A Priceless Joy

We often find joy in the most unexpected places. I found mine last Jan. 30, 2009, on the barren Bellarmine field.
That day, I impulsively decided to join the Kite Flying event of Kythe, an organization in school dedicated to helping cancer patients. Although I know cancer is a fatal sickness, its weight never made sense to me until that moment. I arrived in the middle of a mass. I was overwhelmed by the number of children, parents and volunteers who attended the event. I didn’t quite prepare myself in meeting these children all diagnosed with cancer. My eyes wanted to shed tears during the priest’s homily telling about his own encounter with the sickness when his mother was diagnosed with cancer. His mother asked him, “What could I have done which brought this suffering upon me?”
What really? Why do these children have to battle with cancer when, instead, they should be enjoying their youth? Yet, the priest helped me find the answers to my question. Everything happens for a reason. It may not make sense to us but it does for the One who created all of us.
Instead of feeling down, I decided to use the opportunity to, at least, make a child happy. The program did part of that task by entertaining the children with a wacky play by the Kythe officers and a dance number from the Gabay dance troupe. These lifted up everyone’s spirit including mine.
After a short snack (meal!), the kite flying activity finally commenced. (Yippee!)
I had the chance to assist one boy named Benjie. Upon getting the kite, he taught me how to assemble it. It turns out he knows how to fly kites. He was a very hyper and active boy. He was the one running around tugging on his kite while I was running after him far behind. I became his assistant; bringing him water and helping him fly the kite. (hahaha!) It was a really tiring (means I’m getting old already!) but really enjoying experience. It was poignant at the same time. Here I am, sometimes complaining about my problems in life while someone with a much bigger burden, enjoys life by flying a kite.
His mother came to us and made him rest for a while noting that he turned a bit pale. She shared that on Monday, Benjie has to undergo his “chemo”. “Chemo” as in chemotherapy! That caught me off-guard for a second. It took a while for me to process the word and absorb it. All my life, the idea of cancer seemed so surreal to the point that I didn’t expect chemotherapy to exist in my own tiny, limited world.
Yet, that didn’t deter him from flying his kite and playing more games. I discovered that he wanted to color. He also wanted to have tattoos. (I had one of those stick-on tattoos too!) And he wanted to ride the fire truck carrying the participants around Bellarmine field.
Throughout the entire activity, he acted just like any ordinary child would. He enjoyed every moment of it. He laughed and smiled.
At the start of the event, my only goal was to make a child happy. And I hope, his laughter and smiles were evidences of happiness. In the process, I gained a lot more. I learned lessons in life from a child. I was more than contented with the time and the part of himself that he shared with me. I became more joyful in the process of sharing my time and myself to the child.
In time, the memory of that day may eventually blur. Yet, I’ll never forget Benjie, that hyper and strong-willed child, and the joy he has brought into my life even for a short time.