Remembering Glorietta

Following is a letter my cousin emailed to me this morning. It was written by her daughter who, along with my cousin was in Glorietta during the blast.

Dear Family and Friends,

It has almost been a year since the explosion in Glorietta 2. I know I promised some of you that I would write, would tell you all the details about what happened. Well, I didn't realize it would be so hard to put everything down on paper. I have hesitated doing this since it brings back old feelings, things I would rather not remember, most of which I do not remember in fact.

So, finally, in the last two weeks, I was able to put together this 5 page letter to Rafa and Mia, for their scrapbook. So that when they grow up, they will still remember that they are so blessed in spite of this terrible thing that happened to us. I wanted to share this letter with you, my good friends, so that you will know why this experience has forever changed me, and my relationship with God. I thank you again for what you did for me last year. Each of you in some way, was there for me this past year, or when this happened. I hope you can also feel the love we have felt from this experience. God bless you all.

Love,
Tiffany

REMEMBER

My Dearest Children,

Last year we almost died. On October 19, 2007, at 130pm, we were in Glorietta
2 in Makati, Philippines, when there was an explosion. The explosion destroyed
an entire building. There were 11 people reported to have died in the
explosion, 118 people injured, and many more missing. We were part of the 118
people. Ironically, I do not remember most of what happened that day.

I am sharing this miracle with you, based on what was told to me by Abuela, Ate
May, you Rafa and Mia, and some of my own flashes of memory. I want you to
remember this story of love, miracles, and life. I want you to know that God
really exists, and that He protects us from danger.

My own memory starts on Saturday, October 20th, the day after the explosion. I
woke up with a start after a long nightmare of noise, blood, pain and a feeling
that I was desperately looking for my children. My first feeling was relief to
have awoken from such an awful dream. Then I looked around. My surroundings
were unfamiliar. I could see your Mama Telly sleeping on a sofa across the
room. My body ached, then I realized Mia and I were sleeping together on a tiny
bed. Then I saw her IV drip. I gasped. I knew my terrible dream that night
had been real. I saw Rafa asleep on another hospital bed next to ours, and your
papa was watching over him. I guessed he had not slept at all that night.

In the quiet of the sunrise, your papa and I talked. He told me he had come
back to Makati from Bangkok the evening before, that he had taken the first
flight out when he heard what happened, so he could be with us in the hospital.
Then he showed me the headlines of the morning paper. And I saw it. It was a
picture of the exact place where we had been standing. The place where we had
been reading together was devastated. Nothing was left, only the grey rubble
from 3 collapsed floors and the roof which had fallen on us. Everything in
Glorietta 2 had been destroyed. I turned to look at Mia, her forehead covered
with bandages, and at Rafa, his back full of wounds. I suddenly remembered the
sound of the explosion in my head, and it hurt. I asked Papa Steve to help me
go to the bathroom to look at myself.

For a moment, I did not recognize my own reflection in the mirror. My entire
left side was covered with bruises. My hair was disheveled, full of dirt and
blood, and debris from the blast. I lifted up my shirt and saw that I had cuts
all over my back, and a big gash in my left side. I looked at my legs, covered
with dried blood and bruises. I was limping. My left foot hurt. I looked like
a character in a horror movie, after she had been killed. I almost laughed at
the thought. Then, I went back outside to check on you, my children.

Many things happened after this moment, but I want to tell you about the
explosion itself. When we were back in Ascott, before moving to Bangkok, I
talked with you both. You shared with me the most fascinating things about that
day.

After lunch with Auntie Jeanne, and after getting Dipping Dots, we bought
Mia’s ballet slippers. She wanted to wear them, so we put her other shoes in
the stroller with our baby bag. I went to a new scrapbooking store on the 2nd
floor, while you, Abuela, Ate May, and Ate Malou went to the book fair on the
ground floor. I joined you at 125pm. Your Abuela and I wanted to leave because
we both had to go to the bathroom, but Rafa asked if he could finish his book.
I stood with Rafa at the children’s section and Abuela read a pocketbook at
our table. Ate May was on the floor reading to Mia a favorite story “Beauty
and the Beast” while Ate Malou sat under one of the columns watching the
stroller. Then, I heard the sound. BOOM.

