These are all true stories or inspired by true stories.

Story No. 1

Let us begin with darkness. This was related to me by a nurse in a hospital in Tacloban City, Leyte. As “Yolanda”, the super-storm of the millennium, sent a tsunami five kilometers deep into the interior of Tacloban, a family clung to the top of a coconut tree — father, mother, daughter, son.

The father was swept away by the raging torrent. The mother stared silently at her children, then said, while sobbing, “Sorry, I have to join your father.” She let go. The children, who are alive today, related their experience to the nurse. They never forgot how they lost their parents.

Story No. 2

This was related to me by a relative from California via the internet. Emma and Jun, a Filipino senior citizen couple, decided to lock themselves down in the house for two whole years during the peak of the Covid storm, not even going beyond the gate. They ordered food online every day. They were going crazy from boredom and were getting into each other’s nerves.

One day, they had had enough and decided to take a cruise on an ocean liner to the Caribbean. Caution was thrown into the wind. They told relatives it was the greatest experience of their lives, from total darkness to blinding light. But, alas, they contracted Covid. They were unwise. Ocean cruises were the best and easiest way to get Covid, because passengers came from many different places. They both passed away from Covid after they returned home. From blinding light back to total darkness.

Story No. 3

And God said, “Let there be Light. And there was Light.” This is a short version of a full-blown anecdote featured in this column years ago. As Billionaire Bert gazed at his vast empire sprawled at his feet, he contracted cancer of the prostrate. He was asymptomatic. When they discovered his ailment, he was already at stage 4. Seven doctors told him he had a year to live. So, he isolated himself in deep depression in his sprawling palace by the sea. He kept his ailment a secret from everyone, even his wife. He took long walks on the beach every day. Only then did he learn how to pray. He talked aloud and passersby thought he was crazy.

His spoiled-brat 7-year-old psychic niece, Martha, met her Uncle Ben’s doctor at her uncle’s office, and knew right away that something was wrong. She threatened to expose the doctor’s affair with her uncle’s pretty secretary, if he did not tell her what was wrong with her uncle. Martha wept when she heard about the terminal cancer.

Martha visited Uncle Ben, and asked him to donate 300 wheelchairs to a street-kids foundation. Without hesitation, he gave her 500 chairs. She then insisted that he join the donation ceremony and give out the wheelchairs personally. Ben refused at first, but he could not say no to his spoiled niece. Finally, he admitted his secret terminal cancer to the 283 kids present. The rowdy kids fell silent. He felt a thorn taken out of his soul.

When Ben met the kids, one tiny lame girl gave him a hug, saying, “Thank you, uncle. Jesus will surely heal you.” He was in tears. Jesus, indeed, healed him through the kids. The doctors were all shocked when he was still alive on the third year. He started a foundation that built 315 homes-for-children worldwide, and made Martha the directress at the age of 10. If not for the kids, Billionaire Ben would have died years ago.

Light and darkness

Total darkness can encompass a person, but a single candle flame can destroy that darkness. Martha and Ben were the candle flames that snuffed out the darkness in many lives. In your deepest despair, your deepest darkness, you can seek the Light, which is hovering just above you without you knowing it.