I HAVE LIVED LONG ENOUGH AT 65

By: Norberto Betita

I should not have gone this far perhaps if my grandfather never had the personal confidence to converse with the inanimate imaginary disease carriers at the bank of Anao-aon River requesting them to depart to save me from a very serious ailment in infancy. He was known to be a Spiritual healer and an expert in herbal medicines. My being saved from the brink of death may have been attributable to both of his expertise.

Again as an infant, I was saved from starvation through a surrogate breast feeder---my aunt Elvira---when my mother was hospitalized for a very serious disease which almost cost her life.

During my third year in high school, I was afflicted with an unknown disease, unknown in the sense that I have not been diagnosed having had no opportunity to visit a physician, but a woman quack doctor. For two months I laid in bed bearing the burdens of continued fever and head breaking pains, without the benefit of modern medicines but a drinking water filled with herbs and paper and weekly rubbing rituals of iron bars around my joints purportedly to restore strength. I thought it was my last days. Once while alone at home, I managed to crawl into our dining room and urinate on the side of the wall. Then I was left unconscious; for how much time I did not know. Awakened, I found myself lying on our dining table. I felt kind of being resurrected. As I regained consciousness and a little strength, I walked limping back towards our bedroom. It was later known that my affliction was that of an acute typhoid fever. Providentially, however, I was relieved and was accepted back to school. I was then 15 years old.

From that time since, my physical health turned normal and had sustained me through all the winds of adversity along the path to my most challenging journey.

However, in the main thoroughfare towards my most cherished dreams for growth and development for my family, at age 35, I found myself again afflicted by a disease which until now the exact cause and origin has not been determined and known. It is a chronic disease of the immune system, the sad part of which is that it may be associated with arthritis, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.

The first time I held a handful of plaques and almost daily thereafter, I felt devastated. I thought it was skin cancer, until I later knew that it was psoriasis. It was first diagnosed by a dermatologist from a community hospital in Cebu City. I was informed that it is an incurable genetic skin disorder and was prescribed coal tar for plaques and itch control. As the disease continued to get worse, I went to a renowned doctor at Chong Hua hospital in Cebu city. I was assured it is not a killer disease and not contagious and was again prescribed coal tar and a white ointment, with instruction to have a daily exposure of my whole bare skin to direct sunlight between the hours of 10 AM to 2 PM for an hour or two as an ultra violet treatment.

As a bank employee, I only have time during my noon breaks to expose my skin at our terrace for at least 30 minutes. During Saturdays and holidays, I have to go to the beach and find a place where I can lay bare my whole body to the blistering heat of summer. Each time I did such I felt as if my lung is bursting that I could hardly breathe. My heart seemed to pump even swiftly as to cause severe abdominal discomfort. But I have to do it if only to be relieved. It indeed provided temporary and short-lived relief.

Fear struck me when during one of our family week celebration in the church I participated in a family tug of war. As I pulled hard together with the rest of the participants my forearm skin was suddenly cut by the pressure. The two lacerations were long and blood was oozing. Since then I have had many small cuts and injuries as the epidermis of my skin seemed to have thinned as to easily react to pressures. Even ordinary hard contact on my skin caused me pain and even immediate and unwanted injuries. Scars remained printed on my body for a memory of those trying moments. Even the air pressure applied on the sphygmomanometer to measure my blood pressure was very painful. This may have been the result of my regular exposure to direct sunlight and the daily application of ointments. During each of these painful encounters, I sometimes felt I am a ‘dead man walking’.

Once I was treated from several abrasions having fallen into a concrete canal by a doctor who himself was psoriatic. He assured me that it will not be long and there will be a sure cure to the disease. But he did not live long enough to see the fulfillment of his expectations and perhaps even me. Research still continues.

Very generous benefactors assisted me through the church by surprise with a round trip plane tickets and an all-expenses paid medical checkup in Manila of which I was truly grateful. But nothing better resulted. I personally have a medical checkup with the best dermatologist at St. Luke Hospital in Manila. Despite long years of steroidal and pain reliever medications my laboratory results were all normal. Yet notwithstanding new and more expensive medications and modern ultraviolet treatment, still there was no improvement in my psoriasis.

