On this day 29 years ago, a devastating earthquake struck the city of Baguio. With a moment magnitude of 7.7, it was one of the most destructive natural disasters in Philippine history, and many believed that the country's tourist capital would never bounce back from the massive, widespread damage.
29 years later, Baguio is still the Summer Capital of the Philippines. It has bounced back - and then some - from the trauma of the past, and continues to move forward into the future.
In the context of life, Baguio has a lesson to teach all of us. We all go through upheavals - the death of a loved one, a health crisis, major issues at work, instability in the world around us - and some upheavals cause so much damage, so much grief, and trauma so intense that we doubt if we can rise up from it and start over.
But we do.
We rise up. We take the blows to our bodies, to our souls, to our minds, but we rise up, and bounce back, and shine through no matter how hard others may try to knock us down or destroy us.
Like that northern city broken by earthquake and a lack of faith from others, we will rebuild ourselves from the shambles. We may be wounded and scarred and not quite the same people that we used to be, but we can be better than we were, stronger, a little braver, certainly kinder because we know what it's like to be laid low.
If a city can survive a killer quake, rise up, and rebuild itself, then so can we emerge from the pain and the sorrow and the bewilderment we find ourselves in.
And we emerge brighter, bolder, better.
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