He kisses his daughter’s forehead as he looks at a distance,
waiting for someone, a handful of petals clasped in one hand, his arms
supporting the length of his three year-old daughter as it straddles his thin
frame, a tattoo of barbed thorns peering just beneath his sleeve. His grayish eyes which are framed by thick eyelashes
betray his steely resolve that seems to battle an air of quiet despair. His name is Angelito.
His daughter has a pair of blue flowers clipped to her hair,
certainly not to part her sparse hair which barely covers her scalp, but as a defiant
touch of love from parents who are prone to primping their children so that they look their best. Something about the baby will surely catch
anyone’s attention; her head is shaped like a heart and it is twice as large as
her torso. Angelito’s baby has
hydrocephalus.
Angelito tenses his body, he spots what he was waiting for –
the image of San Pedro Calungsod which is making the rounds of Lipa City
churches, it stops today at the Chapel of Saint Benedict, in Pinagtungulan. Angelito rearranged his baby in his arms, as
the convoy neared the church, making sure that his arm would be free to welcome
San Pedro Calungsod with the petals that he was waiting to cast in air, along
with the prayer that his humble supplication will be looked upon kindly.
A relative is helping the baby with her hospital
needs. Though after three operations, it
is obvious that she needs more and better care. Angelito
admits that he can’t do much else, he is physically and emotionally tied up with taking care of his baby, and a wife who was once an OFW but has since been
relegated to a wheelchair by a stroke.
She wanted to come too, but Angelito can only bring one.
He admits that he is finding it difficult to make ends meet: milk for the baby, medicines for the wife and the daily sustenance to keep his small family
strong enough to keep going. Because he
has his hands full, he no longer has time to clamber up coconut trees to take
down fruits which he could sell, or find manual jobs in construction
sites. “Hindi ko po maiwan ang aking
mag-ina,” he says matter-of-factly, without a hint of seeking sympathy. When asked what he needed, he simply smiled, “Wala
naman po.”
Angelito is not looking for help for himself. He came to seek a miracle for his baby.
I believe in miracles, and I believe that every tap of the
keyboard as I write this is one letter nearer to one. I believe that we are the miracle waiting to
happen. I believe that my chance
encounter with him and his baby is the first step in that direction. I’m doing this simply because I believe. In miracles.
In the innate goodness of man. In
the power of selfless love.
If you’d like to partake of this miracle, these are Angelito’s
and his wife’s contact numbers: 0946-7200966 and 0916-6157797.
You may also share this post so that it may reach other kind
hearts who can create miracles for the child in prayer, in kind, or in medical
expertise.
I shouldn’t have met Angelito and his child that fateful
August 11, 2013 morning if not for a divine plan. We were supposed to attend the regular Sunday
8AM mass at the Fernando Air Base Chapel.
But for some reason, there was no mass scheduled that day. We decided to celebrate mass somewhere
else. I was about to turn left after I
exited the base’s gate to where Lipa poblacion and its famed churches such as Carmel,
Redemptorist and the Cathedral was, but at the last minute decided to turn right, with my
sight on St. Benedict church, a good 4 to 5 kilometers away. When we arrived, the 7AM mass had just
concluded and people were already piling out of the premises. A tarpaulin sign caught my wife’s attention –
San Pedro Calungsod’s image will be brought to the church at 8:30AM. It is while waiting for the image that I encountered Angelito and his baby.
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