Careers: A Handbook for those who help young jobseekers (ILO, 2007) from which this article was taken, has useful tips for counselors and coaches who give career guidance to the young. The tips are not just for young jobseekers, however, as older jobseekers can also benefit from the thoughts shared in the article.

Note: This book has recently been translated into French: L'Orientation Professionnelle des Jeunes (ILO, 2011).

To view the article, please click on:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/61437189/Dealing-With-Feelings-Guiding-Youth-Careers

Ensuring Mental Health after Job Loss

2011-07-25T18:12:00.000+08:00

A paper read at the 12^th National Occupational Safety and Health Congress,

October 15, 2010, Occupational Safety and Health Center, Quezon City

Decent and
productive
work for all remains one of the highest human aspirations. I have yet to meet someone who does not crave for work that nurtures and satisfies, that fulfills human potential even as it provides for food on the table. And because life satisfaction is probably impossible without satisfying work, then it may be said that decent and productive work is the primary requisite for a decent and satisfying life.

Much of the decency and productivity of work rests on issues of occupational safety and health. Work cannot be decent when it is unsafe or unhealthy, when it compromises well-being, and when it fails to respect human dignity. Likewise, a worker is most productive when he/she feels most healthy and safe.

The recent barrage of plant closures resulting from the economic downturn has brought to focus yet another oft-neglected aspect of OSH: health issues related to job loss. Who provides the after-care needed by people who have been laid off, retrenched due to plant closures or organizational reengineering? Who ensures that the trauma of losing a job does not result in permanent mental disability, and can, in fact, bring about a rebirth of one’s dreams? Who stands by the retrenched to catch them in their lowest moment and help them stand up to face a new day?

Job loss is one major life change that increasingly affects large numbers of both our local and global workforces. Up until recently, job loss was perhaps isolated at best, affecting small numbers in a few industries. Retrenchment was not such a popular word. Certainly, losing a job was not such a widespread malady the way it is today when thousands would be retrenched all at one time. Job security has, at no other time, been so threatened.

As expected perhaps, so many people are unprepared to lose a job, especially those who have spent years, even decades, in one industry, company, or workplace. Losing a job comes as a shock, no matter how prepared one is for it.

I have spent many years helping thousands of retrenched clients from various industries, with the past five years in particular spent coaching retrenched employees of two exiting major semiconductor and air cargo companies. I do not come before you with heavily-researched and statistically foolproof discoveries, but rather with raw perceptions felt deeply and intuitively from journeying with my clients and seeing most of them reengage life with fortitude and enthusiasm. Three of my major insights I wish to share with you here.

My first insight is that a key factor in successfully moving on after job loss is one’s readiness for change. There is no better hedge against the increasing certainty of job loss than reinventing oneself to be multi-skilled, employable, marketable, or capable of doing entrepreneurship and consulting. “Mas marami kang alam, mas marami kang mapagkakakitaan.” The most frustrating setback to those who lose a job—and yet the most common—is that they have no skills other than what they currently have. If all one knows is how to load cargo onto a plane or how to put a pinhead dot of glue to a microchip, how in the world does he/she expect to find work with no marketable skills?

Second, social protection is a key helping factor in ensuring mental health after job loss and preventing mental health problems. It is often thought that a separation package is enough. Sure, it is better than nothing. But a financial package without the corresponding financial literacy is practically useless. Some companies commendably design a whole package of services to prepare retrenched employees. In addition to a sound financial package, these so-called outplacement programs include transition coaching, skills-building, entrepreneurship training, livelihood programs, personal financial and investment planning, and career coaching on crafting resumes, preparing for interviews, negotiating, and most importantly, getting a realistic grasp of one’s capabilities, interests, motivations, and strategic career directions.

Lastly, I have found that those who have been most able to quickly move on and transition to life after retrenchment are those who understand change, accept it, cope creatively with stress, and willingly make the necessary adjustments to their lifestyle and spending habits. Those who have emotional support systems of family, friends, social networks and have access to professional help are better able to rise above the trauma and temporary displacement. Above all, those who have a deep spiritual core are best able to view their circumstances with greater faith and hopefulness that their current situation is all for the better.

Yes, there is life after losing a job. Yes, there is a future waiting. And yes, mental health after job loss is the concern of government, employers, trade unions, and civil society because it is an issue of decent and productive work. And all of us, whether we have jobs or not, must make ourselves multi-skilled, marketable and able, at any time, to disengage from our present work and follow that which we believe we were destined to do. If we are able to do what we love doing, we satisfy that persistent nudging deep within our guts that nags us to follow our heart, for in the end, the most decent work is that which gives us the greatest satisfaction.

How to survive your work stressors

2011-07-18T20:23:00.001+08:00

First published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, March 12, 2006

Anyone who complains about stress in the workplace must one day accept the futility of such a preoccupation. Stress at work is as real as any other item in one’s job description. When one signs a work contract, one also gives his/her consent to the fine print of S-T-R-E-S-S imbedded as a hyperlink in every other line. Stress is simply part of the working life—indeed, of life itself.

Does this mean, then, that we should all stop complaining and grudgingly accept the seemingly unacceptable? I definitely say “No!” There are countless individuals who seem to breeze through the stresses of everyday and consider it such a privilege to be at work! Let me share what some happy people at work have discovered.

Stress is natural

Stress is often defined as “the body’s way of responding to change.” This simply means that stress was created to be a good thing. If the body were not allowed to use this built-in response mechanism, there would surely be adverse consequences.

Stress becomes a “bad” thing when we allow it to turn against itself. Stress becomes “stressful” when we allow it to put undue pressure on us, forcing us to cope with too much, too often, too soon. The body is forced to overtax itself in responding to change, over and beyond its natural capacity. We then begin to bite more than we can chew. We begin to feel buried deeper and deeper into a hole we cannot get out of. We gasp for air. We choke. We have allowed stress to overpower us.

The Organization as Stressor

A clear work stressor is the type of organization people work in. The nature of the business often dictates the culture, norms, pace, and relationships in the workplace. Organizations that deal with disaster relief, emergencies, money, media, health and the like have stresses inherent in the kind of work that they do. A person who decides to work in these organizations must accept the stresses as givens.

The Nature of Work

Another stressor is defined by the kind of work people do in an organization. Sales jobs are forever about targets and quotas. The medical profession is about saving lives, often demanding split-second decisions. Stock market traders, air traffic controllers, firemen, call center agents, assembly line workers, reporters, even fastfood delivery crew all work with clocks ticking like time bombs.

Courtesy of PDI

Pilots, molecular biologists, surgeons, telephone linemen, snipers, computer technicians, miners and scuba diving instructors work with great precision and cannot afford even the slightest error. Many many jobs have grave life and death consequences, and this fact makes them stressful by nature. CEOs, managers and supervisors are on this list, too.

People as Stressors

Let’s face it: there are stressful people all around us! Every workplace will usually have the obnoxious, the envious, the braggart, the self-righteous, the lazy, the complainer, the gossip. The list is endless. The boss, of course, is often unfairly seen as the automatic stress icon.

Personality-Driven Stressors

Some people just seem to be more stressed out than others. Perhaps it is because some people actually enjoy being stressed, whether or not they admit it. Called stress junkies, these workers feel incomplete when the going is smooth. They miss the jagged edges, bumps and near-hits. There are also some, with masochistic tendencies perhaps, who have to play the perpetually harassed, demanding pity or praise for their hard work.

