Life lesson

I was sitting on a chair, with a little girl combing my hair and other kids talking of things I don’t care about. I was thinking: When is this thing going to end? I still had a class to attend, more important than this community service.

We were in an orphanage in Quiapo, Manila. Our theology professor had required us to perform community service in an orphanage where we would socialize with and teach children, in order to observe and defend our chosen topic for our mini thesis.

I remember it very well: our second to the last visit. It was raining quizzes in our major subjects, but we could not cancel our community service. We decided it would be a day to play with the kids, so we brought stuff we had bought in Divisoria—storybooks, coloring books.

I was seated on one side. A little girl came to me and smiled; she told me my hair was beautiful, and asked if she could comb it. I smiled back and nodded, and she proceeded to brush my hair. Then a little guy approached and asked for help in his reading. I told him to sit beside me and guided him as he read—slowly.

He was maybe six or seven years old, and small for his age. I was towering over him, enough to note the scar on the back of his head as he struggled to read. I wanted to ask him how he got it, but didn’t have the nerve.

Out of nowhere I asked him where his parents were. He looked at me, smiled, and said his mother died a year ago. And your father? I said.

He closed the book, looked intently at me, and said, still smiling, that his father was in jail and that a relative had brought him to the orphanage. He told me about a sibling, where the family lived, what they did before…

And then he said their parents were abusive, and often hurt him and his sibling, particularly their father when drunk. But he loved him anyway, he said: “Kahit ganoon si Tatay, mahal ko pa rin siya.”

I was amused, touched, by what he said. I knew he was sincere, that his words came from his heart, that he was looking forward to his father’s release from jail so he could stay with him again.

I thought: How golden is his heart compared to mine? My childhood was never marked by abuse, I never felt unloved, yet I find it so difficult to forgive the delivery boy for being late or the maid for leaving a burn mark on my favorite dress. Even when they had asked for forgiveness, I was still pissed.

Funny how a girl who had been studying in a Catholic school all her life was learning about forgiveness from a kid who could barely read. This little guy who didn’t know what the world would offer him—if he would finish school, get a job, or even have food to eat—taught me the value of forgiveness and the value of giving importance even to little things.

This little guy taught me that life is not as bad as I think it is. Yes, it is tough, it is a bumpier road than I thought, but then it is a side of the coin that I want to look at—the sadness, the loneliness. But I have a choice to flip that coin and look at the brighter side—to appreciate, to love, to live a happy life.

Mary Keit Anne G. Santos, 22, is a law freshman at San Beda College.