Wating at Christmastime

The priest at mass this morning expounded, as usual, on the meaning of Advent as a time of waiting, of waiting for the coming of Christ, of waiting for Christmas. That is why we have all this fuss about the Christmas countdown, the food preparations, the decorations, and so forth.

I must confess that the only waiting I am concerned about right now is my waiting for the day when I can stand and walk without pain… I must admit too that the process has not been easy for me… I have never been at my lowest point of depression and even despair, anger, frustration, negativity, and bitterness to the point that I did not want to see people other than my family.

Thanks to Thelma and my children, I am once more slowly coming out of the pit. I feel that I have gone down to my lowest point, I have no way now to go but up. I now live by the day doing what needs to be done like taking my medicines and doing my exercises without minding the future, without looking at when will I finally get up and walk again without pain.

I have also been inspired lately by two people whom I have never met but who have turned their “waiting” into something that went beyond anything they could have imagined. The two are Randy Pausch, an American and Juan “Dikoy” Magdaraog, a Filipino. Both were waiting for their deaths.

Dikoy has been confined to his wheel chair for 15 years and breathes through a bi-pap machine 24/7. He is afflicted with a rare disease called Pompe disease. He was diagnosed at age 10 with muscular dystrophy. In a visit to the United States 5 years later, it was accurately diagnosed as Pompe Disease, a disorder that slowly deteriorates the body’s muscular system. He was also told that he would never reach his 30th birthday.

This condition would have been an excuse for others just to sit and wait. But not Dikoy. He went on with his regular studies and finished college at De La Salle’s College of St Benilde with a degree in Industrial Design. From there he worked in their family enterprise and then for Ayala Corporation as Web Designer. He finally started his own company doing web designs.

Today at 31, Dikoy is still alive and very productive, passionate about Macs and Ferrarris, but still sitting on a wheelchair and breathing through a bi-pap machine.

Recently, Dikoy’s story was featured in Story Line, a program on ABS-CBN’s ANC featuring stories of ordinary people living extra-ordinary lives. Asked how he was able to do everything that he had done given his disability and certain death, Dikoy said: “I just try to live the best way I know how.”

After he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and was told it was terminal, Randy Pausch, a computer professor at Carnegie Melon, went on to deliver what is called “The Last Lecture”. It was not a lecture on dying and Randy actually entitled it: “Really achieving your childhood dreams”. It was about how to live life fully and seizing every moment because “time is all you have and you may find someday that you have less than you think”. It is a summary of everything Randy had come to believe.

Randy died on July 25, 2008 but not before he put “The Last Lecture” into a book which, he says, is actually for his children. My son Nico gave me a copy of the book which I just finished reading leisurely recently.

Today, as I continue to wait for my own healing in this time of waiting for Christmas, I remember Randy Pausch’s words: “We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.”