Nuisance Stressors

Some stressors are simply unnecessary. Worrying about traffic when one left the house later than usual, losing sleep over a month-old assignment that is due tomorrow, or getting irritated about an officemate’s bad moods create stress that one can live without. One can prepare for predictable traffic and deadlines. Another person’s moods are beyond our control so why be perpetually surprised?

Power over Stress

Overcoming stress is a decision, a choice one makes for the sake of a peaceful existence at work. A stressor is a stressor because one allows it to be so. Simply put, one can control all kinds of stresses because he/she can choose not to be stressed by them.

Attitude is the all-important factor. Those who triumph over stress are those who have decided that they will not let external factors wield their unwelcome power over them. Overcoming stress is a rational process, a willful act. One must think through stress rather than feel through it.

What to do

Three simple steps: identify, rationalize, decide. List down all the things that stress you, big and small. Then analyze each item. Why is this item a stressor? Is it within your control? What can you do about it?

It also helps to identify the consequences that each stressor brings to you. If the jeepney driver who cuts you in traffic goes away whistling a tune while you are still cursing right through lunch, shouldn’t you be kinder to yourself? If your secretary still does not take a telephone message correctly, shouldn’t you prefer one more round of training to an emotional outburst?

Rationalizing helps you see what you can or cannot do about a particular stressor. If it is outside your control, then the only thing you can control is how you view it. Chances are, you can eliminate it from your list.

It’s entirely up to you.

Be kind to yourself

That attitude is a key determinant of stress control may seem impractical or downright absurd. It is difficult—extremely—sometimes. But if you decide not to be stressed about something, then it isn’t a stressor anymore!

Wouldn’t you rather be humming through your inbox and chatting with your boss as you would your best friend? Wouldn’t you rather go home and enjoy your children’s school stories rather than take out your bad day on them? Shouldn’t you look forward to lunch hour as the time to relax with your officemates rather than use it to escape from them?

You can beat stress in a much cheaper, more efficient and lasting way than a gym workout, massage, or vacation. Try adopting a no-stress attitude until it becomes a habit, and eventually a lifestyle and a way of life. Try it!

The Business of Giving Hope

2011-07-09T12:07:00.000+08:00

First published in my book, Guiding Youth Careers: A guide for those who help young jobseekers, published by the International Labour Organization, 2007

On a red brick wall in our terrace, two old posters mounted on wooden frames hang side by side. They show similar pictures of small streams moving upward to join larger bodies of water, possibly seas or oceans. The caption on one poster reads: “What appears to be the end may really be a new beginning.” On the other poster, the caption reads: “Faith is knowing there is an ocean because you have seen a brook.”

Coaching the retrenched

One day, in this same terrace, my husband James and I were grappling with the meaning of our careers, our life mission, our calling. Among other things, we are both involved in coaching those who have been retrenched. What is it really all about? How do we help people to deal with the pain of losing a job, oftentimes prematurely? How do we help them prepare to engage the future with confidence? What does it really mean for us to listen to their fears and dreams (or what’s left of them)? What does it mean to be a career coach?

Ageless message

We tossed ideas back and forth. Then James caught sight of the posters. “That’s it! That’s what it’s all about!” He then wondered aloud where the posters may have come from. Loree explained that the posters were hers. She had bought them as a young girl in freshman college. Who knows how many times the posters helped her face the rigors of school, of starting a career, of charting a life course? The posters have also survived four residence moves, a lifetime commitment to take care of parents to the end, raising a family, multiple careers, diverse interests and sundry engagements. Today the posters still stand there, ageless, timeless.

Giving hope
James saw in those posters something that explained the meaning of our life career. As career coaches, we are in the business of giving hope. Not hope that is based on wishful thinking or plain positive attitude or simple rah-rah-rah. It is hope that allows people to trust that there is a beginning in every ending, to see the truth that the brook will always link up with the ocean.
It is hope that is built on faith and trust, and the willingness and ability to “see beyond.” Things are never what they seem. Job loss is only a temporary ending, a mere chapter. The financial and emotional setbacks of being let go are mere points in time. If one is able to see beyond the present, then there will always be hope.

Seeing beyond
Fr. Eli Santos, SDB, spoke of seeing beyond in his homily at a recent office blessing. He said that one who sees beyond can appreciate the true nature of things underneath the façade. Seeing beyond allows a person to understand another’s behavior at a level deeper than the obvious. It allows a person to interpret meanings hiding behind appearances. One who sees beyond has a hopefulness that may seem unfounded to others, but it is one that is solidly grounded on what lies underneath the surface. To unearth the beauty behind the ugliness or the hope behind the desperation, one needs to see beyond.

Successful coaching
And so when we coach those who have lost their jobs, we succeed only when we are able to make them see beyond their circumstances. We succeed when they begin to see beyond their limitations and see what good they can offer. We succeed when they see the need to improve themselves and expand their competencies. We succeed when they affirm that there is a future waiting to unfold for them. We succeed when they see the present as an opportunity to rearrange their priorities and seek those that truly bring them happiness.

Choosing to see beyond
Seeing beyond is a choice. Hopefulness is a choice. And when we as career coaches choose to coach others, we also make a choice to see beyond our coachees. Even as we cry and grieve with them, laugh and celebrate with them, we also make a choice to appreciate their innate capacity to find hope in the midst of their pains. We catch them in their fragile brokenness and yet challenge them to access the tough inner resources they have within.
There is incomparable joy in seeing beyond. There is immeasurable satisfaction in helping others to see beyond. That is why we have chosen to do what we do.

James and Loree at a client company's Career Center, 2010

Cell phones keep employees on call for work 24/7

2011-07-04T23:43:00.000+08:00

Technology has changed tremendously since 2005 when this was first published, but cell phones remain the working person's best friend or worst enemy.

Courtesy of PDI

To view the article, please click on:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/59228901/Cellphones-Keep

The real test

2011-06-27T12:14:00.000+08:00

Note: I wrote this right after Typhoon Ondoy for my retrenched clients. Many of them, while still reeling from having lost their jobs, suffered much from Ondoy's wrath.

First published in Transitions Magazine, September 2009

   How much can you take without breaking? How much stretching can you stand without snapping? What is that point of no return when you cross the hurdle and land safely on the ground?
   These are hard questions to ask and even harder to answer. Job loss may have triggered the most trying times for you, not only because of the tremendous amount of change and adjustment you now face, but more perhaps because it has compelled you to journey to the depths of who and what you are.
   Times of change are times of introspection, reflection, and confrontation. They are times of pausing to take stock of what was, what is, and what will be. They are times of digging deep into your self-knowledge, self-worth, and self-appreciation.
   The issue, though, is not really what you are going through as much as how you will emerge from it.
   These times have tested all of us beyond measure. On top of individual sojourns into self-doubt and anxiety brought about by job loss, the recent natural disasters have left (or are still simmering) both festering wounds and fresh scars. They challenge us all to wonder what our breaking point is and how much more we can take before we crack.
   And yet, most of us are able to pass the test, make the grade, and emerge whole even after our recent unnerving experiences. My mother used to say that "a soldier's true strength is measured in the battlefields of war and not in perfect marches during peacetime."
   Pat yourself on the back as I will mine. We have all done exceedingly well. We will continue to survive, scarred perhaps and not totally unscathed, but still far, far from being broken.

The Gospel according to my Father

2011-06-20T23:58:00.001+08:00

My Daddy
Ricardo C. Cruz

Note: I first delivered this piece as a lay sermon in our church on Fathers' Day, 2003. My Dad was beaming as he listened in the congregation. To those who congratulated him later, he would say: "Loree exaggerates," followed by his characteristic delighted laugh. The second time I read it was at his necrological service in June 2005. I'm sure he was still beaming, this time happily holding my mother's hand.