Many times I was crippled by the attendant psoriatic arthritis which often strikes on the knees. Hence, I have to live by steroids and pain relievers to be able to regularly attend to my work in the bank. Many apprised me of the dangers of steroids and pain relievers, but I have to defy all medical warnings if only to live normally and continue to provide for the needs of my family.

I am grateful though that its link to diabetes did not surface. My blood sugar remained always at normal level.

Then the consequent cardiovascular disease associated with psoriasis dawned upon me as I suffered regular pains on my left breast. I consulted with a cardiologist and he suspected that my heart was enlarged. I underwent an echocardiogram, but the result was unclear. During one of my consultation with an internist, I also underwent and electrocardiogram and the results were normal.

Throughout those long years and weary battle with afflictions I find solace as I contemplate on the Lord’s invitation: “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

“Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

“For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:28–30).

Then I would plead as did the poet Edward Hopper (1818-1888):

“Jesus, Savior, Pilot me
Over life’s tempestuous sea;
Unknown waves before me roll,
Hiding rock and treacherous shoal.
Chart and compass came from thee;
Jesus, Savior, Pilot me.” (Hymn No. 104).

I am deeply grateful that despite these lingering afflictions, I still was able to attain my life’s simple dreams. I retired at age 56, just a year after attaining my career goal and with only two years remaining for my fifth and last-born daughter to finish college. During this period of retirement, I confronted the worst of psoriatic flare-up when almost 80% of my body turned red and most of my skin cracked. No amount of ointment application was able to provide relief. My wife had to wrap my body with food cling-wrap. I hate going back to doctors. One day I sat in front of my computer and was inspired to ask Google as to why it happened. I applied the suggested remedy and it worked. Since then I continued to use the medications and miraculously my skin seemed to have restored its strength. I still have my psoriasis, but its associated arthritis now seldom occurs and my skin can now cope with hard pressures. .

It’s been 30 years since when I first spotted those red spots on my skin; 30 years of lingering disease and constant medications. Throughout those years I have witnessed relatives, friends and neighbors and contemporaries in the prime of life being marched to their final moments on graveyards’ lane and their bodies laid in ‘the cold and silent grave’. I have written and spoken several eulogies in funerals and dedicated graves.

Today in my deepest and soul-searching retrospection since those accounts of near death experiences and enduring battle with afflictions, I thought that indeed, I have lived long enough at 65. I acknowledge with deep and profound gratitude God’s infinite love as to bless me of not having stayed even a day in a hospital bed during those long and weary days and years of failing health.

I always asked for extensions of my years in mortality in my prayers of total submission to Heavenly Father’s will. While I will have to wait for the Lord’s appointed time, as death is a certainty in life, I pray that I may be worthy to be “…received into a state of happiness…,a state of rest, a state of peace, where [I] shall rest from all [my] troubles and from all care and sorrow” (Alma 40:12). Where “God shall wipe away all tears from [my] eyes; and there shall be no more death; neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain” (Revelation 21:4).

As the dawn unveils the door of darkness to give way for the marvelous light of a glorious sunrise on this my 65th year in mortality, and as the sun follows its destined orbit and sets at the close of the day consistent with life’s eternal sequence, I wish to God that I will still be able to enjoy the beauty of life and the grandeur of mortal existence amidst the daunting consequences of failing health and the physical realities attendant to seniority.

LOOKING FOR JOY ON THE OTHER SIDE OF DESPAIR

By: Norberto Betita

Rache Arpilleda Reyna Alinsunod

Some say that August is the birth of legends not only because Augustus Caesar, the first Emperor after the death of Julius Caesar named it after him, but because many of the popular legends, such as Michael Jackson, Kobe Bryant, Mother Theresa, Warren Buffet, Sean Connery, Neil Armstrong and hundreds of others were born in August. However, that has nothing to do with the birth of Rachel Arpilleda Reyna-Alinsunod on August 13, 1952. She was simply born to be the third of the seven siblings in a middle class family of that time---a teacher mother and a lumber contracting and supplying father.

Her mother was a true disciplinarian. As a teacher herself, she was bent on pushing her children to acquire the highest education they could attain no matter the cost, believing that it is the key to the doors of better opportunities. While the popular principle says, ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child’, she spared the rod and loved her children, but made sure that there was an equivalent punishment in consequence of a wrong doing in order not to spoil them. She is very exacting in so far as their schooling is concerned. She wanted them to make their quest for education and learning a preeminent priority. She trained her children to be more responsible in whatever things they do in life.

