“A MAN driving through a town deep in the country stops his car and calls to a farmer sitting on a bench in front of the General Store.
“Can you help me? I’m completely lost.”
The farmer called, “Well, do you know where you are?”
“Yes, I saw the name on the sign as I drove into town.”
“All right, do you know where you’re going?”
The driver named the town he was trying to find.
The farmer shrugged. “Shoot, you ain’t lost; you just need some directions.”
The next time you find someone who is lost, help them find their Point A and Point B, then nudge them in the direction of what is truly important.” – Joan Bang’s email on Thursday, Sept. 22
Allow me to share about Jose C., who knew his life’s purpose was to love and to love some more. He was a 98-year-old patriarch when he died in his sleep.
We drove to Mexico to attend his wake and cremation. It might seem strange to regard these events as inspiring, yet I am most certain it was how the family pulled together which made the difference.
They focused more on who Jose C. was: a man full of love, who devoted his life to his family and lavished them with his loving and kind presence, a family which grew to include his grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Like the ‘old man’ the family stayed present to one another and to about 40 who came to mourn with them.
His grandson told me that Jose C. wanted a simple ceremony. The wake lasted one evening and the next day, a procession of 12 cars accompanied the hearse to the cremation site.
His body was encased in a gray casket, inside a beautiful funeral home, whose backyard carried the sounds of water from a manmade waterfall with a shared open courtyard common to six halls. Next to his casket was a spay of two dozen red roses and two well-placed large wreaths.
It conveyed both privacy and togetherness in the courtyard, symbolic of how the family handled their grief privately yet, relied on their family’s circle of trust and love.
Folks could see other mourners as they came in and that too was comforting.
Inside the hall, a Swiss-American meticulously gave each person a hug. He made an effort to reach out and to convey his personal condolences.
Folks then formed a trust circle, hands on one shoulder onto to the next shoulder, with heads bowed in prayers, in front of the casket.
“A prayer is a spiritual offering,” I heard one say.
Last summer, Jose C. and his five daughters drove for two weeks along the coast of Baja, Mexico.
Months earlier, he watched his two great grandchildren as they played together, that one senses his “gimlet-eyed vigor for life,” or a deeper wisdom about life.
His faith anchored him and would remind his daughter, Nancy: “Do not worry, God’s providence will come.”
He loved fountains. He installed one in his Ensenada house and another at his daughter’s house in Los Angeles, symbolic perhaps of his overflowing capacity to love his family.
He worked mostly with his hands and learned late in life to cook so he could take care of his wife, who died 30 years earlier.
His memory card touched us: ”When a loved one is going, it becomes a memory and that memory becomes in turn a treasure. His love leaves an indelible mark in our memories.” (Cuando un ser querido se nos va, se convierte en un recuerdo y ese recuerdo se convierte a su vez en un Tesoro. Su amor déjà una huella imborrable en nuestra memoria.)
Teshuvah: Coming back to being God’s beloved
There is a saying in Judaism, a form of mindfulness, a fundamental Jewish idea of turning or returning, called Teshuvah. On holy days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, that theme means, “we come back to our attention, our own sense of being worthy or being beloved or in God’s presence. Coming back to attention is meditation practice,” according to Rabbi Sheila Peltz Weinberg’s interview with Garrison Institute in 2008.
Try sitting still for a moment. Look outside to nature. Be amongst the sounds of waterfalls you hear, whether in an urban city or in the mountains. Exhale out your worries and breathe in the presence of God. Do it several times and then a gratitude prayer.
Reflect on our blessings, on what God’s favor has been in our lives as it is quite evident in our history.
In America, after close to eight years, in 2016, we are now in much better shape than before. In Los Angeles alone, at least a dozen construction projects are progressing within a radius of 15 miles. Construction workers are busy and are able to feed their families. Stores are busy with shoppers. Restaurants and movie houses are teeming with customers. Lines are longer and cashiers are busy. Gas prices are at $2.49 a gallon.