To view the layouted text, please click on
http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/58155972?access_key=key-2btzhiy1cefrizj4cfld

Achieve satisfaction via your work

2011-06-15T00:40:00.000+08:00

First published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, September 9, 2007

How many hours do you spend working? If you’re like most, you would probably say 8 hours, or 10 or 18. Some of you may even say that you think you’re working all the time. You could be right!

Work-related work

The truth is that for the greater mass of working people, work takes up most of a normal workday. Consider, for example, that work does not only mean the actual number of hours you spend at your workplace. There are countless work-related activities that you have to do in order to be ready to work. You need to clean up and dress. You need to wait in line to get on a public transport or drive yourself to work. You need to travel around for meetings, conferences, workshops. You need to drop off the kids with your mother-in-law before proceeding to the office. You need to shop for office clothes. You need to attend the boss’ birthday party or bring foreign guests for shopping. On occasion or as a matter of routine, you render overtime.

Extended work hours

It is also not so easy to relegate working to the workplace, however you define it. Many people bring home work, thus extending their work hours beyond the confines of the workplace. Modern technology, particularly the cellphone and email, is one of the primary culprits in extending work hours beyond the workplace. While these modern-day inventions do increase work speed, they also remove the boundaries that confine work to the place of work. What this simply means is that the once office-tied employee who stopped working when the office closed is now available 24/7 and practically on call for anything that is even remotely connected with work.

And if the stresses at work continue to hound you, even your family dinners, vacations, and social gatherings are fraught with work woes. These stresses even encroach on your sleep and you begin to have insomnia worrying about your sales targets. And if you dream about your boss, why, that’s called a nightmare!

Dissatisfaction at work

What happens, then, if you are unhappy at work? Given that work occupies such a dominant space in your life, it is not inaccurate to say that an unsatisfying work life has tremendous impact on life satisfaction as well.

Courtesy of PDI

The following thoughts might help you achieve satisfaction at work and ultimately contribute to life satisfaction.

A question of fit

Work satisfaction is largely a function of fit. Do you fit in your organization? Do you share its values and norms, believe in its corporate causes, define your meaning according to a company vision and mission that you partake in? Do you take pride in being a part of what the company stands for? Is its culture your own?

Grateful for the privilege

Being happy at work is also about being grateful for the privilege of being able to do the work that you do. Are you happy for the chance to be doing something worthwhile even as you provide for your daily needs? Even if your job does not fully satisfy you, do you still find it better than being out in the streets? If you still find a redeeming value in your job, then gratefully give it your best shot while you still have it!

Theologian Charles Ringma says that the only things we truly own are the things we are grateful for. Are you grateful that you have the job that you have?

Co-workers as friends

People also determine your work satisfaction to a great extent. Are your co-workers your friends, too, with whom you can share your life even outside work? Is your boss one with whom you are a subordinate, mentee, and friend all at the same time? Can you laugh with your co-workers in the midst of grueling workload and in the lighter moments around the coffeemaker or pantry?

Defining meaning

In the end, you achieve work satisfaction when you are able to see how your work helps you achieve meaning and purpose beyond yourself. Work is satisfying when it helps you fulfill your longing to contribute something of worth and value. Work is satisfying when it allows you to be who you really are.

Work as a gift

If you see work as a gift, then you will value it and perform it in the best way you can while you still have it. If it is taken away from you because you are retrenched, retired, fired, physically disabled, or for whatever other reason, would you regret not having valued your work when you still had it?

May you achieve work satisfaction, and in the process increase your chances of achieving life satisfaction as well!

Deal with senior moments: Get organized

2011-06-08T00:24:00.000+08:00

First published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Oct. 21, 2007

Age is usually associated with decreasing memory sharpness. The so-called “senior moments” increase with age. The extra challenge comes when such senior moments begin to affect efficiency at work, irritate others, and generally result in reduced effectiveness.

We must all deal with senior moments sensitively because aging is part of the human condition, beyond our control, and probably not something we would willingly choose to have. Aging workers should also not be made to feel reduced and trivialized simply because an inevitable reality has set in.

How do we deal with senior moments (and those who have them) in our increasingly multi-generation workplaces? Let me share some insights.

Excuses for lousy work

Senior moments may not be really that problematic except that workers, young or old, use them as excuses for mediocre work. Some people use habitual forgetfulness to explain why they are unable to perform well.

The problem here is that when we consistently blame senior moments for poor performance, we are actually saying that we are powerless to change the situation. It's like saying that our bosses should therefore not demand more than what our aging bodies can offer.

What about those young workers with entitlements to senior forgetfulness? They can’t point to age as the culprit! Surgery and anaesthesia, perhaps? Too much drinking or smoking, gimmicking, or clicking on the mouse?

Stress as a cause

Could it be that our stressed-out lives bring on the senior moments earlier than they should appear? It doesn’t seem difficult to see. Many of us eat hamburger meals while driving. We pop stress and vitamin pills instead of lettuce, malunggay and bananas through chapped, dehydrated, soda-drenched lips. We fall ill when our calendars and diaries show white space and free days. We lead our lives on such a pace that we do bring on aging earlier than our grandmothers did. Instead of slowing down, though, we turn to anti-aging cream, age-defying shampoo, and visits to the gym, spa, and cosmetic surgeon.

No wonder it’s getting harder to remember things!

Debunking the myth

I suggest that we begin by debunking a myth: that senior moments are the exclusive property of older workers. It is true that senior moments increase with age, but they can affect a good number of young people who don’t seem “qualified” yet to experience them.

A work colleague recently complained to me that she was having more and more senior moments these days. I jokingly retorted that she had no right to say that, being in her early thirties. She said: “But the truth is that I do have them. Maybe age should not be the qualifier.” We had a good laugh.

Accept those moments

We should be able to accept that senior moments are natural, real, and probably here to stay. The worst thing is to deny that they exist, to apologize no end for them, and to wish that they will go away.

We should not allow the fact that we have senior moments to erode our self-confidence and worth, knowing that there is so much to us than our memory.

Plan to cope

I once had an underperforming staff who always blamed her work errors on three caesarian deliveries. It was tiring having to suffer the brunt of her ever-present senior moments.

The problem is not so much the senior moments per se, but the fact that some people do not have a game plan to help themselves out. Perhaps it is time to think up creative ways of remembering. Get into the habit of writing things down. I carry a notepad in my handbag at all times. If I can’t jot it down there, I use my cellphone. A friend of mine has notepads and bulletin boards in every place in his house: kitchen counter, night table, dining area, bathroom, even the garage!

If memory can’t be trusted, don’t force the issue. Protect yourself with memory aids.

Some have also taken to memory-enhancing drugs, diets and lifestyles that help retard memory loss. Lifelong learning is a proven age-retarding strategy and one that keeps the mind in a perpetual state of activity, enthusiasm and zest for the more of life.

Senior moment-friendly habits

I used to say, “I have three points to make.” I often ended up remembering only two. Now I merely say, “Let me point out something” and then extend to all of three points that only I know at the outset, that is, if I can get that far.

Courtesy of PDI

Another practice is to have a “witness” observe me in certain situations when senior moments most likely turn up. For example, when taking medication, I ask a “witness” to see that I am taking it, the kind of pill and the time. He/she can help “testify” that I indeed took the pill when I begin to doubt myself. There are also all kinds of pillboxes intended to help people manage medication-taking.

“A place for everything and everything in its place.” It takes an awful lot to remember where we have left our spectacles, ballpen or cellphone. It takes much less effort to remember that spectacles go on this shelf and not on another. This habit limits the boundaries of the search. We can also request officemates to observe where we put them down whenever they can.

