First Sunday of 2011

We were on our way to Town today, unaware that something worse than Sunday-afternoon-back-to-school traffic could possibly happen. As we were driving along STAR Tollway, my dad received a call from one of his sisters saying there was an accident involving three cars along the long bridge at STAR. It wasn’t the first time that we’ve heard of vehicular accidents happening at this tollway, so we carried on our trip. Five minutes into entering STAR, there was a long traffic line that was obviously caused by the accident we just heard. So we waited, and after a while we passed by the scene. It didn’t look severe; the windshield of the bus was shattered but it seemed like the passengers were all okay. Although wrecked, the car behind the bus seemed fine too. But what caused goosebumps to me, tears to my mom, and silence to my sister was what we saw when we turned our attention to the other side of the road.

Four or five people lay dead on the concrete, drenched in their own blood with only a piece of cardboard to protect them from their painful death and us from this sore sight. Just a few meters away from them was the jeepney that carried these poor men and women. Just like them, the jeepney was crushed and had nothing to cover it from shame but two more bodies, dead and burnt. The scene looked so fresh and depressing. No one in our family was prepared to see something so horrific on the first Sunday of the year. Nothing could have prepared us to see something like this that we were left to silence and prayers to those poor souls.
And for the rest of that trip, we were silent. We prayed for those people whom we did not know and prayed for whoever they have left behind. It made me think how it was like to be in an accident. Is it true that in that moment of life and death, everything comes back to you in a flash? Is there a light that opens up to you or closes? But what about the people you left behind? How would they feel when someone calls them and tells them you’re dead? Just when you’re still on that New Year high, you get a message informing you of your sibling’s death, how’s that like? Just thinking about it makes me shiver, what more if I were in those people’s shoes.

In my prayer, I prayed for hope. Hope for those who were left behind by the seven poor souls, hope for everyone else who saw that painful picture, and hope for myself and my family. One lesson I learned from the past year was the importance of never losing hope in anything or anyone. I’ve been mentioning how 2010 has been such a bad year, but what kept me pushing and thriving was that hope that there’s always next year. Hope is that same thing that keeps our Kythe kids and their parents alive; the hope that for reasons unknown, they can live longer and feel like a kid for a few more days or months. It’s that same hope that kept my little sister optimistic for the coming of her most awaited Christmas gift, and it was hope that gave her her toy. And it’s that same hope I pray that everyone can have for this year. That accident may not be the greatest thing to see on the second day of the year, but I guess, in some way or another, we were meant to see that to rattle us, to boggle our minds, and to push our hearts to later on understand that there is that bitterness that’s just lurking around, waiting for the right time to bite, and today our family was bitten. It sounds like a personal fable thing (or my effort to make this sound dramatic), but maybe, I had to see that kind of death to make me stronger, to wake up whatever is left sleeping inside of me, and to give me that kind of painful push to get up and get ready for this year. But then again, maybe it just happened that we were on our way to Town and coincidentally passed by STAR almost at the same time that the accident happened. I don’t know, but I’ll be dramatic and stick to my former thought.

If you wish to read more on this accident, click here.

On a lighter and happier note, I bought new kicks today! I was actually being nice and decided to use my Christmas money *sad cry* to buy my shoes. I don’t think I’ve purchased something this much with my own money.

Green Authentics! :)

And oh, have I mentioned that today was my first day of my 3-month pescetarian diet? It was a success!