Paper Bags

I thought I will never wake up to the day when everything I ever had will be lost in a fire outbreak, and when I do, I will never be able to find reasons to smile again. But I did wake up to that, I awoke to the day when all my things were reduced into four paper bags of different sizes which were filled with charities in the form of clothing and toiletries. My heart was further broken into a billion more pieces and I expected to vanish into thin air. That didn't happen, though, because I was provided with so many reasons to smile in spite of that predicament.

This is not the first tragedy I faced that shook the wits out of me, but this one in particular made me feel ultimately empty... I WAS EMPTIED! What is the equivalence of loss? What can it mean when you lose? Is it to make you realize life's vitalities? Is it to make you become a better person? Or both? Whatever it is and what it has made me is to become a completely different person. I look at life differently now. Different from the textbook definition of different. 

My close friend Lanie, who was there with me the entire time, kept asking what I wanted to do next. I extremely felt like it was the most difficult question I had to answer during that one most painful time in my life. This life-changing turning point awoke me to a lot of harsh realities and a lot of good ones too. 

Gracy approached to ask me if I had given it a full thought already. She said it could be because, probably, I should already learn to let go, truly let go. It is always easier for a person who is not within the confines of loss to reckon letting go as if it is the easiest thing to do. However, I am not saying that Gracy isn't right. What I mean is, when one is in a state of loss, one has to connote what values one has to allow to be stripped off from, which is what makes it uneasy to accept. I keep telling everyone who cared to listen, that the things I lost in that fire were mostly not of monetary value but they were greatly sentimental to me. I know I could replace them, but their sentimental value will never be the same again.

I grieve the most for my manuscripts because writing is my first love. I have been writing since my childhood. Losing my poetry and literature felt like I explicitly allowed a dozen people to shoot and stab me over and over again, without caring to find out why I deserved it in the first place. Until this time, I am still numb and in denial. I still feel like being in a trance or a deep sleep. How can you move on from something you got so used to? How can you live again when your life just ended? The irony of it all!

"God will restore everything..." Abet said. I know I have a bigger God. It was actually in this moment when His presence was really shown to me. He was vividly manifested in all of my great friends and team mates from work. I was physically shaken but not spiritually I daresay! I feel good and I feel bad at the same time. In this mixed emotion I wonder where I will be after all. If I was traumatized by the fire, I couldn't quite put my finger on it yet. First of all, I wasn't there when it happened, which was a good and a bad thing too. Good because I wasn't hurt and bad because I would've been able to save something had I been there, or perhaps, stopped the fire from bringing the entire house down. 

These were possibilities I wasn't allocated on that fated and hated day. When I went home to see the ruins of the house where I rented a room, I was caught speechless and breathless. It was on April 01, 2011 when it happened. Somehow, I wish I was just a victim of April fool's day, unfortunately I wasn't. That one hell day confronted me with a lot of faces the truths my life had hiding.

The truth that your immediate family, the one nearest you, the one you look up to, can set you aside just like that, as if to lose everything in the fire was a regular experience and nothing to fret about. Where the cost of care was too expensive to show.

The truth that true friends will never abandon you in a time of need.

The truth that charity can spring from the hearts of even the most unexpected people.

The truth that life on Earth is indeed temporary.

The truth that I should first learn to really love and forgive myself before I can do the same for others, because  God is a loving and forgiving God.

I am still in the midst of it, suspended somewhere uncertain, either on a harness up in the air or in an island in the middle of the ocean. My real life feels like it is put on hold and will restart in a few months or so. I am in between desperation and exasperation to begin my life anew. I am much too excited for it! To start over will take me another lifetime of patience and contentment.

One day it will be okay. 

i WILL RECLAIM MOST IF NOT ALL THAT I HAVE LOST IN THE FIRE...

i  WILL WRITE BETTER STORIES INSPIRED BY THAT PHENOMENA...

i WILL LOOK BACK TO THAT DAY AND RECALL BOTH MY VICTORY AND DEFEAT THAT GREAT EXPERIENCE SERVED ME...

 i WILL REMEMBER THE PEOPLE WHO MULTIPLIED JUST TO BE THERE FOR ME, ESPECIALLY IN THEIR SILENT CARE AND PRAYER...

i WILL RISE AGAIN FROM THESE ASHES...MAYBE SOONER OR MAYBE LATER...BUT THE POINT IS...i WILL!

 After the fire, what I learned in all this is, THE MOMENT YOU REALLY START TO LOVE is THE SAME MOMENT YOU REALLY START TO LIVE...

(written: 042411)


© Theren Alexander 2011