Cause pleading

Older workers often diminish themselves by using senior moments to plead their cause for attention or care. In the process of seeking understanding of their aging status, they actually make themselves look funny or pitiful. They become icons of those once-productive workers who are now physically past their prime, rather than the rich storehouses of wisdom that they should be.

See the humor

Why can we not laugh at our senior moments, even at ourselves? I was once trying to open a powerpoint presentation while in front of a class. Suddenly I couldn’t remember what I was looking for in the My Documents folder. I looked up at all 20 people tensely staring at me and asked: “Where am I? Who am I?” We all laughed and no one really fussed, if they even realized I wasn’t kidding.

Use those moments

In the end, what we do need to apologize for is not that we have our senior moments, but that we have not dealt with them appropriately. We should apologize for not working around our senior moments so that they least disturb our usual level of performance. We should apologize for allowing them to ruin us.

Beyond accepting our senior moments, we should rejoice that we still have enough memory to be productive, useful and worthwhile DESPITE our senior moments…or perhaps even BECAUSE of them.

Fireflies

2011-05-31T12:15:00.000+08:00

First published in Patmos Magazine, 2005

One of the most beautiful scenes I have ever seen in my life is that on a Saturday afternoon in late spring in a park in Washington, D.C. It was a postcard scene, you know the stuff that shows a clearing in the woods, with a wooden picnic table surrounded by ageless tress. A wicker picnic basket sat atop the table, its red gingham checkered cloth lining the stuff of Hallmark cards. The only figures missing from the scene were those of a girl in a lace ruffled hat and with Shasta daisies in hand, and a young man caressing the green grass where they sat.

We were surrounded by one of nature’s greatest gifts, the kind whose leaves shielded you from the sun, but through whose branches you could catch a glimpse of sky.

I had gone with my friends on a picnic. There were the sounds of friendships that kept one sane amidst the loneliness of America. Those were moments I treasured, when I would do anything to give up a Saturday of laundry and Star Trek syndicated episodes for the joy of company. We feasted on food and laughter and I took in my dose of it, enough to tide me through my single residence in a rented sixth floor studio of a Virginia apartment complex.

Right after we had cleared the table and put away our trash, one of the trees suddenly lighted up, like a Christmas tree whose lights were ceremoniously lit to signal the start of the season. I was awed, standing there, gaping at the tiny yellowish lights that blinked endlessly in turns, changing position each time, moving just an inch or so in perfect syncopated harmony, as if to show every bit of the tree’s magnificent reach.

“Fireflies,” my friend said with glee. It would not have mattered to me if they were called something else. The effect of all those little blinking lights that changed position in a flash filled my soul with an indescribable joy, as though my world had suddenly been lit up by an army of little angels.

This went on for a few minutes, and with the dusk now descending rather quickly, the light from the fireflies continued to be etched against a gradually darkening sky until, when it was very dark, the trees themselves seemed to dance and frolic.

esterday, some 30 years or so later, I sat with my 11 year-old son in the terrace of my sister’s house, while my father inspected the inside to make sure it was ready for renting out. My sister had since left to make her home in Florida, leaving this beautiful property to be used by others whose stake was, at most, a temporary taste of a house that used to be someone else’s home.

The breeze was cool to the face, and I closed my eyes to relish this moment when my son could still sit unabashedly on my lap. The years will go by quickly I know, and I know that when he begins to be self-conscious enough to declare his independence from my closeness, I know that I would again feel the gnawing sadness of having been cheated of what I thought would be a forever thing. Just like his older brother growing up when I thought he never would. Just like time stealing the youth and strength of my days.

I knew this with certainty, for beside us stood a huge golden coconut tree. It was a tree my sister had asked me to plant before I left for my graduate fellowship in the States. She said the tree would remind her of how long I had been gone. That was some 30 years ago, and the tree was now standing tall and stately, both a joyful and painful reminder of how time flits by. Now I was a mother. I was no longer the teary-eyed, reluctant new graduate about to embark on a life-changing adventure alone, sans the comforting presence of my mother or the sturdy security of my father.

My son stood up with a jerk: “Ma, look! The tree is lighting up. Watch, just watch!”

“Fireflies,” I told him, with as much certainty as I was told in that Washington, D.C. park a long time ago.

The fireflies were nowhere as many as those I had seen. One firefly would flit here and reappear there, another would light up somewhere close by, and I was certain that it was not one and the same.

“Watch, Ma. They come and go. Oh, do please watch!”

I was tempted to tell him about the fireflies I had seen in the park then, how I had marveled at the trees lighting up from their glow. I was tempted to tell him how much more numerous were the fireflies I had seen, how much more majestic was the rhythm of light and non-light, how much more breathtaking, how much more…

I stopped. Was it right to tell my young one—or anyone for that matter—that mine was a lovelier scene, mine was more beautiful, mine was more majestic? Was it right to snatch the magic of the moment from someone simply because I thought it less magical than what I had experienced?

It was then that I thought of what it means to love. It is to put the other ahead. It is to see the world as my son saw it. No matter how tempted I was to share what might be something decidedly and comparatively more intense from my point of view, the revelation of beauty to my son came in a different form. For him, it was the single fireflies lighting up the world in isolation. For me, it was a whole army.

But it isn’t for anyone to say that a single firefly is inferior to an army of it. Beauty was revealed to my son with the same poignancy as it was revealed to me. Each of us is afforded a taste of beauty, beauty that could only be created by the Creator Himself.

I had no right to steal that beauty from anyone because each of us is gifted with a different view of it, from a different angle, under different circumstances. Touched as we are in strikingly different yet similar ways, my son’s exhilaration was as valid as mine, his encounter with the Creator of beauty just as meaningful to him as mine was to me.

If I were to truly love, then I would see the scene from his point of view. I would rejoice at the sight of a single firefly with the same joy as he encountered it. In my heart, I would continue to hold the secretly-cherished army of fireflies and count that as more significant, but I would also love the sight of the single firefly because my son loved it as all that he had experienced. Just as my army of fireflies is all of what I have experienced.

I had never thought that I could curb my reflexes this way. I had always been the one to help others make sense of what they had experienced. Help them clarify things, perhaps, but never, never to define the meanings for them. They would have to see these meanings themselves. From their point of view, not mine. With their kind of wonder, not mine. With their kind of foretaste of God’s glory, not mine.

“They’re so beautiful,” I gasped.

My son was pleased. He always had a problem keeping my focus and attention for long, especially when it had to do with waiting for something to show up. He would even accuse me of doubting him when he said he saw something.

This time, my son was pleased.

“Beautiful, ‘no, Ma? So beautiful!”

I hugged him as he sat on my lap, held him tight, and relished this one magic moment when he was 11 and wanted me to share the beauty of his fireflies.

Samric (2010)

Samric (1993)

Timely demise

2011-05-15T17:50:00.000+08:00

Note:
Ten years ago, on 11 May 2001, Mommy fell flat on their bedroom floor after walking a few steps from the bathroom. Thirty minutes later, she was gone. Ten years! That's a long time to be without a mother, especially on Mothers' Day.
I wish to share this piece which I did for her necrological service. My Kuya Ani and Ate Lil wrote their own pieces, too, and I can share them with you if you so request. Just post your request under "Comments" after this article, or email me at loreem@gmail.com, or send a private message/write on my wall on facebook.
..............................................................................................................

