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by Chin Chin Gutierrez

Tragedy can happen to anyone, rich or poor, to a celebrity or a private individual. But grace can happen to anyone too. In what seems to be a test, a trial or a tribulation, one could recognize grace. And this can be done with a deep sense of gratitude.

I learned that we need not suffer anything to distract or draw us away from knowing that each of us is a child of God: a loving being in a loving world. I wouldn’t say this with utmost urgency and importance if it was just simpler said than done. God’s love is the very anchor of grace and gratitude in this journey and one doesn’t need a tragic experience to know the joy that comes with living this truth.

I saw the fire that razed our house two years ago this month as a grace, for beyond what I know and truly accept, life took away what was no longer necessary. And this may perhaps be for the good of all. Yes, this is not just my story and not just about me.

When I was a little girl, my grandmother and I used to spend time putting together those jigsaw puzzles that had a thousand pieces. It was always so difficult to begin with, all those colors and shapes scattered around. Lola Nena would always say, “Be patient, let’s have fun… Start with the corners. Look for all the ones with a flat side so we could create the frame and see the size of the picture of the puzzle.”

But then soon after the frame was done, I’d start getting confused. “That’s why it is called a puzzle”, Lola would chuckle, “but if you look at what colors are similar and find the clues of the guide picture in each perfect piece, that would help you see that no two pieces are alike.”

What she told me made me feel that every piece of the puzzle was so special and perfect, and I valued the joy of finding even just three clusters of pieces to join together for along with a beautiful picture in the making was a beautiful soul sitting right beside me — with whom I would laugh and sing in awe at what we would find next, on whose lap I would lay while she told stories, and through whose eyes I would see the loving gaze of God.

Each of us is a special and perfect piece of this puzzle called life. Life is beautiful. And I’ve learned that we can see how we could all fit together in accordance with the beautiful vision that God has already given to us as we look at this picture through the eyes of God’s love. To see Creation through the heart of our Creator which is love… and compassion.

In this light, I cannot really say I’m going through a recovery stage because I truly recognize that I’m already “covered”. It may seem idealistic or impossible to respond in this way but with what I went through, I could sincerely witness that when we lose everything that we seemingly have become accustomed to having, we realize what life is not about.

It is not about picking up the pieces after the fire, but looking at the pieces and making them count.

What I have or the condition I’m in today is not about what is missing or broken, but rather what is falling into place — with no demands, no expectations, no judgments. What is in my hands, in our hands, is to strive to make it good for one another in all ways — to be all for all, whether it be through conversing, doing errands, choosing an eco-friendly product or making a lifelong commitment.

In a materialistic mindset, we are made to believe that we have to be responsible for getting many things and forgetting others. Instead of knowing what is enough, we count what we have and focus on having more, instead of counting who we are to each other and focusing on what we are born to give.

In a reversal of roles, actress/singer Chin-Chin Gutierrez gets to care for her mother Cecilia as the latter is plagued by chronic illness in her final years. Photo taken by Martin Arnaldo

Whenever I’m asked how I feel about losing my home, I always respond by saying I only lost a house, not my home. I saved my mother by grace, and her womb is my first home.

I spent nearly the whole year of 2007 in the process of publishing my mother’s manuscript — the story of her soul’s journey — which she had begun to write years ago and handed over for editing and publishing in 2003. By that time, the effects of a chronic illness had started to set in. She had wanted to bequeath the book to her children as a lasting gift.

Three years later, when I found out about the manuscript, I decided to publish Mama’s book, Fingerprint of an Angel: Golden Secrets of Eternal Love, to fulfill her wishes and mostly because I believed the Inspiration that guided her to write these words of love and gratitude within a time of despair and desolation due to her illness is truly a gift from God which she was born to give.

A few days after I had turned over the manuscript for editing, the fire happened — December 20, 2006 — and so it is the only memory of her, literally and figuratively her fingerprint, which didn’t perish.

From time to time, I would be brought back to the experience of the last years of my mother and the fire that gutted down our house and all our belongings. Yet I see it as a process of grace, being able to look back and to discover what it is that kept me afloat, and what gave me the priceless gift of gratitude.

Mama was hungry and thirsty, but she could no longer swallow and had to be fed through a tube piercing through her stomach. Mama wanted to visit people and places she loved dearly but her body could not move, not even to cry out for help if she needed to during the fire. In the hospital, I wasn’t allowed to visit her in the ICU because I was prone to infection due to the second degree burns that needed yet to heal. She was literally stripped off of everything and of everyone; one could say my mother, who was a former nun, fulfilled her vows of obedience, chastity and poverty — in the end!

Only the Companion of the soul carried us through the fiery holocaust into the sanctifying grace of deliverance; the Christ brought us truly home to the spirit of Christmas. One may say Christmas and New Year in a hospital is sad. But wasn’t the sweet Jesus of Christmas born in a stable?

We were broken to the bones of our souls.

Yet by grace, it is through knowing and being conscious of who we are as soulful companions for each other that reveals the eternal love between a mother and her child. We are unified by love. This is what kept us from falling into despair and encouraged us to keep seeking life and responding in whatever way we could to sustain living in gratitude.

As Mama Cecilia wrote in her book:

“Every soul is tried and tested in fire in order to be purified and refined, ready for the Master’s use.”

Today, I continue to watch, pray and rebuild the household of God’s peace together with whomever God sends and wherever He sends me — whether entering a role in a television soap opera to inspire the human experience of hope, love and truth, or to share thoughts and experiences with communities about ecological awareness towards bringing back the integrity of creation. I am also designing “developmentally” what I pray could become a “nature house” with our own naturally grown vegetables and fruits, and where we implement zero-waste management and collect rainfall to save water, among other ecological practices.

This Christmas, may we all remember with gratitude what we are born to give and find true joy and true peace in fulfilling our special sacred role in co-creating heaven on earth for one another, unified by the grace and love of God.