SONIA

Francisco Icasiano

SHE FOLDED her hands upon her bosom, this four-year child of mine, and as her
breathing became more labored, prayed as I led her: “Jesus, You love little children; help
me!” That was at midnight on November 28, 1932. A few minute later, she had joined the
angels, and left us in anguish that numbed all feeling.

But I have since risen from the depths to which Sonia’s death crushed me, and
phoenixlike, have left my dead ashes, to sing the charms that the death of one so dearly
loved can bring to the soul. I have known the darkness of occasional brooding; but I would
dwell most upon a struggle with sorrow that has sweetened my nature, which, otherwise,
would have been stultified by the pain.

Pain, I have realized, is beautiful only when one rise from its depressing power. I
have known people who have become bitter and cynical under the lash of sorrow; and I
have known some who never recovered from anguish. My experience is important only
so far as it may help others towards growth; it is worthless to me if it imply vanity.

Sonia is, to me, as a fairy-tale half told or a lyric half lost in fancy, a delicate melody
unsung. Had she grown into full womanhood, she might have become an intellectual; for
she was deliberate and clear-cut in her language, precise in her reasoning, and keen in
sensing nuances which mature minds about her could not appreciate; then, I should have
remembered her as a reason grown into wit and perhaps into philosophy, but the
impression of a fairyland would have been forever lost, the glamour of its poetry never
felt even in vague suggestions, and the delicate melodies never perceived. As a friend
suggested to me when grief was most oppressive. “You shall always remember her as a
child.” How beautiful I felt it was! What beautiful things a man perceives in sorrow! What
keen and living poetry! For nothing but poetry could give such a feeling. In such a moment,
reason would have destroyed me with consummate triumph; for if I had tried to explain
why God had snatched away from me the things I loved best in life, I would have allowed
reason to rob me a reason. But poetry in all her magnificence came sailing behind the
somber shape of sorrow to show me the way to a more beautiful, more full, and more
nearly perfect life. Sonia shall always live in my memory as a child who wonders why the
stars shine in the sky and the rain drops from heaven and the grass grows on the wayside;
as a child who finds all things pure and true in her innocent eyes. I shall look in those
eyes and see much confidence and faith, when I feel that I am losing my own faith and
confidence. I shall draw from my memory of her a child’s enthusiasm for life, when my
heart is heavy and my eyes are dim with age. This is my ideal: to see the whole life with
a mind mellowed by age, through a heart forever young- wise and happy!

Days before she died, I had a premonition of her death; but I dismissed it, consoling
myself the thought that if such a thing should come to pas – heaven forbid – I should
perhaps be rewarded by becoming a true, sincere, and humble artist through the suffering
that would come form such shocking experience. For the first time in my life, the idea of
becoming an artist suddenly lost all its charms. I would rather remain obscure than love
my greatest masterpiece, wrought in my own blood, and polished by the greatest love
that I was capable of giving. Like the reeds in the river, I would rather keep my leaves and
flowers that he cut up by the great god Pan into a flute. The modest melody of the wind
was enough for me as I bent rhythmically with its blowing; I would refuse the greater
melody of art, that exacts so much.

But when her hour came and the blade of death cleaved through my heart, I felt
as if I, too had died, and a new soul had emerge, more beautiful, because cleansed of all
bitterness. How true it is, as poor Oscar Wildre wrote, that “Pleasure is for the beautiful
body, but pain for the beautiful soul. “But what costly knowledge this is! Experience has
indeed taken away more than it has been able to give.

It has suddenly occurred to me that the real artist is measured by his ability to
utilize misfortune in recreating the soul. I say “recreating”, because art is the recreation
of life and experience, into that which best soothes and ennobles the soul. If a man with
any artistic pretensions allows sorrow to destroy him, he is a mere artisan, incapable of
producing anything of worth; for, the first thing an artist must recreate, before true art can
be realized, in his own soul.

Moreover, sorrow must crush, ere it can reshape the main in a man mold of glory.
The need must have been cut to pieces, and holes bored through it, before it can have
produced such magic melodies that at their sound’

The sun on the hill forgot to die

And the lilies revived, and the dragonfly
Came back to dream on the river.

Before an artist can sweetly harrow the hearts of others, his own must have bled.
There is a story told of an ambitious singer who thought he would sing for the grand opera.
He sang before a celebrated maestro who, in the middle of an aria from Rigoletto,
thundered out, “Enough! Enough! This will never do. Your heart has not been broken!”

In De Profundis, Oscar Wilde made the following analysis of sorrow in its bearings
upon art:

“Truth in art is the unity of a thing with itself: the outward rendered expressive of
the inward: the soul made incarnate: the body instinct with spirit. For this reason there is
no truth comparable to sorrow. There are times when sorrow seems to me to be the only
truth. Other things may be illusions of the eye o the appetite, made to blind the one and
cloy the other but out of sorrow have the words been built, and the birth of a child or a
star there is pain.”

Indeed, was it not Zeus’ head split open with an axe that Athene might spring full
grown from it?
 Besides sorrow’s power of giving birth to art, there is another blessing which must
come, with all art and all suffering. It is a way of thinking that solidifies and satisfies,
becomes profound and permanent; a real philosophy of life that grows in life and is,
therefore, a creation, an art in itself and not the mere adoption of some powerful, second-
hand outlook that proves worthless when put to the test.