With daughter Karen Myl, son-in-law Josh and granddaughter
Kora Rachel in Slat Lake City, Utah, USA 

In contrast her father was a man of sobriety, so that every time she received the pinch of discipline from her mother she would go to her father and complain. And, repeatedly his counsel would be for her not to be dismayed nor be offended, but to look far into the future and imagine the joy of a glorious attainment if she followed the path where such code of behavior is aligned. Such recurrent paternal admonition developed in her a positive attitude of looking for joy on the other side of despair, while yet a young woman. For so long she had learned and was motivated to move forward no matter the challenges. Her first victory was graduating from high school at San Nicolas College in 1969.

The same year, with ever willing parental support, she enrolled at the Velez College in Cebu City for a course leading to a degree in Nursing. Unfortunately, however, on her third year in college she was afflicted with a serious illness which prompted her to temporarily stop schooling and return home. It had been in the Filipino culture then that elder children should finish college to help in the schooling of younger siblings. This had always been the subject of her mother’s demanding stimulation for her to go back to college especially that she only had a year and a half more to complete her course. But she believed otherwise. She wanted the tradition to stop, not out of selfishness towards her younger siblings, but by the fact that it is not proper. A son or a daughter will soon have to become a father or mother which will bear the burdens of providing and supporting a family. While a sibling may help support the education of a brother or sister, his or her paramount priority is his or her family. As a result, she decided to marry young and made it as a getaway from her mother’s pressures. 

With daughter karen Myl's family with Thorvaldsen's
Christus as backdrop. 

However, her marriage and even of her having already a son did never become a deterrent for her mother to push her back to college. She still wanted to finance her college education for good. Looking far into the future of her son and the possibility of having a larger family, she therefore determined and committed to carry on. With her son tightly clutched on her arms she left Surigao City and went back to college enrolling at the Southwestern University in Cebu City. She eventually graduated with a degree of Bachelor of Science in Foods and Nutrition in 1978. She acknowledged with gratitude for such an achievement which should not have been attained without her mother’s perseverance and unyielding faith and enthusiasm combined with strict discipline and the caring and affectionate counsels he received from her father, which had since become complementary.

After a short respite, she applied at the Pacific Cement Company in 1980 and was employed as Guesthouse Service Officer. She resigned in 1984 to focus on her motherhood and spousal duties. In the wake of family financial crisis resulting from lose of employment and increasing family challenges, she was encouraged by her mother to shift career and take a course in teaching. She did as her way of challenging her feelings of despair. She eventually graduated with a degree of Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education and became a professional teacher. Her faith and courage sustained her all along her tremendous responsibility of fostering and nurturing her children, while at the same time trying hard to mend a broken heart and strengthening the foundation and the building blocks of home and family. In patience she gained serenity; in humility she found God’s favor; in prayers she was blessed with resolves. The shattering energy and force of the devil did never prosper as she held on to the shield of faith and hope for greater family happiness if not in this world then beyond the veil. Her knowledge of the gospel has been her continued anchor and lighthouse along the treacherous channels of her life’s journey.

While thus in such a pressured parental undertaking, she started her teaching career at the Children’s Garden Learning Center from 1988 to 1990. In 1992 she was permanently employed as a public school teacher in the Department of Education. In all her struggles she took shelter in her father’s memorable counsel to look for joy on the other side of despair.

The family

Her faith and hope for a better tomorrow for her growing children brightened the clouded path and magnified her vision as to clearly view greater joy and gladness while in the grasp of her children’s love as she most seriously engage herself in providing, rearing and nurturing them in righteousness.

While thus trying to envision the future needs of her young and growing children, she ventured to advance her educational attainment and took Master of Arts in Teaching at the Bukidnon State College. Once at church, she expressed to me her apprehension of not finishing the course. As his Branch President then, I counseled her to move on and finish the educational race which she had started. She graduated and was later promoted to the position of School Principal. Her advanced teaching career helped her support and led her children into the paths of educational success.

