Still For the Love of Cory

As if the stories on TV were not enough, I, two days after Cory was laid to rest, still heard two personal accounts of humble little sacrifices made as final acts of thanksgiving for the leader we lost.


My sister's bestfriend came with her siblings all the way from our hometown in Batangas on the eve of Cory's funeral. They braved the tempest that brought heavy rains and thick fog to Tagaytay's accident-prone highways and lined up to the Cathedral even if their limbs were still tired from the three-hour car ride. After a brief glimpse of Tita Cory, they had to wade through Manila's flood waters to get back to their SUV parked several meters away, after which they were on to another three-hour journey back home in the wee hours of the morning.

My cousin went with the nuns who ran the hospital where she worked as a nutritionist also on the last day of the wake. It was 3 pm. The lines were long and became longer when viewing had to be stopped to give way to the necrological services. As the heavens seemed to mourn with the throngs, not a single person was not drenched, not directly from the downpour but from water dripping from a sea of umbrellas gathered so closely together. When good Samaritans started distributing boiled eggs by dinnertime, she was so famished she thought she must have swallowed an egg whole and then another. By 11 pm, they were praying in front of the casket and were out in a few minutes. The nuns rode back to the hospital while my cousin waited for her husband who got caught in traffic somewhere near Manila Hotel. She got inside the car at 1 am.

Such were the sacrifices of the nameless faces in the crowd, who gave up several hours of their day without complaint, knowing full well that Cory gave up not just a few days but nearly all days of her life for the people she never stopped believing in.

* Photos grabbed from Google search.