Pacita Ronquillo Cruz
May 28, 1924 - May 11, 2001

I am always amused to read obituaries announcing the “untimely demise” of so and so. How can death be anything but untimely? Every death is untimely. How can anyone say otherwise?

Until Mommy died last Friday. It was then that I realized that there is such a thing as a timely death. Dad said so, and I know Ma’s death is. For one, she had perfect timing. For the first time in probably a year, we were all home early. 10 o’clock in the evening is very early for our household. But on that Friday we were all there. She timed her death between my husband James’ return from Rome, and my brother’s leaving for the U.S.

She died in the arms of her faithful alalay Dorina, our long-time yaya Lydia, and our sons Nikos and JL. My dad watched her go from a ringside view. After a few “Hindi ako makahinga” repeatedly said, her head tilted a little, and then she became deathly silent, dead cold, and deadly white. No gasping for breath, no violent convulsions, no twisting of her face. Nothing. Just peace. Just a stealthy slipping away from our grasp, as though a mere finger had gently pushed her over from life to death.

What a grave departure from the physical pains of her life! Diabetes, high blood pressure, chronic urinary tract infection, cataract, a broken arm, excruciating pain in her legs. She cringed even at the slightest touch to her skin because she said it hurt even to be touched. Name it, she had it. I think the Lord thought she suffered so much pain in her lifetime that He should spare her more pain in her leaving. Her kidneys were fast going, and she was on the threshhold of dialysis, a dead end with no turning back. Downhill all the way.

She told my best friend and our family physician the day before she died that she was tired of it all. She told another friend that she was scared of the outpatient cataract surgery she would have had the following week because she had two friends who had died after that supposedly simple operation. She refused Dad’s two invitations to go out that Friday. She just wanted to sit there, look at her horribly swollen legs, stroke her painful breast. She desired rest, kapahingahan, ironically a subject I talked about in my pulpit message at our church three weeks before.

And yet she died in the thick of celebrations. She had several parties for different sets of friends planned on the week of May 28, her 77th birthday. She graciously bought tickets from our son JL whose group had a fund-raising project. She nagged me constantly about layouting my brother’s article in the Philippine Star where he applauded his inheritance of sipag learned from her, and linis in public service from Dad. She wanted them sent to her friends. She was preparing an envelope of letters for my sister in the States in time for my brother’s flight on Thursday. She was hell bent on a campaign to put me on a diet. Thank God she died before doing that!

What can be more timely than this time, to die in the midst of active engagement with the concerns of the living? What can be more selfless than going before causing her loved ones the pain of an extended and painful goodbye? What can be more timely than after having seen her children achieve the dreams she helped nurture? What can be more timely than having the strength to have her daily Bible discussions with my Dad, and the physical stamina to be constantly holding hands with him, pa swing-swing pa?

There is no better time.

Even as we grieve the suddenness and the shock, no, there can be no better time. Her death cannot be anything but timely.

I don’t know what it is I have done to merit the privilege of being her daughter. All know is that I will forever bask in the thought that I spent a total of 42 years living under the same roof with her, saw her through all her medical emergencies, listened—oftentimes not too patiently—to her complaints, laughed with her in her joys, and finally the privilege to stroke her hair and kiss her cold cheeks, all the while saying in my mind:

YOU HAVE BEEN ALL TO ME, MOTHER.

Walk and run and dance without pain in heaven.

We will be fine. We will be fine.

How working moms can celebrate Mothers' Day

2011-05-07T22:24:00.001+08:00

First published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, May 8, 2005

A friend of mine once told me this story about how she celebrated Mothers’ Day several years ago. She said her husband woke her up very early on that day and excitedly said: “Wake up, Mommy! It’s Mothers’ Day today. Get up so you can prepare a special breakfast to celebrate!”

When my friend later told me that she had left her husband, I understood why.

Not very many mothers have to go through the same pain as my friend did, but neither do many mothers feel special on their supposedly special day. Like all other kinds of moms, working moms are vulnerable to this not-so-special feeling. Perhaps because working moms work doubly hard to keep their souls intact while balancing work and family, they often have unexpressed expectations about being recognized for their efforts.

With all the commercial hype about Mothers’ day cards, gifts, and celebration gimmicks, do working moms really feel special on their once-a-year day? May I suggest some of the ways in which working moms can truly own their day and get all the refuelling they need to face another year of working and mothering joyfully.

Go with the wind

Many working moms often feel that they have exclusive rights to the creative genius. After all, they plan their children’s parties, shop for Christmas gifts, and have a bottomless basket of tricks for making every family member happy. They don’t think anything of using just a wee bit of company time to design a greeting card for a spouse or child, or of leaving the office a little early to drop by the mall in search of a birthday present. Their storehouse of innovative expressions of love is unmatched by no other.

That is why many a working mom is often frustrated about the less-than-perfect, lack-luster efforts of her family to make her day special. Measured against her standards, not too many spouses and children will be good enough.

I suggest that as working moms, you allow themselves the wonderful chance to relax—just this once. Ride with the flow. Go with the wind. Bask in the thought that performance standards back in the office do not apply here. The effort to please is enough, no matter how clumsy or ill-planned. Spouses and children want to show you their love in whatever way they know best. That alone is cause to celebrate!

Show them you’re pleased

Aside from being easy to please, let your family know how happy you are with their attempts to please you. Planning how to treat you like a queen on Mothers’ Day is often a great learning and bonding activity for your spouse, children, parents, and other members of your household. Without you giving the orders, children are especially enabled to dig into their own reserves and come up with creative ways of showing how deeply they appreciate you. They are able to practice the art of making others happy early on in their lives.

A tighter hug than usual and a special thank you at the end of the day will give your family a tremendous sense of accomplishment. They will then have the pleasure of knowing that they have made you happy on your special day. That they have achieved their objectives, so to speak, is a rewarding thought by itself.

Share your joy as a mother

Many working moms paint an image of being perpetually harassed, constantly unable to cope, burdened by the weight of making a living while raising a family. True. No arguments there.

But there are many more magic moments associated with mothering that no amount of working woes will ever eclipse. Mothers’ Day is also for showing your family that playing the role of mother has its own rewards. It’s not all pots and pans on one hand, and paperwork and deadlines on the other. In between is an endless stretch of memorable, feel-good experiences that only working moms are privileged to go through.

Children, especially very young girls, will look up to their working moms when they become working moms themselves. The images they will remember will include mental snapshots of their mothers as joyful servants or cranky nitpickers. The kind of working moms they eventually become will be close to the kind that their mothers are. In some cases, the image can be so detestable that they vow to be everything that their mothers are not. That is a cruel thought worthy to be dismissed.

Do something just for you

It is Mothers’ Day, and being a mother you’re entitled to celebrate it the way you want! Don’t feel guilty if you feel like sipping into a tall frapuccino or ordering a delivery meal because you slept way into dinnertime. If you’re cash-strapped, it’s all right to take a stroll by yourself or stare blankly at the television. Do away with feeling guilty that you left your small kids with your spouse. They have enough antivirus shots to survive even the worst babysitter. Besides, the babysitter is their father and not just some man who walked by from nowhere. Learn to trust. It’s the only way to give yourself permission to be free and wanton for a change, if only on your special day.

It’s a privilege, indeed!

However you want to celebrate Mothers’ Day, make sure you live it moment by moment, from one breath to the next. Savor the special something in the air. Say to yourself: “I am uniquely placed as a working mom, and I am grateful for the privilege.” Happy Mothers’ Day to all you wonderful working moms, myself included!