Feeling that the lower forms of logic would be useless to me at the time of my
deepest sorrow, I approached life by the highest route, through “the deepest experience
– religion. Early the next morning after Sonia’s death, God’s hand rested upon my
shoulders. On previous occasions, the mere suggestion of her death would drive me into
imagining a sudden flight to some distant land, I knew not where, for an obscure place
where I might forget or die. But the morning, I felt strangely calm. Not the remotest shade
of thought about running away from my sorrowing family. Goethe’s lines –

Who never ate this bread in sorrow,

Who never spent the midnight hours-
Weeping and waiting for the morrow, -
He knows you not, Ye heavenly Powers

lived in my memory. I had eaten my bread in sorrow. I had passed the night
weeping and watching for a more bitter dawn, and I felt the touch of the Spirit upon my
being.

I went to the church of St. Ignatius in Intramuros were, humbled by sorrow, I sought
the Lord’s forgiveness at the confessional. I offered up my Sonia, and also my two other
boys, and even my own life He desired to take back His own. The pagan protest that was
surging in my bosom, I painfully quelled.

It is difficult to give up things we hold dear on earth. But when Sonia, whom I loved
best, had given up, to what could I not be resigned? I felt that I had grown generous even
to magnanimity. I had ceased to find difficulty in giving up my pride, and I was humbled; I
had ceased to fear for my future, and I was no longer vain – I gave up all silly notions of
fame and I become myself.

But what is better, I was born to agree her realization of truth, a fuller feeling of
freshness – my new philosophy doubtless has given me a new sense of values. The
things I had held dear, in common with other people, I discovered to be glittering tinsel
and hollowness. We find ourselves only after we have lost everything we hold dear in our
temporal habitation: we find our soul after we have divested ourselves of all the flummery
of the flesh. For, indeed, how can we find our souls when we are wrapped up in matter,
so that we cannot give a step, or put out a hand, or lift up our eyes, but material things
are all about us, following us even to our dreams. People say something pleasant to us,
and though it be but “hot air”, it is enough to puff us up. We would feed our souls upon
vanity and know not it is Barmecide’s feast. Could we but we strip ourselves of pride and
vanity, things would fall back into their proper places and we should see the hidden
harmony of creation, and pierce through the things that alone are seem of the world to
those that are unseen, setting no store by these fascinating shadows, even before the
time when they crumble away and vanish into naught, as all worldly things must, soon or
later.

The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon

Turn ashes – or it prospers; and anon
Like Snow upon the Desert’s dusky Face,
Lighting a little hour or two – was gone.

The climax in this grand ascent of sorrow is the perception of Reality when in
moments of devastating grief, my being seemed consumed, I tried to deceive myself by
pretending that it was all a dream and I would wake up to find Sonia’s death a mere fancy;
the force illusion would always vanish and a newer, more vivid, more convincing, more
permanent if painful; realization would reveal to me that the whole of human experience
this side of Eternity is nothing but a dream which, with death, finally comes to an
awakening to the only Reality intended by the Marker of Life. I am convinced that life in
this temporary habitation is a vague and miserable dream, a nightmare in which the
dreamer is driven from one pain to another, now frightened by life, now terrified by the
thought of death; until one realizes that there is in this nightmare a symbol of Reality that
is coming with the dawn and the awakening.

This realization of the Reality must make a real artist of a man. Broken with pain,
the soul dies to be reborn, stronger and more beautiful; enriched and ennobled by sorrow,
the artist in the man rises above himself; shorn of all fineries and pettiness, - all non-
essential, in a word, - the artist flows naturally towards the Infinite whither all artistic effort
must be directed.

Thither must I direct my art. Art to me has ceased to be artful and artificial. It has
become the natural life of the soul, it is the voice of my soul crying out to Heaven for a
vision of Sonia, pleading for a final communion with her. I shall remove everything about
me. When the last word is written and my hands drops limp and lifeless by my side, I hope
to hear the gentle patter of little feet and feel the tender touch of little hands around my
neck.

Sonia…
Name: ___________________________________________ Score: _______________
Course: ________________________________ Professor: ______________________

I. Testing One’s Word Power

Choose from the words enclosed in the parentheses the best meaning of the
italicized words. Write the answer before the number.

__________ 1. recovered from anguish (agony, pain, difficulty)

__________ 2. cleaved through the heart (cleaned, clung, etched)
__________ 3. premonition of her death (future event, notion, forewarning)
__________ 4. remain obscure (offensive, humble, inconspicuous)
__________ 5. the reed must have been cut (tall grass, tall plants, tall trellis)
__________ 6. harrow the hearts of others (to break, to harass, to court)
__________ 7. grown generous event to magnanimity (celebrity, sainthood, nobility)
__________ 8. ennobled by sorrow (exalted, drained, cleansed)
__________ 9. crumble away (to break in small pieces, to go away, to vanish)
__________ 10. becomes profound and permanent (deep, profuse, superficial)

II. Checking One’s Understanding

Answer the following questions.

1. What mood is created in the opening paragraph?
2. Who is Sonia in the essay?
3. What did the author do during his deepest sorrow? Would you have done the
same? Justify your answer.
4. How was the author able to accept the death of his daughter? Read the part
of the story that supports your answer.
5. Explain the following lines:
a. “Pleasure is for beautiful body, but pain for the beautiful soul.”
b. “It is difficult to give up the things we hold dear on earth.”
c. “We find ourselves only after we have lost everything we hold dear in
our temporal habitation.”
6. Compare the view of the author towards the art before and after Sonia’s death.
7. What human truth about sorrow and resignation is revealed in this essay?

III. Enrichment Activity

Have you experienced losing somebody or something you loved very dearly?
How did the experience change your life? Write a composition about it and read it
before your classmates.