CHRISTMAS 2019

It's the second Christmas that my family were not together. My sister and her family spent their noche buena at my brother's in law family, then went home to Lipa (where they live) this morning to spend Christmas day while my Papa is currently living in Ilo-Ilo together with my Grandma.

Before I slept last night, I was able to talk to my father to greet him. I woke up late today and got overwhelmed by the news I read from twitter that the Northern part of Ilo-ilo were already submerged in water. I called my father immediately to check on them and got my heart broken hearing the recorded "subscriber can't be reached". I was terrified by the uncontrollable thoughts after the reality hit me. We have no way to confirm their status except the dreaded update from twitter.

A devastating Christmas for my Father and the rest of our clan as they are hit by #UrsulaPH. We can't do anything but wait and pray. At around 1 o'clock in the afternoon, our landline rang and my heart skipped a beat. I urgently got up from our bed and walked towards the phone. It took 3 rings before I was able to answer it. I said hello and what I heard from the other line was a long, silent sound. I was thinking maybe another wrong number. I was about to put down the phone when I heard my father's voice call my name. I was overwhelmed with so much joy hearing him. I immediately bombarded him with so many questions but my father answered me to hang up the phone as the reception was bad and requested that I call him again after a few minutes.

I happily called my Mama from upstairs and told her that Papa called. I asked her to go down so we could call him back. They talked and we found out that they were evacuated this morning due to a flash flood. The water subsided by afternoon and they were allowed to go home to clean up the mess Ursula left. Everyone was OK except one of our dogs (George) who was still not at home. He followed my uncle when he left this morning to help others to rescue other people in the area. We refuse to think anything bad and just pray that he's ok and will be home later today.

Half of our rice fields were ruined by floods. Most of our belongings were submerged in water and mud. My family and the rest of the people who were lambasted by typhoon Ursula are going to spend Christmas day picking the pieces of all the broken parts of their lives. Please pray for us.