Nanay Flor's Journey into The Depths

 Nanay Flor’s Journey into the Depths

The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’ (Luke 4:3-4)

February 4, World Cancer Day was celebrated yesterday  by a gathering of doctors from India, Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Canada and the Philippines at St. Dominic Medical Center in Bacoor Cavite. The international gathering of doctors gave due importance to a new technology for the early detection of cancer which will now be available through the abovementioned medical center.

I invited Nanay Flor to attend the inauguration of the new clinic using a non-invasive method for the early detection of cancer. More importantly, I invited Nanay Flor to be with me for the Philippine launch of the book, “Buhay Ka, Struggles in Mortality, Glimpses of Eternity.” Nanay Flor epitomizes the spirit of the book. She has struggled as a mother to care for three children who got sick with cancer and died one by one. Armyn and Nene were like her working as domestic helpers in Hong Kong. Armyn developed breast cancer in 2007 and died in 2008. A year later, in 2009  Nene developed cervical cancer and dies the following year. Nanay Flor shortly after Nene’s death goes home for good. A few months after she comes home, her eldest son Arnold develops liver cancer and died in late December last year. Shortly after Arnold’s death, Nanay Flor who began accumulating water in her lungs receives the unpleasant news that she has lung cancer.

I have witnessed parts of Nanay Flor’s struggles as she quietly and faithfully journeyed with her sick children from diagnosis to treatment and finally through the final days and moments of their lives. Now, I accompany her on a different and more personal journey as she now struggles as a survivor fighting cancer cells in her own body.

When I saw Nanay Flor last Saturday she was happy but in a rather subdued way. I embraced her as I often did to her children and the many who suffer from cancer. Now, Nanay Flor herself suffers from the very disease that weakened and eventually killed her children. The more I journey with those struggling with cancer, the less I speak. I quietly try to connect with that which is deepest in them. I am not a doctor or an alternative medicine practitioner who can prescribe some anti-cancer cure. More and more I have continually rediscovered my poverty, helplessness and emptiness. And this is what I now offer to those who suffer from life-threatening diseases.

In the depths of my silence, I find the inexhaustible richness of God’s mysterious presence in the poverty of my soul. As I journey with those whose lives are the “story of less,” less money, less healthy, less safe, less happy, less certain about tomorrow, I discover the ironic dynamic of a life made richer because of its emptiness. God looks at our emptiness and simply slips into it. If we are full, content, comfortable we are likely to be also indifferent and even oblivious of God’s real and intimate presence around and within our lives.

Nanay Flor experiences a most radical poverty after having lost three children to cancer. Now she is also struggling with cancer. The gnawing pain of loss and emptiness after losing her three children is deep and only she alone knows what this means. I am now a silent witness to how she draws strength, light and comfort from God who now resides in the depths of her emptiness. God bless you Nanay Flor. We love you Nanay Flor.