She remained to be just as true to her covenants to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ as a member of the church. However, the fortifying element in the family seemed to have lost its power as to draw away her two sons to inactivity. But such did not diminish her greatest love for them. She knew that someday in their lives the “tentacles of Divine Providence” which God promised to the faithful parents will eventually come upon them to tug them back into the fold. If they repent and “keepeth [the] commandments, whether in life or in death” (Doctrine and Covenants 58:2), they will be blessed in God’s Kingdom. She also finds comfort and happiness in her daughter Karen Myl’s exemplary faithfulness, that despite her being diagnosed for a possible illness that should have deprived her to serve, she eventually went on a full-time mission in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and returned with honor. And after years of patiently waiting was eventually married in the Temple.

With mother and siblings

All her three children---Benjamin, Eric and Karen Myl---completed their college education and were already gainfully employed when another despairing and mournful tragedy occurred. His eldest son Benjamin died in the prime of his life. The tragedy was truly one of sadness and sorrow; of loneliness and grief. But she stayed calm and confronted the heartbreak with serenity and meditative tranquility. When she was asked by her associates about her composure while in the midst of a sorrowful misfortune for the passing of his eldest son, she told them, “I know I will meet him again in a grand reunion beyond the veil.” She knew that ‘death is only a passing episode in an eternal journey,’ a graduation day for life. With Benjamin’s passing, her desire for them to be sealed together for time and eternity was amplified. Together with her daughter Karen Myl, they tried to work on such a noble plan. But time seemed not as yet ready to undertake its due. However, with greater faith she hopes for such noble goal to eventually find fulfillment. She felt like Spencer W. Kimball who said: “There are great challenges ahead of us, giant opportunities to be met. I welcome that exciting prospect and feel to say to the Lord, humbly, give me this mountain, give me these challenges.” Consequently, she invests her ‘heart, might, mind and strength’ in the service of God and his fellowmen. She had served in different capacities in the auxiliary organizations of the church the latest of which is Sunday School Gospel Doctrine teacher and District Supervisor of the Seminary and Institute Program. She believes that “the best medicine for despair is service” (Gordon B. Hinckley). 

With husband and living children

Along the path to career advancement there sometimes rest the dark shadows of prejudices as are common in public service. Once she was asked by her younger brother who is a lawyer and Priesthood holder, as to which was important to her, promotion and salary increase or relationships. The words of President Dieter F. Uchtdorf flashed: “Satan’s purpose is to temp us to exchange the priceless pearls of true happiness for a fake plastic trinket that is merely a counterfeit of happiness and joy.” Thus, in her quest for career advancement and growth she just humbly waited for her chances in life’s rides, for her to finally see the brighter light at the end of the tunnel, while relishing the priceless pearls of true happiness found in relationships. She was more happy and respected by her colleagues in the DepEd and was soon also promoted to the position of District Supervisor in May of 2015, which will be her position towards retirement in August 2017.

While she doesn’t in anyway believes in Zodiac signs, yet her attributes of positive outlook towards life, enthusiasm and determination to achieve, and being a good friend and loyal to her relationships, exactly correspond to the description of those born under the sign of Leo. In all these developments of a noble character she always prided during some of our classes in Sunday School, she being our teacher, that all stems from her mother’s loving discipline and her father’s sincere admonition for her to always look for joy on the other side of despair. 

Reunion with high school classmates in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

She is still hoping and ardently praying for their family sealing to be fulfilled soon. At times frustrations occupy a resting mind and tears forced open the windows of the eyes. Nevertheless, the words of the Psalmist she learned from teaching the Old Testament ever echo: “…Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning” (Psalm 30:5). She has faith that the break of the dawning day will one day majestically rise to drive the dark night shadows away. She now savors the joy of visiting her granddaughter Kora Rachel at Wyoming and takes pleasure in visiting historical places in America with her son-in-law Josh and daughter Karen Myl. She appreciates very much meeting in a reunion in Las Vegas with high school friends and classmates and meeting new friends.

As she comes home to file her retirement she carries with her the words of President Thomas S. Monson: “To live greatly, we must develop the capacity to face trouble with courage, disappointment with cheerfulness, and triumph with humility.” Triumphantly she will soon march out from the humdrums of a secular career. She will now reserve her remaining energy revitalizing and rejuvenating her responsibilities which are of eternal consequences---spousal duties, motherhood and church callings---where retirement is never an entitlement. She knows that mortality is so short a time when equated with God’s promised eternity.