After that, everything was quiet. I remember the first person I called was
Abuela. I could not see her, so I called out desperately, “MOM.”

She answered back, then I knew we were all alive. She says that she was still
standing. She had not realized what had happened but suddenly she could not see a thing. It looked like there was a wall in front of her. Then, she was
overcome with fear, fear for her apos (the Filipino word for grandchildren).
She called out to Jesus, “Lord, where are the apos?”

Then, she heard me call her.

Rafa, the moment he heard the blast, felt pain in his back, and quickly ducked
under the book table. What a boy scout. He covered his face but peered out and
in a flash he saw the glass blown out of store windows, and big ‘rocks’ fall
from the ceiling. Actually, it was the ceiling that fell. I picked him up and
held his hand as we walked out of Glorietta II, but somehow he had lost his new
crocs. This I remember, he looked at me with tears in his eyes and said,
“Mommy, I’m sorry, I lost my shoes.”

MayFlor, who is like a second mother to the children, followed her instinct
when she felt the blast. She threw her body on top of Mia’s as they fell
over. She had the worst injuries, sustaining a broken right arm, right leg, and
gashes in the head. All of that, to keep my own daughter alive.

Poor Malou was literally thrown forward by the force of the blast. She fell
onto broken glass which cut her face and hands. She was bleeding so much, and had so much debris in her eyes that she could not open them. She said she
thought she was dead until she heard my voice calling out her name. “Malou,
where are you? Are you ok?”

The six of us walked out of Glorietta in pairs. Rafa and I went first,
followed by May carrying Mia. Abuela held Malou who could not see where she was going. We left behind our baby bag and stoller, and we walked slowly across the activity center to Glorietta 4. There was not a sound in the entire mall, except my voice calling out everyone’s name over and over, asking each person if he or she was ok. I remember walking into the bright sunlight of the
activity center. I felt a piercing pain in my left eye, blood dripping down my
face. I took out my bloody contact lens and put it in my purse. Rafa was
looking down at his own hand held in mine. It was soaked in blood. He looked
up at me with apprehension. He said, “Mama, my hand is covered in blood.”
“Don’t worry Rafa,” I said, “All the blood is mine. and it doesn’t hurt.”

Suddenly, there were people who work in Ayala coming toward us. A man ran to us and picked up Rafa to carry him. I panicked. I shouted for him not to take my
son away. I yelled that we all had to stay together. I begged him not to take
my son from me. He promised to keep us all together, but that we had to get to
the hospital. He said I was bleeding and that we had to get into a taxi and go
to the hospital. I started to protest, but noticed May was in a lot of pain.
When we got to Glorietta 4, we heard a stampede coming so we quickly got into
two cabs, May, Mia and I were in the back seat. The stranger held Rafa in the
front seat. Abuela and Malou got into the other taxi. Then, two other victims
were put into our taxi. They were bleeding heavily and the woman next to me was almost unconscious. May was now seething with pain. After that, I have no
memory of the rest of the afternoon.

At the hospital, Malou and May were put on gurneys. I gave the nurse in the ER
of Makati Medical our details and said that Dr Butler, the kids’ pediatrician,
should be next door in her clinic. They called her and she quickly came to see
us. Rafa was treated for blast wounds on his back. They cut his clothes off
and bandaged his cuts. The doctors could not treat Mia’s wounds because she
kept crying and throwing up when they would touch her. The nurses cut her
clothes off and inserted an IV so she could be sedated. My father and brother
arrived. When your Papa Ine walked into the ER, he saw Rafa, naked on a
hospital bed with bandages on his back. Mia was sitting on my lap in a chair
next to Rafa, both our faces soaked in blood. He was so taken aback, he
collapsed right in front of us, and all the nurses rushed to revive him. I was
like a broken record, asking everyone who talked to me where my children were,
where my mother and nannies were. And if everyone was ok. I refused to be sedated, even when I got the stitches in my head. The doctors could not believe I was still conscious with two big gashes in my head. “Only God knows how she stayed awake,” they said.

