“May Bukas Pa” : some lessons in life

I have been following lately a Filipino TV drama series titled “May Bukas Pa” (literally, there is still tomorrow). The episodes revolve around the main character, a foundling named Santino. He grew up and was cared for by the Friars who found him at the doorsteps of the monastery. From thereon, followers of the series are reminded of some similarities of the series with an old movie “Marcelino Pan y Vino” as the boy becomes close to an image of the Christ Jesus in the monastery chapel who Santino calls “Bro” and comes alive while he talks to Santino. The similarity ends there, however, when Santino also discovers that he is blessed with healing powers. (If my memory serves me right, I don’t think Marcelino pan y vino did not have healing powers.)

The title of the series as well as its location, a small town called “Bagong Pag-asa”, (new hope) gives us a hint of the overall thread – hope, that runs through every episode; while the mystery of Santino’s parentage and the need for his adoption provide the drama and some bit of suspense that is needed to keep people’s interest going.

I have been watching the series since it began but its most recent episode grabbed me because it deals with topics I am familiar and can relate with: grief and parenting and their sub-themes -- loss and letting go, love and life, absence and presence.

In this particular episode, Santino gets adopted by a rich couple whose only son has just died. He leaves the monastery in tears and joins his new parents in a big house. He is given toys, dressed in new clothes and made to live in a large room of his own – all formerly belonging to the couple’s dead son. His new mother also tells him to addressed them the way her son used to call them. She serves him food that are favorites of her son. Moreover, she asks Santino to take up ice-skating, a sport where the dead son excelled. All in the name of her love for Santino. The father meanwhile stays quiet and simply watches her wife as she does all these to Santino. Soon Santino discovers the reason why he was sent there: his adoptive parents still have unresolved issues. Both are still in grief and have not yet let go.

The father is deeply angry with himself as he was not around to save his son when he died. He feels guilty for having been absent in his son’s growing up years. He thought it was enough that he was working hard and providing all the needs of his family. And it was too late for him now to make up.

The mother who raised her son almost single-handedly is in a worst state. She deeply resents her husband for having left her alone in raising their son and she has not yet gotten over her son’s death to the point that she does not want even to visit his grave. She is deeply in grief but is not aware of it. Instead, she uses Santino to bring back his son to life, as it were.

As it always happens in the series, there is hope in this situation. Santino becomes the instrument of “healing” once again. Because of him, the couple realizes that they have problems that still cry for solutions and that they are not yet ready to become parents a second time. In the end, Santino goes back to the monastery once again.

Some lessons here:

Grief. Professionals, usually grief counselors, identify several stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. Depending on the person, the stages of grief can be experienced not necessarily singly or in that order. What is important to remember is that grief is a process that can last for days, weeks, or even years, again depending on the person grieving. We must learn to allow the person grieving to express her grief in the manner he/she chooses to express it according to the stage he/she is in. Thus, it does not help to tell a grieving person just to have faith, trust in God and move on as it is our wont to do often. In this episode, the father and the mother displayed at least one or two of the stages of grief. In the end, they both come to an acceptance of their situation after they expressed their grief to Santino and to each other.

Letting go. Letting go is always difficult after a loss, whether it be death, the end of a relationship, separation, and so forth. But it can be the beginning of acceptance and the end of grief. Letting go usually comes after awareness or understanding. The process usually can be helped by a symbolic ritual of letting go – burning of letters, belongings, or photos, scattering of ashes, or any other act meaningful to the person and appropriate to the situation. In this particular episode, the mother finally visiting the grave of her dead son and her letting go of Santino for him to go back to the monastery is symbolic of her letting go of her son and her acceptance of her loss.

Love. This does not need much elaboration. True love, like St. Paul said in his letter to the Corinthians is not selfish, but always thinks of the other first. See the contrast between the mother’s selfish love for Santino and Santino’s true love for her.

At the end of each episode, I can’t help but admire the series’ scriptwriter. His/her grasp of theology is sound and orthodox. There is a lot to be gleaned in terms of lessons in family values as well as in matters of faith in the Catholic religion. I just pray that the happy endings and fulfilled hopes in every episode of the series do not in our people engender false hopes!