Felix Bravo’s Weblog

My heart bleeds for this little prodigal, a lady 29 years old, with two kids.

Ten years ago, I dreamed of her becoming like us. I mean us, as a church. Would you believe that her grandmother had been a Christian before she died? Would you believe that her mother is now a minister’s wife? He uncle too is a preacher; her uncle’s wife is a Bible teacher; her uncle’s kids are all Christians. She has all the reasons to be like us.

I pity this victim of much injustice. Her father, she says, gave her only a name, nothing else. “I have a nice surname, an equally nice first name. But you can never eat it.”

Her story ought to be for Bannawag, or Hiligaynon or Liwayway. All defunct magazines. But that’s my wish list. A few months after she was born, her mother left her in the care of her older sister (the little girl’s aunt), who dreamed dreams for her too but could not deliver those dreams. The aunt was poor, so the little girl too lived in penury. That means she went to school without having breakfast and that her dresses and shoes were hand-me-downs.

Early in her teens, she heard that her mother married a preacher. (Her father she never heard of anymore). What was that supposed to mean? She thought she could now have a home. She thought she could now live with her mother’s new family and be treated as their own. She thought she could now go to college (because all her half-brothers and half-sisters were going to college).

That never happened. She felt the bitterness of neglect.

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