Grip of Faith by Kim Jacent Española

 (This is the 10th entry to Holding On: Essay Writing Contest on the COVID-19 Pandemic.)

Silence further tethered our scare not to trail where we once knew were safe but now have become a threat to life; and the deeper I heaved a sigh for the thought of what awaits us amid the pandemic, the weaker was my grip for the faith I have within myself—life is hard to live, so is living for life.

Later that day of March 2020, classes were finally suspended in my university as the last school to amend class suspension, and I admit I am one of those who celebrated, neither have I anticipated lockdown nor quarantine. Life was even harder dealing with, from executing finances to being anxious about being twenty years old to be legal in passing checkpoints to access goods and medicine. At a young age, I stood as parent to my sisters since my mother took risk working abroad, and my father is no foundation as feeble bamboos he made for our shelter, he, too, left when he could no longer take parenting responsibilities.

News aired about people gasping for air, dying in the arms of none but of rough lanes fed my Facebook wall as an alarum how treacherous this new variant of virus be. People panicked and bought groceries that could feed them for months, hoarded face masks for their own greed to outlive—a pre-apocalyptic mise-en-scène that left me uneasy because if this was a movie that came to life, my sisters and I barely could have survived. Perhaps, I thought, living is hard, and it is what people will exert effort to die for.

I feared of having nothing to eat due to scarcity, so that was when we only ate twice a day to save food; I feared one of us would be infected, and that was when I got to strictly prohibit my sisters to leave the house; but what I feared most was the idea that my mother was overseas working her heart out as a domestic helper, anxious about her health since cases were rampant in the country. Yet, in spite of everything, I still was able to rant and harangue how lousy my father was for leaving me the responsibility that was for him, and for my mother who had chosen to work than staying with us. I could no longer think right for some time because I was in rage of having an empty hand, but there was nothing I could do, I was too young. If we were to die, better off be dead due to the virus than die because of starvation. That would be a shame, I thought.

Bored, I sneaked in my Facebook wall and scrolled wherever my newsfeed took a halt; seconds later I realized I was reading a post from a common friend of his thought about the street children and the aged, where shelter was no safe for refuge, and face masks that cost akin to the food they barely could purchase to eat for a day; they relied solely on people they could beg for coins but now had no one to ask for since suspicion and distrusts were stereotyped on them. It left a pang on my chest, realized I was beyond grateful—I had a shelter for refuge, and the generosity of the people in our neighborhood had helped us survived. I gaped outside our window, breathed in massive amount of clean air to appreciate that I was still living in comfort. Perhaps, like what my mother have said, in order to appreciate greater things is to appreciate the value of smaller things first.

Silence tethers our scare not to trail where we once have thought were safe, akin to ashes we once burned in ebb from our past—a bait that kept us caged because of our intentions to live but forget what living is about; I thought keeping track of the reasons why we suffer was what would make us go through life, but keeping track of the reasons in order to live is enough reason to hold on, a strong grip of faith I have within myself to be alive.

Please heart react! Click here! Kim Jacent Española

Source: SulatSOX