Echozone
Answering a grieving grandmother's call
I am taking this time out to attend to the touching letter, a call for support and prayers we got from the mail. While it certainly has news-value, the sender being the mother and grandmother of three massacre victims, the letter when read even by a harried one like me (and hurriedly, too) certainly evokes more. I had to reproach my own self thereafter - how can I even think 'news-value'?
Meet Rosalinda Garcia Zayco, sender of "Letter from a grieving grandmother" that saw print here at The News Today (March 1, 2006 issue). I had to check in our website for the online version, my hard copy of that particular issue nowhere to be found. For the past couple of nights I had this nagging thought and feeling of a "must-do-something" with regards to that letter. Write an article maybe? Nah. Bad taste. Plus, that was not what she most probably wanted. Say a private prayer? Yeah. That will certainly help. Yet there's more. She did say pass it, on for prayers is their only hope and us out there, her family's only chance.
So I heed that call as I write this piece in reply with this most sincere of wishes - may the Zaycos most especially Cindy's mother and the grieving grandmother in her continue to hold on. Cindy was a schoolmate back in college, my friends, hers as well, in the years she spent at the West Visayas State University. Her violent death hard to comprehend even in the hundreds of violent stories I have had encountered. Her senseless death harder to write and hardest to report not only because this time there is a recollection of that face in my 'pre-news life'. But more so because of the greater tragedy - five other children orphaned, two other stepsons now charged of murder and parricide.
Yet I write and heed Mrs. Zayco's call for support as I share these thoughts -- take comfort in the promise that God will make a way even when there seems to be no way. As that one "Praise song" goes, in mercy ways, we cannot see, God will make the way. He will be The guide. With love and grace for each new day, He will make a way.
Take comfort for God never really says no. Maybe for now when the hurt is still profound and the pain most intense, God just have to say 'not yet.' So to the Zaycos I say, with the support of your family and friends, prayers of each and every decent person touched by the tragedy and angered by the senselessness of Cindy's violent death and Bobby and Kathy, one day soon you will hear God's sweet answer of "yes."
Surrender all to God. And allow Him to do the rest. Meanwhile, know that I, my children Karl and Clarence are keeping you in our prayers as in their behalf I extend our most heartfelt in sympathy to you and the entire Zayco Family. One day soon. That is the promise that God, Who I agree, is a just God will deliver. The 'physical' Cindy and your son in Bobby and grand daughter in Kathy will not be here only because they are in a better world where no one can hurt them anymore. Yet in every new day for you and the Zaycos, Cindy is really there.
Back in College, Cindy stands out because while she was truly beautiful, angelic is really the more appropriate of word, she was never really 'intimidating' about it. She carried herself with a ready smile to anybody. When I told a friend now in New Jersey, USA about the tragedy, Selah Malundo-LaBarbera who was also a former classmate of Cindy came back with a reply that many have already said - "who could do such horrible thing to anybody much more to a defenseless 5 year-old? Really sad what greed for money can do."
We would never understand what went on the minds of Cindy, Bobby and Kathy's killers. We can only find solace in the fact that imperfect our lives maybe, at least it is not in our midst that these evil minds with evil in intentions stay.
I share your grief in losing a daughter, another son in Bobby and grand daughter in Kathy. And you just have to go on being the mother, father, grand mother, strength and provider to the five other children they left.
In your daughter's memory shall be etched your humble call for prayers, support and strength. I am just one who has answered such call.