Mahal kong Gigi, Ibang iba talaga ang dating kapag ang napapasalangit ay isa sa ating mga mahal sa buhay. Ang paglisan ni Ate Puput sa mundong ito ay lagi nating bitbit sa kaibuturan ng ating puso, lalong lalo na sa mga taong nakilala siya at napamahal sa kanya at namahal din ni Ate Puput. My most heartfelt condolences for your loss especially if the loss is someone who’s been a part of you and would always be. My community and I would always remember you and your family in our prayers and in a very special way, Ate Puput that she may immediately be in God’s company enjoying His presence and experiencing eternal Peace and Rest. The lost of a loved one is certainly an experience of great suffering, a great psychological and emotional pain that only time can heal slowly within a long period. . . Many have often asked when tragedy happens and innocent people die: "Where is God in this moment?" Then I remember that once there was a Lutheran pastor and theologian. His name was Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He was an anti-Nazi dissident who was eventually caught by the Gestapo. He wrote many beautiful writings on the role of Christianity in our secular world which have become greatly important in our secular world - but in one instance, a co-prisoner was incontrollable as they both witnessed a 6-year old child about to be hanged. This prisoner questioned, "But that boy is innocent - where is God in all of this???" Bonhoeffer turned to him and said, "God is right here - and right there in that image of the boy being put to death." I wanted to tell you about this little story - that our all loving and almighty God is certainly one who has the power to put an end to many of our problems, but mostly, this is the same God who watches and continues to love us from where He is, even through suffering. There is always a plan of love behind all of this. Now that Ate Puput is right there where God is - I have no need to tell her. She knows and will surely continue to live and pray for us in heaven. Humanity has often times asked God, why we all have to suffer while on earth .....answers were more of a mystery rather than something concrete that could help each and everyone of us ease the pain. Then I remember something that consoled me when I lost both my mom and dad in a period of 21 days in 2001 when the founder and president of the Work of Mary (ecclesiastical name of Focolare Movement), Ms Chiara Lubich once said: “There are two secrets in life: Love and Suffering. Suffering is the way we could love God and Love is the way that God loves us. Why is it that notwithstanding the great difference of Love and Suffering, they seemed to be the same. . .because in heaven, Love and Suffering would be in their perfect state and therefore only Pure Love remains. . .Suffering is simply gone!!!” So I translated these words this way: “God could have saved the world in a million ways, with a gaze, a smile, a gesture, a word, no, He had to send us His Only Beloved Son to save us, saving us meant that His Only Son had to suffer and die for us. If God used Suffering and Death as a means for our Salvation, meant that Suffering is really an important part of life: human and divine, perhaps because Suffering here on earth would mean the highest peak of Love that God can love us. When Jesus on the cross shouted: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?", these were words full of mystery because how can Jesus, God Himself, be forsaken or abandoned by God whom He Himself contained within Him and is Him. . .then I realised as a man, as a God incarnated as a human being, Jesus gave us His maximum Love by experiencing even this sort of Forsakeness or Abandonment from God. It is in this height and peak of Suffering that God, Jesus, loved us most. With your permission, I may say then that with your love (you and your brothers and sisters) to Ate Puput almost to the point of abandonment as I knew at times that there were very difficult moments that you all seemed not anymore to bear and yet you got over it and did your part to the fullest, not because to portray your duties as her brothers and sisters but to give Ate Puput back the love that seemed to be almost "missing from God" from what had happened through her illness. My dear Gigi, I firmly believe that your Sufferings and Pain and that of Ate Puput were never in vain. God took and accepted them and they are now being transformed and translated into something Divine, Wonderful and Fantastic that would be ready when you'll be re-united again together someday. In human terms, I can imagine that you'll have the best suite and home up there as your Ate Puput is now preparing a great place for you all. In the meantime, I and my community will continue to pray for you and for your family that you'll discover God's love and care in all the adversities you encountered and would encounter in life. Always remember that you're never alone. In these impossible, difficult moments are where God is more present. All my unity, love and prayers for all that is close to your heart, Robert Samson