"When everything else is taken away, broken, battered, soaked, raw, stripped, bare, you see things; you see people as they really are. This week in Tacloban, Samar and Cebu, amidst the hunger and thirst, the chaos and confusion, we've seen the best in the Filipino people -- their strength, their courage. I can't get it out of my mind. Imagine the strength it takes for a mother to search alone for her missing kids, the strength to sleep on the street near the body of her child.
We've seen people with every reason to despair, every right to be angry, instead find ways to laugh, to love, to stand up, to move forward.
A storm breaks wood and bone, brings hurt and heartbreak. In the end, the wind, the water, the horror it brings is not the end of the story.
With aid and assistance, compassion and care, this place, these people... they will make it through. They already survived the worst. They're bowed, perhaps tired and traumatized, but they are not broken.
Mabuhay Philippines! Maraming salamat for all you've shown us. Maraming salamat for showing us all how to live."
from: "Typhoon Haiyan: Ruin and Rescue", Anderson Cooper 360° (AC 360), CNN, November 15, 2013
Probably, Filipinos are naturally resilient, but I think it's also about the unwavering faith in God.
“The lotus is the most beautiful flower, whose petals open one by one. But it will only grow in the mud. In order to grow and gain wisdom, first you must have the mud -- the obstacles of life and its suffering. ... The mud speaks of the common ground that humans share, no matter what our stations in life. ... Whether we have it all or we have nothing, we are all faced with the same obstacles: sadness, loss, illness, dying and death. If we are to strive as human beings to gain more wisdom, more kindness and more compassion, we must have the intention to grow as a lotus and open each petal one by one.”
-- Goldie Hawn
