By Atty. Antonio P. Pekas
We have a Messenger page whose members are our contemporaries in UP Los Banos. It is for us to be in touch with each other but also for reliving the good old days. Yesterday, I posted there a short piece on the falling leaves this time of year of the mahogany trees of Mt. Makiling where we grew up as college undergrads. It was quite comfortable to be writing for an audience with a commonality in their college backgrounds
I felt good after reading the reactions of a number of our contemporaries there, of friends and acquaintances, particularly, their having been able to relate to some of what I said.
Then came through the net the column-article of my son who is about to turn 18 in two days. Going through it, I became a proud father as he obviously could write. It was titled THE WEIGHT OF EXPECTATIONS. After the euphoria that it caused, it hit me. Was it a cry in the dark?
Did he feel that he was being pressured by us, his parents, to make good in his virtual studies? Being marooned most of the time at home, who could have known what he was feeling or thinking? Although he appeared OK everyday.
The past two months or so he has been writing for this paper, and I haven’t seen anything in his articles that should have alarmed me. I haven’t seen any sign of “a cry in the dark” for some psychological help.
While I am very sure we, the parents, have not been exerting any pressure on him, that is immaterial. The important thing was what he was feeling? Was his circumstances as an only child enough pressure that could have bother.d him?
He related these in his article including my profession which was supposed to be prestigious. He also said that the pressure of “tiger parents” had resulted in achievers, many of whom became doctors and lawyers.
He also mentioned of his cousins. He has a number on his mother side who are about his age, with whom he has good relations. In fact two of them are living with us so he was never really alone in our relatively remote place whenever we were in the office. He almost always had company. And I hope we were correct in thinking that he was OK just by himself as long as there was an internet signal. Such a situation happened only once in a while.
But talks have been rife about a number of kids and students around the city and in nearby La Trinidad of allegedly having committed suicide during this pandemic. Unfortunately.
And anything could happen to anybody, to any family. Even in those with no history of suicide or similar circumstances, including mental problems or instability.
Thinking about these and all the dire possibilities, I developed a headache.
I guess I was just tired, or because of my pesky high blood pressure. After some introspection, I realized that my thoughts were all baseless, just a lot of unfounded worries.
Nevertheless, we should be always aware of how people we know are doing. It does not hurt to remind that with all the problems this pandemic and related restrictions are causing, we, and so many others, are just a text or phone call away. Sometimes people only need some small talk to let out steam or to get over a somber mood.
It is better, however, for us to hitch our hopes with the positive prediction by a number of scientists that this omicron variant might be the beginning of the end of this pandemic.
No less than Bill Gates who has gazillions of practical brain cells and, I guess, because of his philanthropic work on dreadful diseases, made him boldly predict the same thing. He cited the case of South Africa where the number of Covid-19 cases are now declining. He attributed that, as many others did, to the immunity omicron caused.
It would be a great relief to people whose businesses are almost dead.
For those whose livelihood were unfortunately killed by the pandemic, there would be hope they would be able to pick up the pieces or start all over again. Harinawa!**