A Toast to Mothers in the Workplace

2011-05-02T22:51:00.003+08:00

First published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, May 11, 2008

This month we toast the millions of mothers everywhere who have lighted up our lives, our families and our homes by simply being who they are. They are the 24/7, 365 days-a-year workers whose job description is mostly about “tasks that may be assigned ALL THE TIME,” who don’t have vacation leaves, and who take sick leaves to care for sick family members but who work through their own illnesses. Although they have no compensation, they feel rewarded enough with a child’s hug or a husband’s compliment on a good meal. There is no vocabulary to describe them accurately, but the word “mother” fondly conjures up everything that we know they are.

While we honor our mothers in a special way during Mothers’ Day, we do so in the context of the home. We hardly recognize what our workers who are also mothers contribute to “lighting up” our places of work. The mothering that mothers do in the workplace has equal value.

So, on Mothers’ Day, let me highlight what our mother-workers bring to the workplace and how their mothering continues to add color and vibrancy to our work lives.

Multiple roles

Mothers who work do not cease to be mothers at work. They continue to play the role of counselor, comforter, confidante, advisor, cheerleader, and shock absorber to their co-workers the way they do for family members at home. They are usually called upon to calm emotions, provide order and stability, soothe pains, encourage passions, fuel dreams. They provide the shoulder to cry on in the ladies’ room and the rah-rah when someone has good news.

Mothers are good leaders because they know how to be in command and good followers because they know when to step back.

In both the home and the workplace, mothers perform their multiple roles with grace, often concealing the wheels of activity constantly going on in their heads.

Multi-tasking

Long before the term “multi-tasking” was even invented, mothers were already doing it. And it doesn’t go out of vogue because it has remained so since the world began. With just two hands like everyone else, mothers can cook while packing lunchboxes while feeding the baby while doing the laundry while telling the husband where his socks are. If these moms are also working moms, they do all of these while getting dressed themselves.

Mothers have several sets of eyes, most of them located in the side and back of their head because they have to keep tab of what everyone is doing at any one time, particularly toddlers, new yayas, and eggs frying on the stove. Above all, they must see what’s happening to the household in absentia while at work or on a business trip. At this point, they go wireless or telepathic.

This capability spills over to workplaces where mothers multi-task their way through the day. They can sit through a board meeting with alertness while wondering if their son did well on a job interview. They can run to the bookstore during lunch hour to get cartolina for a school project and then complete a report due by the end of the day. They can even instruct the kasambahay how to cook pochero for dinner and tutor a child on the cellphone immediately before talking to a subordinate about a performance appraisal.

Known to be excellent multi-taskers, mother-workers usually get loaded with multiple work assignments which their bosses know they can deliver on.

Information experts

Mothers are experts when it comes to knowing where to get what at the cheapest prices. School supplies for kids translate to office supplies, and the best rellenong bangus to order for a special family dinner is also good for the office party. Put a mom in charge of the office pantry and she’ll stock up the cabinets with the usual napkins, coffee creamer and peanuts but will also remember the cake cutter, patis and toothpicks. She’ll even throw in a stack of cloth cleaners and extra sponges.

Carry-over skills

Mothering skills such as nursing, budgeting, marketing and planning are easily carried over to the workplace. Most mothers instinctively know how to nurse a co-worker who suddenly runs a fever or dress a wound from a bad cut. Their keen eye for detail makes them excellent planners and managers. They are great at orchestrating schedules of family members, bosses, and their own. After all, at home mothers make sure they don’t run out of gasul or paracetamol in the middle of the night, so why should they be any less efficient in the workplace?

Defined by motherhood

Mothers will always be mothers whether they are at home or at work. Motherhood becomes so deeply entrenched in a woman’s being that it would be difficult to extract the role from her and still keep her whole. Motherhood is often her self-definition.

The nurturing and life-giving nature of motherhood cannot be confined to the home. Motherhood is far too deep and encompassing that it spills over to everything mothers touch.

Cheers to all the mothers in the workplace! Thank you for seasoning our work lives with the tender loving care as only the mothers who light up our homes can. Happy Mothers’ Day to us all!

Cultivate friendships in your workplace

2011-04-26T22:31:00.001+08:00

First published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, May 2009

Our workplace is usually just what Webster defines it to be: a place where we work. The conversations we carry on in our workplace are usually about work and work-related subjects; the people we work with we call co-workers. Our workplace is just a place where we make a living, practice our profession or exercise our skills. Very rarely is a workplace described as a place for friendships. Even more rarely are co-workers automatically called friends.

Friendly workplaces

And yet, the truth is that friendly workplaces inspire high achievement and job satisfaction because there we work with people who have also become our friends. Working with friends is certainly more engaging than working with strangers or even enemies. With friends we can share the joy of working together. We can face work stresses better when the burden is shared by friends. Our joys are more intense when savored with friends. When relationships with co-workers cease to be dictated solely by the organizational chart, they become healthy avenues for sharing lives, both in the workplace and outside it.

How do we cause work relationships to mutate into friendships? A recent Palawan vacation with some officemates has given me some insights to share.

Seeing beyond what we know

Experience often teaches us to predict our co-workers’ behaviors through past events. We thus know that one person will cry when scolded by the boss, another will usually be absent after a performance appraisal, and still another will take on work and later complain that he/she has too much to do. We can predict temper tantrums and anticipate mood swings. We even claim that we can read some of our officemates like a book.

This seems understandable in the workplace setting. But what about that side of our co-workers that is not connected with work? The people we work with are not just workers. They are, first and foremost, human beings with lives outside work. They have needs, problems, feelings, soft sides and tender moments. They share the same need for fulfillment, self-esteem and recognition, for fun, laughter and leisure. They need space to be themselves, sans their positions, resumés or titles.

There is value in appreciating our officemates in bathing suits rather than blazers, frolicking on the beach rather than arguing a point in a meeting. Seeing how our co-workers deal with a delayed flight or meal, a challenging mountain trek, or plans that miscarry can give a wealth of insight about their nature that no work assignment can reveal.

A different look

On a vacation, picnic, outing or gig, we can appreciate our officemates in ways not possible at work. In light moments when we relax with them, we see them with new eyes. We begin to understand that despite our differences at work, there are still countless possibilities for establishing commonalities as friends.

Very often we dismiss the idea of workplace friendships because we are unwilling to see our co-workers differently. We unnecessarily barricade ourselves from any possibility of non-work relationships. Eventually we refuse to cross the friendship barrier and keep our broken work relationships where they are. We thus lose out on many meaningful friendships that could have flourished if we only allowed them to take root.

Where to start

There are several ways to bring about shared experiences outside the workplace. The annual office outing is a good venue for shared relaxation. For a few hours or days, people get to experience each other in unguarded moments just being themselves. Roles, positions and titles often disappear to give way to candid heckling and jostling based on equality and not on power or authority.

Weekend or after-hours movie-going, malling, picnicking and other such activities are also good opportunities to build friendships especially amidst stressful workloads. Occasional lunch or dinner breaks together provide friendly openings.

In the workplace, the coffee nook or pantry is a good place to start. Short exchanges about news tidbits, jokes, books and movies can progress into sharing of feelings, private events and personal lives. Many friendships are born over a cup of coffee.

Take a joint vacation

Of course, nothing beats a shared vacation. The experience of forgetting work for a few days and just having fun with co-workers is invaluable. Vacationing with officemates on an extended bonding trip is best. Planning the event increases excitement before the actual vacation. And after the trip? Hours of talking about the experience, exchanging and viewing photos, and reliving the fun and humor provide insight from what the vacation has revealed about each one.

When we return to our workplace, it is as though we carry a “secret” we have shared. And rightly so because we have discovered a different angle, a different dimension, a different facet of the person we used to know mainly from a work perspective.

