Faith and flight

I remember how, when I was a kid, I knew I was going to be rich. Whenever my parents worried about bills, or talked about their needs and dreams, I found comfort in the knowledge that I would, somehow and someday, be rich and provide for them. It wasn’t something to believe in. It was knowledge, true and tangible. It couldn’t be anything else but a child’s faith.

Years passed, and what to some people would pass for maturity or tough wisdom has been clouding my child’s faith, settling like sheets of dust on the old notion. I remember one night three years ago, when I told myself that becoming rich couldn’t possibly be that easy. I couldn’t simply rely on and find comfort in the knowledge that I would, somehow and someday, be rich and provide for myself and my family. Things change, and the dawning image of an adult’s reality declares faith, notions and stubborn beliefs as unreliable.

I was a sophomore in a known science high school when puberty and hormones introduced grim reality to me. I was struggling with my academics, and I was also in emotional turmoil. Much of my time in high school was spent questioning my faith and beliefs from when I was a child, and finding ways to shore up my steadily worsening grades.

It was also in that year when I was first in danger of being removed from the high school (and having my scholarship terminated). My grades were precariously low, and I had to take the removal exam with three other guys (two of them close friends). During the nervous minutes before the exam, we joked about how we would share answers through our calculators or hand signals. We were actually closely tempted to do so, but didn’t. The only thing shared during that long exam hour was nerves.

One weekend, while I was home in Tuguegarao, I received a text message from my adviser, and it punched the wind out of me. Just when I thought things couldn’t possibly get worse, news came that I didn’t pass the exam. My parents, my family, were shocked. They had lavished such high hopes on me, and I knew they were disappointed. After 12 years spent under my family’s constant watch, where I wasn’t even allowed to play with the other kids in the neighborhood, or fly kites in the field with my cousins, or ride a bike with no training wheels, I guess I let loose during my first two years in high school, my first two years free from supervision. New things had become available to me, new words to try, new sights to see, new friends to meet, new avenues to explore. There were all kinds of concepts and of reasoning, new facets of reality introduced by a growing maturity and awareness. Too bad I discovered how this reality and maturity could be so grim and inconsistent, how these could change and prove how wrong a child can be. I even discovered how to fail.

The Monday after that eye-opening, heart-wrenching weekend, I was set to leave, along with the other three people who took the exam. But we learned that we had been given another chance, that we could spend another year to right the wrongs we’d committed. Perhaps things weren’t as grim as I thought they’d be. Perhaps there were still good, steady things to hold on to.

But my third and last year in the science high school wasn’t any better. I flunked my subjects, and made the most out of whatever freedom I had. But I struggled, so hard. My grades got so bad, and I got as far as fearing my teachers so badly that I ran from them after classes if I had requirements for their subjects that were due. A huge chunk of that year was spent finding my innocence in this dark version of reality being torn away from my eyes. And I discovered how painful and scarring it can be.

I remember those nights in the dormitory or in the showers when I pondered how bad things had gotten. And even then, it was a stark relief from my agony in class. I spent most class hours staring at the clock, as though willing time on. And after class and during breaks, I shut myself away from my fears; I kidded around with my friends, laughing the time away. I was aware that those moments were precious little escapes, short moments to find something to hold on to when everything I believed in was rapidly crumbling. Only wisps of my child’s faith were left, wheezing, nearing oblivion.

It was another cold, dark night in the dormitory when I remembered when, as a child, I and my friends would be asked what superpower we would want if we were superheroes. I wondered why a lot of us answered  flight, when there were so many others that were undeniably better. I mean, what about superstrength, telekinesis and telepathy, superspeed, time travel, invincibility, invisibility, teleportation? What made flight so special? Why was it such a crowd favorite?

Days before graduation, Batch 2013 (which came before us) had a batch launch. There I was with another friend, tardy and sitting on a set of steps close to the outdoor amphitheater where the launch was being held. We were watching, fascinated, as birds circled overhead, gliding and flapping their beautiful wings. Flying.

We were awed. I told my friend how it was such a sight to behold, and I told him of that memory from when I was a child, when my friends and classmates said they wanted to fly! How foolish it had seemed back then, but at that moment, there was nothing more majestic than the concept of flight. And at 14, a long way from being a child, I wanted to fly.

I looked at the stage where Batch 2013 was being introduced. “Do you think we’re going to stand there next year?” I asked my companion. I don’t remember what he said; it was the near-hopelessness marking the statement that I can’t forget.

At yearend I was eliminated and my scholarship terminated, along with my companion during the 2013 batch launch and two of the other guys who took the removal exam the previous year (only one was spared). Our friends gave us farewell notes, last words, bittersweet goodbyes. But I was more relieved than hurt.

It’s been more than a year since then, and I can’t say that my last year of high school, spent back home, has been a severe improvement. But it’s a long way from my first three struggling years. I’ve won a couple of contests, rediscovered old beliefs, and reconstituted my faith. It has taken a lot of hard work, reading, inspiration, and prayer, but I’m getting close to more answers and more revelations.

Now I know what makes flight so special. Any man can walk and swim, and conquer land and water. But no man can conquer the air; no man has enjoyed the freedom of flight, of having no boundaries, free from the clutches of human limits and fears. Flight stands for everything a man can’t be, and everything a man dreams of. Beyond whatever grim reality that life and maturity may introduce, if you can fly, you can dream, you can be free to believe, even to know, and to have faith.

Few can appreciate the value of being a kid and being free to do more than just believing. I’m a long way from regaining my child’s faith, but I’m getting there. In this grim, inconsistent world, it’s not such a bad thing to not just believe in your dreams, but also to know that it is reality, and it’s not that far off.

Know that sometimes, being like a kid is the closest we can get to true fulfillment—to fly and to have faith.

Matthew Tungpalan, 16, won second place in editorial writing (English, secondary level) during the National Schools Press Conference 2014, and graduated Editorial Writer of the Year in high school. He is an incoming student of public administration and legal management.