Thursday, February 28, 2013

FRIENDSHIP IN THE FAMILY

As I wrote this, it has been three consecutive nights already that I have been following, in the ABS-CBN nightly newscast, a featured story of the unfortunate fate of the wife and mother named Marilou Jorge, whose lifeless body had been discovered in the trunk of her own car. I am sure I am only one among the many who became interested to find out what lies beneath the probable lies.

As part of my humanity, I have also formed my own opinion on the matter. But I am wont as yet to nail it since we are not made for judging others. However, it is of my opinion that maybe there was a lack or absence of honest friendships in the house (house, because dreadful things can never occur in a Home). Honest friendships constitute honesty, acceptance, and respect. The failure of observance of these in a family will spill over outside of it. This is the reason why every family member must consider seriously his or her own duties and responsibilities as part of and being in it.

Part of the video clips from people who personally know Marilou Jorge attested to her being a good and religious person, being even a member of a religious organization. Well taken. Most often though, the problem is when what we see externally seems to be taken seriously blown out of proportion.

In one of the lines of a TV soap, I heard: "Lahat tayo ay may sekreto." ["Each of us has secrets"] The thing is we are not exactly in any position to comment perfectly about others because we are not with them 24/7. That is one thing. The other is we do not know what is going on inside every mind. Regardless of age, people keep secrets for many various reasons unique to each one. When Marilou discovered the love letters belonging to his son in his room, all hell probably broke loose (her relentless scolding to her son, as told by her daughter in her affidavit proved that).

Freedom is a most cherished possession one could ever have. When it is taken away from us, we are prone to go berserk, desperate or lonely because, just like Love, Freedom is greatly misunderstood and thus, abused. Sanglit masamok an tagsa-tagsa naton nga kalibutan. [That's why our own worlds are so chaotic.] There is nothing that cannot be solved in honest communications. But most would rather not talk things over, again for many various reasons. But reasons, however numerous they may be, are but alibis. The truth to the matter is simple: many of us do not exactly know what and how to convey matters important to save what is important to us and our freedom. We are so consumed by fear. It is fear that lead people to wrongfully decide and do things the wrong way. Ug danay sa aton la liwat nabalik an epekto san mali naton nga desisyon.

For all the wrongdoings of the youth, please pardon me for saying this, but we, parents/elders, are most often to be blamed. So much is expected of us because, una sa ngatanan: nahimugso sira sini nga kalibutan pinaagi san aton desisyon nga mahimo sira; ug tungod kay kita an kag-anak, kinahanglanon gud kaupay nga mas may buot kit kaysa sa ira. [...first of all, they came into this world through our decision to make them; and because we are the parents, there is a need for us to possess a high level maturity.] We cannot be less than what is expected of us. Our children, in fact, have all the rights to expect from us. Unless, of course, their expectations are beyond our set limits which importantly must be based on our realities as a family which is unique from other families. Dida naman liwat dapat i-impuner naton an sinisiring nga disiplina. Kaparte dapat, tikang sa tinikangan, nga klaro sa aton mga anak nga kon mayda sira expectations sa aton, mayda man kit nga mga kag-anak, in turn, expectations sa ira. [With that, we should also impose discipline. From the start, it is important to make it clear to our children that if they have expectations from us, we as parents also have expectations from them.] But for all of these, it must be clearly also emphasized to the children that we are no different from them. That we also have human frailties, like they do. This is where assurance, on a case to case basis, must be stressed to enable our children to grow in security and maturity eventually. This should be highly given priority as "expectation is the root of all heartaches."

It is my hope and prayer that the Marilou Jorge story does not end up in actually the father sending a wrong message to his own children. We all have the obligation to give justice where justice is due because "Justice is the Divine correction for injustice.(A COURSE IN MIRACLES)" That is, if we really believe that we have a Supreme Being up there.

Pleasant greetings everyone!