Healthy friendships

Cultivating friendships in the workplace is never out of date. Friendly relationships are good and healthy prescriptions for workplace harmony. As long as friendships are not built to advance selfish interests such as getting special favors or promotions, they should be allowed to grow and deepen. People, after all, are not machines. We need to build and nurture relationships that keep us human, alive and nourished. Friends will always be welcome, in the workplace, at home, and in any other place where we live out our time.

Discover your co-workers this summer! I have gained valuable insights about my officemates James, Robee, Ron, Vivian and Ria who recently explored Palawan with me. Like me, you just might be pleasantly surprised that there are friends lurking under the stern work façade who, like you, would love to make your workplace a place where friends work and play together.

Retrenchment is Working Man's Good Friday

2011-04-19T01:06:00.005+08:00

First published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, March 23, 2005

Retrenchment is like a little death, and so it can be said that people who are retrenched “die a little.” Loss of control over one’s life shatters composure, and the grieving process is often characterized by a roller coaster ride of intense emotions which tug at the person every which way.

But although those who are retrenched all suffer the same loss of something familiar, life-giving, and often thought to be forever, they differ in their capacity to resurrect from the ashes. Some, as in the miracle of Easter morning, emerge victorious over their broken situation and face life more confident in their ability to weather the odds. Others never get to the point of resurrection, and wallow in the mire of their own making for a long, long time.

Seeing the Other Side

Those who are best able to get through the hump of fear, uncertainty, and grief are those who see the other side of what hit them. Those who are able to come to terms with the realities of their situation and view the blessing behind what may seem like a curse get on with their transition faster and less painfully. It is these same people who declare with certainty: “This period of career transition is the most enriching time of my life!”

As in death, there is a resurrection to look forward. Retrenched employees who can acknowledge the shakeup and yet affirm that there is indeed an Easter morning do indeed resurrect!

The Choice

The good fortune of having been retrenched by a caring company may seem to guarantee satisfaction. In truth, however, it does not. There are many sad stories to be heard of people walking away with fat retrenchment packages and at the same time harboring thoughts of burning down the office building! To them, the whole experience of job loss is a bad trip, a nightmare from which one awakens in a clammy sweat.

Comparing themselves with others, they imagine their lot to be so much worse than everyone else’s. They fail to see that others less privileged than they, with less money and preparation, view them with envy.

The choice to see the good is a choice that is consciously and thoughtfully made. People choose to be happy or sad as an act of will. The retrenched have to make this choice. They can be grateful or ungrateful, disgruntled or at peace. And when this choice is made, it then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: only good comes their way, or only bad. The choice is also a prophecy.

What’s good in being retrenched?

There are several possible answers, depending on how retrenched employees choose to view their lot. Let me name a few of the most common ones.

Answer #1: Who am I?

“This is the time to consider seriously what I would like to do for the rest of my life.” For these employees, resurrection is in the luxury of pausing, taking stock, touching base with what they truly value and consider important. “Who am I—really?” is a precious question that people are often afraid to ask. Breaking the routine of years of working, it takes guts and verve to say, “Stop! Let me step back and look at my life from a different angle!” Not too many have the courage to take such a step, but retrenchment forces the issue. That is, if people choose to see it this way.

Answser #2: Dreaming anew

“I’ve given the best years of my life pursuing a star. Now that I’ve reached it, I’ve found that it isn’t worth keeping.” Resurrection is deliverance from the bondage of pursuit for its own sake. Many years are spent chasing after a dream, a promotion, a title. When it is reached, then life becomes dull and boring again, without a center and a focus. Retrenchment can bring back a new spark of achievement, this time more real because one understands what is really worth going after.

Answer #3: Achieving balance

“I’ve acknowledged the imbalance in my life and look forward to fixing it.” Infants, toddlers, and screaming pre-teeners will not wait until the working parent is done with what he/she has to do. Retrenchment forces people to see the horror in not being there for the kids at a time when they still want their parents around. Too often, many learn too late that childhood is over, and that their children have grown up whether or not they were looking. Resurrection is in the realization that things have to unfold in their proper season. Many retrenched people redefine their season to be now.

Answer #4: Freedom to be

“I have the freedom to do things I couldn’t do before.” Resurrection is in having the freedom to move in time and space unfettered by boundaries. This kind of freedom does not mean aimless wandering. It simply means that the daily grind of a harried life is put on hold for a while, long enough for those who have been let go to make sense of what the spinning is all about. When they break free of a schedule that suffocates, then there is more rhyme and reason in how time is spent.

Answer # 5: Instant money

“I would never have saved this kind of money!” For those who are fortunate, resurrection comes in the form of financial breathing space to support the search for a next career. For the even fewer, more fortunate ones, there is enough to pay off loans and mortgages, almost like a jubilee year when debts are paid and written off.

The Hope of Easter

The lesson of the Resurrection is that retrenchment cannot be anywhere near what real death is. Although retrenchment may seem larger and darker than anything else that has been experienced before, it still remains a dot in a timeline. And when it comes to pass, people then realize it wasn’t worth all the tears, angst, and depression accorded it.

If the Easter miracle can resurrect a whole humankind from despondency to the hope of an eternity, how small your retrenchment woes appear in comparison! Resurrection may seem like a dim possibility at the present time, but if He resurrected to show you and me that death has lost its sting, surely He can show you the way forward! You only need to trust that deliverance is on ts way.

Winning paradigms for new graduates about to work

2011-04-12T22:05:00.003+08:00

First published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, March 20, 2005

Graduation is a marker event, a rite of passage, a crossover ritual. For some it marks the end of allowances and curfews, of the certainty of having been provided for by able parents. For others, it marks the end of working shifts to afford tuition, of putting life on hold while waiting for delayed funds from the province, of worrying whether one will continue to have the wherewithals to enroll one semester more.

For all graduates, graduation is a transition to adulthood where the world of work looms ever so large and forbidding, waiting to be conquered and subdued.

Ambiguities

There is a dizzying excitement getting to wear one of those black togas in the heat of mid-afternoon. But there is also an equally frenzied anxiety about what to do next. As in any closing chapter of life, graduation is a time for both nostalgia and fear.

Many graduates take a roller coaster ride that seems forever, at least until they land a first job or start a business. One moment the world is friendly and there for the taking; the next moment it is daunting and formidable.

Be assured, dear graduate, that you are not losing your mind! These ambiguities are part of any transition. All graduates before you have felt the same discomfort. These disconcerting thoughts merely affirm that you have a shared heritage.

Statistics

It is useful to know the country’s unemployment rate, but there is not much use meditating on it. People find jobs every single day despite the grim statistics! It is all right to be aware that the job market is depressed, but to conclude that you will therefore not find a job—or worse, not even try looking—is going quite too far. Such logic does not serve any good purpose except to rob you of the passion to take life at face value, even when it seems difficult to do so. Will this information prevent you from looking for a job anyway? Is it ever an option to stay put and not even try?

The process, not just the end

I have learned, through years of counseling people through their careers and transitions, that those who survive job loss with mind and soul intact are usually immune to downturns. Not that they necessarily find jobs quickly, but that they know how to see each day as part of a larger mosaic which, at the present time, they are not yet privileged to see. It is the excitement of looking forward to the day when they can see the whole picture that keeps them going through the process of piecing the parts together.

