Lots and lots of rain

BENCHWARMER
Ramon S. Dacawi

(Johann D. Dacawi, son of Ramon Dacawi writes this week’s column. Johann is now based with his family in Italy—ed)

I’ve seen them, Brad and Angelina and Madonna with their kids. They are always on the news, be it on TV or print. Every time they go out the door the paparazzi feast on them relentlessly. The reporters are not like the vultures. They seem to be more like zombies on speed, hungry to feed on these stars and their children.

Two days ago my wife Lovelyn frantically prepared dinner for our guests and we met them that night for the first time. Lovelyn told me that she met a Baguio-born lady in the web who had been reading her blog. She married a half-Italian half-Austrian gentleman and they settled in Austria for good. This lovely couple had a problem though. . . . they couldn’t have a child. So they adopted Christopher John.

Just months after Christopher was born, he was brought in to a hospital in Tarlac. Most probably the boy was sick. His biological parents wanted him to get well and wanted something more than that. I bet it tore them to pieces. They prayed to God to protect their boy as they left Christopher there in the hospital in the care of nurses and doctors.

The authorities published in the paper and announced on the radio that a boy was left in the hospital. No one went back for Baby Christopher. So they transferred him to an orphanage in Pampanga and placed him up for adoption.

Our dinner guests went through all sorts of trouble. Paid a fortune just to be labeled as “good normal people,” eligible to be parents. It was a terrible experience, they told us. Christopher was four when he became their son. He was aloof, scared, traumatized and cried always over things normal children would not cry about.

The cars frightened him, alongside with everything in the city or the outside world for that matter. He was afraid of people and even children of his age. He held on to his new parents’ arms and legs like glue.

When they ate, the boy would devour everything and would always put food in his pocket, like it would be the last meal of his life. And then he got over it all. The first time they brought Christopher to the beach, the boy said, “Wow, ang dami-daming ulan!”

I try to picture Christopher’s face, his first time with the ocean and I think he saw our Lord or felt Him that moment. Then I took a good look at Christopher when we sat down for dinner. He complimented me politely for his plate of pasta which he finished with a smile. Seeing no trace from his past, with a smile warm and bright as the sun, I saw one of the happiest boys in the world.

The family went back to the “Reception and Study Center for Children,” Christopher’s former home, some time ago. It was a good facility but in desperate need of serious funding. Mostly good hearted “volunteers” run the center and they also act as parents for the children. Ten children in every small house in the facility need a papa and mama.

Christopher brought the lots and lots of rain he saw for the first time to his former mother at the orphanage. She was happy for her boy. Christopher also met his best friend at the orphanage and his friend was very sick. No one has adopted him yet. So Christopher asked his parents for a brother. Their answer was a painful. . . . “only if we could”.

I wonder how could this little boy, same age as our son Lukie now, could have brought the lots and lots of rain he saw for the first time here in our home and in our hearts, too.

As the dinner and conversation drew on, Christopher, Lukie and Dylan played happily together. I thought back on the Brangelinas and Madonna and their children. They went through what our guests had gone through -- and I was wrong.