ZAMBOANGA CITY (MindaNews / 30 March) — From a very young age, I learned that being physically able is not enough, you need to be strong to do many things at the same time. After all, that was the only way to make a living in our small barrio where I was raised.
Being a woman was never an exception, at least not for my mother, a single mother who raised me and my three other sisters.
Every day that goes by, as I learn more and more about the world, I realized that being physically strong was also not enough. Because after a long tiring day, you can take a good amount of rest, but the weight of all the things that you go through does not really go away in your sleep. Worse, some things in your mind remain there so they don’t make you sleep.
I don’t remember when I decided I was going to be strong. Or maybe it wasn’t really a choice that I personally made, it was a choice out of necessity, because life for me growing up was never easy.
“Isang kahig, isang tuka” was the set-up that our small family lived by, and at a young age, I realized that it was hard for our mother to do everything alone, while I and my siblings wait in our house.
I worked at a young age to support my studies, and all the things that happened between then and now have definitely made me strong. I finished my degree and almost felt a sigh of relief, but life as it always does, it tests you in times when you think you’re ready with the biggest challenges you couldn’t prepare for.
And what choice did I have at that moment? There wasn’t really other choice but to be strong. And because I was strong, I got through another tough time in my life, in the early stage of adulting where I eventually found my way in the professional path of journalism. Being strong always felt good, something to look back to and be proud of, because it led me to victory over my struggles in my life. And I do still feel the same way until today. But in the years that my career in journalism progressed, being strong changed me in so many ways, in so many times.
Death is inevitable, something you can’t escape no matter what, something you can’t hide from wherever you go. Thus, losing someone comes with so much grief, because you lose someone forever, and all that remains with you is the memory that you shared. It’s something that no matter how strong you are, will break you.
At first, the news, or the scene of death as part of my media coverage felt devastating, but I was strong to face it as a professional, yet, processing the death of someone still made me weak in my heart. I started thinking that maybe it is easier to grieve over someone you don’t know, because you don’t have memories of them that you will hold on to, and along the way it will be easier to let go.
All that you have and/or gather about them is their name, cause of death, birthdate, and maybe a few words from families and friends, a few follow-ups about their case and that’s the end of it. Their death is news for me, a piece of information that I need for my job, because I am a professional.
Yes, I am a professional, but that is only when I am at work. But whatever I do at all times, I am human. I process death the same way as every other person out there. While I can do my job well, I’m just as weak and vulnerable, and also lost when processing the incidents of death I encounter in my job. All that I have are limited information about them but I can’t explain how hard it is to move on.
Because deep in my heart I know that grieving the dead is just and right, I feel a sense of guilt when I try to be strong and not feel about the death of someone, most times someone I don’t even connect with personally. This guilt in my heart had built up so much that before I knew it, it was already a routine that my mind picked up to think about all the time. While I am able to keep myself busy during the day, most nights it haunts me, making me lose sleep, and the only thing that I can find comfort in is by crying and weeping about it.
A realization I picked up from the BAYI-LINES retreat is that when our emotions are trying to tell us something, fighting it will cause us to lose an internal battle within ourselves, and that being vulnerable when we need to, allows us to be truly stronger.
(Merasol Monteza of Zamboanga City is a radio reporter/news anchor of RMN Zamboanga and provincial reporter of DZXL-RMN Manila)
[BAYI-LINES is part of the Safety Training Series of the Media Impact Philippines project implemented by the Mindanao Institute of Journalism (MinJourn), publisher of MindaNews, in partnership with the International Media Support (IMS) with funding from the European Union and the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark.]
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