“Do not ask what’s the story, you will miss the mystery,” goes one song. Too many graduates miss out on the vital lessons to be learned during career search because they are fixated on the ending. The process, long-drawn, tedious, nerve-racking as it may be, is still equally exciting, fun, and life-changing. Don’t forget that in some distant future, you will look back to this stage in your life and find pleasure in recalling the disaster of your first application form, the near-heart attack of a first interview, the gruesome sight of long lines of applicants. And oh, what tears were shed because you may have flunked a test!

Pressures from several sides

New graduates are usually bombarded by pressures often coming from the very people who are expected to uphold them during these times of testing.

Parental pressure is real for many graduates. This may come in blatant forms (“When will you find a job?” or “What, no job yet?”) to more subtle but equally hurtful forms (“We could use some help with the groceries” or “I thought we [your parents] have graduated, but…”)

Peer pressure can also be devastating, especially when less brilliant ones overtake those voted most likely to succeed and land a job faster than everyone else. The temptation to ask “What’s wrong with me?” seems like an attractive self-downer.

Above all, there is self-imposed pressure. Allowing yourself to be sucked further and further down in a spiral of negative imaginings is sure to ruin whatever resolve you have left. Whose shadow are you running away from, anyway?

No matter how strong the pressures are, never allow yourself to grab anything just because you have to land a job quickly. You may find out soon enough that you will quit it almost as soon as you start. Sure, you want a job, but you also don’t want to stay for just a day. You’re looking for one where you will fit and which fits you. As in the Cinderella story, you simply can’t force yourself into a mold that isn’t for you.

Keeping sane

When you feel pressures mounting, stop awhile! Be still. Gain composure by focusing on your gains, not your losses. You’ve been called for an interview. There is indeed an opening in your target company. The HR person seemed impressed with you. You’re satisfied with the resume you’ve just finished.

Try to see this as a moment in time and not much more. This is not forever. This, too, shall pass. You have come this far!

Remember when you thought you would never make it to graduation day? But you did! There’s no reason to doubt you can make it again through this one. Tomorrow is another day.

Don’t lose touch

At whatever stage during your job search, never lose touch with yourself. There are many reasons why things don’t seem to be working out. Many graduates blame external circumstances for their job-hunting woes. The interviewer had a bias for graduates of exclusive schools. My parents ridiculed me again. My mediocre classmate who got hired knew someone big in the company. The jeepney ride was bumpy.

Take a long hard look at yourself. Why would a potential employer want to hire you anyway? Have you honed your skills to be able to contribute meaningfully? Have you brushed up on your language skills or upgraded your computer know-how? Are you continuing to develop yourself? Are you marketing yourself as that one person who can contribute to the company rather than one who simply needs a job?

On the other hand, what do you really want to do? That may seem like a hard question to ask of one who has just left school to join the workforce. But you have to try and list what it is that actually excites you before you can excite others about you. No interviewer will be impressed if you don’t know what you enjoy doing, what you are good at, what you value, what you dream of and aspire for.

Remember that the job market is competitive. Simply put, you must have skills and traits that will make people choose you over another candidate. You will not be judged as a stand-alone but as a participant against a backdrop of countless others. You must therefore shine and glitter.

More importantly, you must find a fit between you and the organization, its corporate values, its culture, its very nature. Remember that when you join a company, you become one of “them.” Will you be proud of this new identity?

See the fun in it all

Life after graduation can be a lot of fun to explore, that is, if you choose to have it that way. It may be a bumpy ride ahead, but a grouchy attitude, temper tantrums, and a generally defeated outlook will only add to the load.

Savor your joyride! You will only look for a first career once.

Of Graduations, Surrender and Easter

2011-04-02T08:08:00.001+08:00

This is the season of graduations, and I’m sure many of you have a graduate in your clan somehow.

Last year, our youngest son, Samric, then all of 5 feet 9 inches, 140 pounds, and 16 years, marched in a white toga to mark the end of his high school years. His brother JL graduated five years earlier from this same school, and was back in his alma mater with his camera, proudly photographing his brother and his classmates as they basked in “their moment.”

As an excited mother among many other doting mothers in the audience, I thought of graduations: my sons', my own, my friends’, my clients’. I mused on how much life is very much like a graduation. We mark endings and embrace beginnings, we close a chapter and open the next, we roller coaster in a constant see-saw between good times and bad, between high moments and biting the dust, between hoping and despairing. And yet we are still here, breathing, alive, surviving graduations and transitions like good ol' veterans.

At some point I thought of how walking our children up the graduation stage is a scene that replays itself over and over in our lifetime. A good friend, Vio, also walked his daughter Iya in her graduation from nursery. He will do this again for her elementary, high school, and college graduations. One day, he will likely bring her to the altar at her wedding.

Each time we walk our children up the stage or down the aisle, we ceremoniously perform a ritual of offering, of surrender, of going forward to lay our “gift” at the stage or the offering altar and saying, “Thank you for protecting them through this ending chapter. We continue to entrust them to you in the next one.” Of course, one day we will all be brought to the altar as a final rite of our graduation to eternity.

There must be a reason why graduations happen during the time of Lent and Easter. Both are about trust and faith and surrender. Both are about moving on. In Gethsemane, Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” But after this brief moment of abandonment, when He said, “Not my will but yours be done,” He actually “graduated” from doubt to unity with His Father’s will. “Into thy hands I commend my spirit,” are the ultimate words of total surrender, marking His graduation to peace. This is the peace that comes from knowing that He was doing the Father’s will and that He had surrendered all to the Father's safekeeping.

When, as part of our Lenten reflections, we are able to graduate from our self-obsession, from our indulgence in debilitating doubts and fears, from our refusal to forgive and refusal to love, we also graduate into the hope of Easter. For what is Easter but the ultimate proof of the Father’s unconditional love that saved a sinful humanity from eternal damnation, that even while we sin, He continues to love us and even found it worthwhile to die for us.

Graduations cannot come at a better time than the season of Easter. May we all graduate to the peace that comes with surrendering all our graduations to Him, the author of all of life’s graduations!

Watch me build, or better still, build along with me . . .

2011-02-15T10:35:00.001+08:00

I just got here, and believe me, getting this page done is already such a big achievement for me! From nothing to something, from nowhere to somewhere, even though I still am very much a blog dummy. Just wait and watch.

But then again, how about giving me a much-needed boost and visiting my blog often? Let me know what you think, how you feel, what happens to you as you face this screen. And, for me, the thrill of getting comments from readers--what that must be like!

Anyway, the two videos featuring our singing group, Kalesa, were posted by my friend Bernie on YouTube. It must have been super challenging for him to have so few photos to work with. (Please remember that these songs are from 1976-8 when cameras were not yet everybody's thing. It's even a miracle that the sound recording, then done on cassette tapes, is of such good quality and has been preserved through all these years.)

I was teaching Freshman English then and taking my Masters in Literature at George Washington University, Washington, D.C. I left the U.S. in 1978, but all the other Kalesa members stayed on and continued singing somehow. (I'll tell you all about that part of my life sometime soon.)

As you watch the video, try and spot me (should be easy--there are only two of us girls). Okay, okay, I must have been at least 50 pounds lighter (no smirks or jeers, please).

Have fun!

Welcome to my little space!

2011-02-10T15:44:00.000+08:00

Hello reader!

   I hope you will be amused, refreshed, encouraged, delighted, and enlightened by what you find here. At the same time, I hope you will find some things here that pique and prick your sensibilities, and--as a result of the ensuing dissonance--help you to regard the world a bit differently from how you saw it when you began reading.
   If you emerge a bit more disturbed by the poverty around you, or if you become a bit more appreciative of whatever it is you have, or if you resolve to be a bit more engaged with your world, then this blog has earned its right to be here.
   Come journey with me! Cheers to life!