Children is Hope (reminisce)
I met Decem in Parola Sasa Wharf, Davao City Philippines around six years ago. She was a bubbly playful girl always in the company of her friends. Looking back I can clearly remember her in her school uniform giggling and playfully running to me to say hello. She had a smiling and sparkling eyes. Last December, a week after her 20th birthday, she died, but, the sparkle in those eyes left a long time before that.
The news of her death made me look back to a brief time with her those months, years ago. Rather new in the social work agency I was working with, I felt so out of place and uncomfortable. Moreover, I was besieged with grief and hopelessness with the vast poverty I can now see face to face. I talk with, eat with and laugh with families who live in utmost poverty amidst the abundance of the city. It daunted me to realize that just a few meters behind the commercial and industrial offices of the city are communities with hundreds or thousands of families living in places that, before then, I can only see and read about in newspapers.
I often see Decem and her friends go home from the nearby public school and as I mentioned she always playfully run to me to say hello, while taking my hand and touching it to her forehead*. Those sparkling eyes of hers always gave me comfort. It brings forth calmness and bliss and amidst the awful surroundings, -- a bright ray of HOPE.
As I got busy with my work, I see less and less of Decem, but I always hear about her and her friends through Jid, our Youth Coordinator. I haven’t seen her for a few years and I was surprised the next time I saw her, she looks sooo grown up! Well, kids do grow up fast, but there was something different in her and her friends… their smile looked different. I was a little worried and so I asked Jid, and he was saying he was worried about them too, because they might be working the usual work in that area, they just might be work as entertainers for the seafarers having a short stop in the city’s international port.
So when I saw her again the next day, I made sure to invite her for some snacks and get to talk with her. She obliged and felt so happy to have a free meal, she looked hungry so I ordered more food for her. It was then that I learned she ran away from home and was not going to school anymore. So I asked what her plans were and she said, “actually, I don’t know ate. Can you help me plan?” I answered her with another question, “what do you want to be a few years from now?” She stopped to think for awhile and said, “you think I have to go back and go back to school, huh?” “Well, if you do finish school it will give you more choices and wider opportunities than if you don’t”, I answered. She didn’t say anything and after a few minutes she looked at me and giggled, and I saw again that childish sparkle in her eyes and I don’t know if it was just my imagination, but the sparkle was brief and less bright.
Next thing I know, she eloped with her neighbor. I didn’t see her again for like months. The next time I did, she was pregnant, -- at 15. I greeted her she nodded slowly and warily tried to smile. I gave her a warm hug and asked how she is, and she said ok. The smile was bigger now and starting to get comfortable. But one thing I noticed right away, the sparkle in her eyes was not there anymore.
I haven’t seen much of her after that but, I ask about her all the time from our staff working in their community. I heard she had a miscarriage, then got pregnant again the same time her mother was pregnant too. They both gave birth and she got pregnant again and again and again. Her husband was a petty thief before, tried to work, was out of work and was often drunk, left her, came back to get her pregnant left her again and came back. When I saw her two years ago she was far from the little girl I knew. She was too mature for her age. But who wouldn’t be, after all she had gone through.
She was 20 with four kids when died of heart attack. Our nurse said it was due to potassium deficiency, our social workers say it was coupled with heartaches and heartbreaks, too.
But despite and in spite of all these things she went through after getting married at 15, we witnessed how she had rise up to be a beautiful person as she guided the youngsters in their community by telling her story and convincing them how not to be like her and also inspiring them to continue their education because, in her own words, “that can give you more choices and opportunities than I ever had.” And in those rare times that I see her when I visit their place, we don’t talk much because she usually was either taking care of her children and her sisters or was busy teaching and assisting the children on their neighborhood as a volunteer Child Development Worker for the Community Based Playgroup.
Looking back to those last few times I saw her before she died, I don’t remember seeing the sparkle in her eyes again, but I do remember seeing them shine when she teach the children… telling me without words that with these children, including her own, she can see a flicker of hope.
Youth leader, Mother
Child Development Worker
December 1987 - Dcember 2007
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