A laundrywoman’s sense of gratitude

BENCHWARMER

Ramon Dacawi 

While I’m no stranger to Samaritans’ reaching out to the needy, the eyes still well each time I remember Elena Solis’  selfless gesture four Christmases past. Not because the then 47-year old laundrywoman came to express her family’s gratitude to people out there who had helped save her then 21-year old daughter’s life.

It was because she went beyond expressing her gratitude. She showed it by passing on the kindness of strangers who had come to her daughter’s rescue.  

“Okay na po si Manellaine; negative nayong laboratory tests n’ya,” she said of her daughter’s medical condition that yuletide.

As many a mother in distress would, Elena began pleading for directions to any donor’s door in June, 2008. That month, she badly needed P4,000, the cost of Manellaine’s next quarterly chemotherapy. The eldest of her three daughters, Manellaine was diagnosed in 2005 for lupus nephritis, an inflammation of the kidneys caused by a disease of the immune system.

People she never knew or met before responded. A man who declined to be identified traced Elena  to a church compound along Bokawkan Rd. where she was washing a pile of laundry. He handed her an amount. A government office secretary called, for Elena to drop by to pick up P4,000 her boss told her to hand over to the laundrywoman.  Others followed suit, enabling Manellaine to complete her chemo sessions.

For quite sometime, there was no word from Elena, until she appeared at Christmastime.She explained she needed to wait for Manuel, her 40-year old husband to come home with his Christmas bonus before coming to deliver the news of Manellaine’s medical deliverance.  She said her husband, a former security guard, had shifted work, to hauling  construction materials for a hardware store.

“Nais ko pong ibigay n’yo ‘to sa ibang nangangailangan,” Elena said, handing out two yellowish P500 bills.  That stunned. The amount would have gone a long way to settling her family’s monthly house rental. I reined in the urge to hand back the amount to her, then asked how much Manuel got as year-end bonus.  “Six thousand po,” she said, then reiterated her family’s wish to be of help.

So be it, I muttered. Anyway, it was yuletide and one couldn’t just refuse a Christmas wish.  In lieu of a receipt, I handed her 10 tiny tickets pegged at P100 each. They  were  for “Shoe On The Other Foot”, a folk concert in memory of  the late classic country singer Mike Santos.  “Sige po, para makapanood din po kami,” Elena said, her face brightening up, as if relieved of a load.

Elena learned Mike had shared his talent for years, belting out Hank Williams in concerts for indigent patients. Late in September, 2009, Mike  suddenly  kicked the bucket, He left  behind Juliet, his wife half his age, and Mika, their 16-year old daughter who was then in second year high.

The laundrywoman spoke of her two other daughters: Ana Minera, then 19, who was back in  school, a freshman in physical therapy at the Pines City Educational Center, and Mikki (16), who  was in senior high.

“Dahil sa tulong ni Ma’am Diane,” she added, referring to a neighbor who was helping  them go to school.  Before Elena came for help, I had had the honor of meeting or hearing of other people in her gentle mold. Among them were Lorie Ramos and Noney Padilla-Marzan, two cancer patients who brushed aside their own affliction to reach out to other patients. Two women of courage and substance who became friends until death.

Still, the laundrywoman’s selflessness and sensitivity hit. My elbow almost jerked, for the forearm to swipe the eyes that filled. It’s true - those who have less in life often give more.  Elena provided me a new perspective to the expression about the shoe being on the other foot. She gave substance to a note from Richard Paul Evans, author of the “Christmas Box” trilogy: “The greatest acts are done without plaque, audience or ceremony.” 

I recalled a message from former world traditional karate champion Julian Chees. Now based in Germany, he would now and then reach out to the sick back home through remittances from Shoshin Kinderhilfe, a small foundation he and his karate students German established.

From his native village in Maligcong, Bontoc, Mt. Province, Julian texted me that year, oblivious to the fact that it was in the middle of the night. One patient his Kinderhilfe Foundation supported in her battle against cancer had just been buried, he said. 

We lose some, we win some, I texted back, not really knowing how to respond. It’s a stock reply, like when Joel Aliping, Conrad Marzan and other expat folksingers in Northern California mounted a concert for a mother and daughter here who were both afflicted with the big. C. They later learned Juliet Oakes was too weak to stand by the window to watch the casket of her daughter, 20-year old Dorcas, a senior nursing student, being lowered on freshly dug soil below their home on a hillside in La Trinidad, Benguet.  Two weeks after Dorcas’ burial, Juliet, wife of folksinger Dick, was buried beside her daughter. 

My thoughts ricocheted to other Samaritans. There’s expatriate Baguio boy Freddie de Guzman who, for years back, had reconnected home through fund support to the sick, even after he had lost his job. There’s Irwin Ilustre, also in Canada, whose quiet remittances for the needy inspired his two nieces here to arrange their own concerts for the humanitarian cause.

There’s that Ibaloy solo parent in Kentucky, a cancer survivor who was afraid she wouldn’t be able to sustain her regular support, given her own need to support her young daughter and her own medications. I could go on with my long list of Samaritans, among them a female employee at City Hall who, last Wednesday, handed P2,000. “For whoever needs it,” she said.

It was for Sharon Dalida, a 27-year old kidney patient  who’s undergoing twice-a-week hemodialysis treatment at the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center. (e-mail:mondaxbench@yahoo.com for comments.)