Abuela was so busy calling people to tell them where we were, arranging for
clothes to be brought to us, and what rooms we would be staying in at the
hospital, that only later did she notice the pain in her head. The doctor was
shocked to see she also had a gash, and she was quickly stitched up, just like
Malou, May, and myself.

Mia, however, would not speak for the rest of the day. When I asked her days
after the explosion if she remembered what happened, she nodded, and told me the most incredible thing I have ever heard.

She had been asking me about a “white thing” she saw in the blast. I told
her it was probably the wall of the building falling down. She seemed
unsatisfied with my answer, and kept asking me what was the white thing she saw in the “booming” as she called the explosion. Mia was only 2 years old, the
youngest survivor of the explosion.

Finally after 3 days of asking, I realized she must have seen something that
bothered her, so I asked her, “Mia, what WAS the white thing you saw in the
booming?”

She answered me, “You know, Mama.”

I asked her if the white thing was A THING. She shook her head no. I asked
her if the white thing was a person. She nodded.

I asked her if she knew the person she saw. She said yes. She said he was a
boy. A big boy.

I asked, “Like your Kuya (older brother)?”

“No Mama. Bigger.”

“Like your Papa?”

“No Mama. Bigger.”

I asked, “Like Uncle RJ?”

“No Mama. He was..(and she looked up to the sky and lifted her hand above
her head) HE WAS BIG.”

She then told me that when the booming happened, the white boy appeared,
standing on her book. She was not afraid of him. He was as tall as the
building, all white, white hair, white face, white clothes. He spoke to her.
He said to her, “I love you much too” and kissed her face, where she was
bleeding. She said he proceeded to kiss Ate May, Ate Malou, Kuya Rafa, Abuela, then kissed Mama on the head so she could wake up. Then, she said Mama got up, and we walked out of Glorietta.


I did not say anything. I just listened, and over the next several days, Mia,
you gave me more details about your friend at the blast. Your aunties said you
had seen an angel. It was starting to hit me hard. The six of us could have
died. We had actually lived through an explosion. While others had lost their
lives, or were severely injured, all six of us had been saved, perhaps by an
angel . It was too much for me to take in. My mother, my children, my two
trusted helpers. We had all been saved.

In my prayers, I have asked Jesus why this terrible thing happened. Why did
innocent people have to suffer? His answer to me was gentle but firm.
“Good people get hurt because there is still evil in this world. But do not
despair. Know that I am with you always, I shield you from harm. I keep you
safe in My arms. You are spared so you can go out into the world and tell
others how much I love you, how much I want you to be with Me in heaven.”

I have been asked why I am not bitter. Why do I not sue Ayala, or hate the
people involved with the explosion? Well, it is very hard to be bitter when I
feel so blessed. When this happened, it was tragic, awful, horrendous, but it
was also a miracle. In the moments, days, months that passed, I felt the love
of so many people - family, friends, even strangers who rushed to our side, who
took care of us. I remember clearly the next day, after Mia’s operation, when
she and Rafa were napping, how my mother-in-law quietly brushed out my hair, the hair that had been chopped for my stitches. She held me gently, taking out the debris, dirt, and dried blood still on my head. I remember how my brother
stayed by my side while I waited for Mia to come out of the OR. How I cried on
his shoulder when I was too weary to be brave. I remember how my father prayed
every night over the children, how my mother quietly listened every time I
needed to talk to someone about that day. I remember how my husband held us close to him each night, thanking God for giving us another day together. I remember friends who called, texted, and sent gifts to the children and the yayas (nannies) in the hospital. I may not remember what happened at the explosion, but I remember all these things. These are the things that count. These are the things I want to share with you. So that you will remember. You are loved.

Love,
Mama