Contrast that to 2009-2011, when banks did not extend small business, housing and construction loans. The banks ended up with $6 trillion cash reserves, former President Bill Clinton said. The banks drew funds from the Federal Reserve, at interest rates of close to nothing.
Jobs losses were right and left. 7,500,000 Americans had lost their jobs in 2013, with a growing increase in foreclosure of homes. Gas prices inched up to almost $4 a gallon. Restaurants and movie houses were empty, as nearby bakeries. Car wash businesses suffered from the lack of customers. Streets felt like ghost towns in the evenings. Folks stayed home mostly and travel for leisure stopped. Fear set in.
Amidst gloom, folks hoped
Folks changed their behaviors. Shared communal tables were set up in restaurants. Shared cab rides using Uber apps were resorted to. Uber was officially founded in 2009 and the app was launched in 2011, and by year’s end, its funding has grown to $44.5 million.
By mid-2016, America had a surge in revenues from national parks, federal deficits went down by 2/3.
90 percent of Americans are now insured. With the Affordable Health Care Act, new businesses were started to provide levels of care to these newly insured sectors.
Gay marriages, once forbidden, are now happening. Couples in California no longer feel the threat of being gay, unlike before when their identities caused employers to fire them, consequently, they lost their health care coverages and their homes.
Now we know that banks’ greed for superprofits and their push to give housing loans based on stated incomes (not verifiable) transformed the mortgage loan industry into gambling scams, wherein banks made money if consumers defaulted on their loans and banks still made money on interest earned from those who kept paying down their mortgage balances.
The crisis led to deeper reflections on what caused this freefall. It got folks questioning on what creates and brings value to our economy. It helped Americans examine their consumption habits and how they can promote recycling, reuse and repurposing of commodities into new functions and uses.
New cars came out with greater fuel efficiency and alternative sources of power, no longer limited to gasoline, but inclusive of ethanol and electricity.
It is now customary to find recycling bins divided into recyclable foil, plastic, and trash in many large institutions, hotels and sports arenas. The consciousness to take care of Mother Earth is broadened.
We are now being called to task to be conscious that we are linked together and our actions become our common humanity, and where in the future, we come back as God’s beloved!
Much like 17,000 people from 60 countries donated $384,000 in 12 days to retire Fidencio Sanchez, an 89-year-old Mexican popsicle vendor in Little Village, Illinois who sold popsicles for 23 years; on Sept. 21, he got that check from GoFundMe, started by Joel Cervantes Macias.
Or 6-year-old Alex of New York who wrote to Pres. Obama about Omran Daqneesh, a Syrian boy rescued from the rubble in Aleppo last month. Alex said he wanted Omran to come live with him and his family.
“Since he won’t bring toys, I will share my bike and I will teach him how to ride it. I will teach him addition and subtraction. My little sister and I will be collecting butterflies and fireflies for him. We can all play together. We will give him a family and he will be our brother,” the letter said.
At 6 years old, Alex is not lost, he knows his direction clearly, that of claiming Omran as God’s beloved, as much as he is! Do you sense his gimlet-eyed vigor for life as well, much like Jose C’s?
But what about us? Are we lost or do we simply need directions?
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Prosy Abarquez-Delacruz, J.D. writes a weekly column for Asian Journal, called “Rhizomes.” She has been writing for AJ Press for 9 years now. She contributes to Balikbayan Magazine. Her training and experiences are in science, food technology, law and community volunteerism for 4 decades. She holds a B.S. degree from the University of the Philippines, a law degree from Whittier College School of Law in California and a certificate on 21st Century Leadership from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. She has been a participant in NVM Writing Workshops taught by Prof. Peter Bacho for 4 years and Prof. Russell Leong. She has travelled to France, Holland, Belgium, Japan, Mexico and 22 national parks in the US, in pursuit of her love for arts.