Proof of paternal love

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor GUILLERMO TEJIDA III Desk Editor NANETTE L. GUADALQUIVER Busines Editor NIDA A. BUENAFE Sports Editor RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

A very heart-rending story came out in almost every national daily yesterday. It was about the complete sacrifice made by a man for his family during a fire that hit their residence in Binondo, Manila before dawn Monday.

Jimmy Yu Sr., 40, and his household were asleep when the fire broke out at the ground floor of the building they were occupying. Despite his rude awakening, Yu managed to save his wife, as well as his three other children by going back and forth into the burning building to rescue them.

However, the fire had become a raging inferno when he went back for his eldest son, 12-year-old Jimboy, probably his namesake, too. It was to be his last foray into the burning building. Firefighters later found their bodies – Jimmy Sr. and Jimboy – clasping each other tightly, after they had been suffocated by the thick smoke and, in Jimmy’s case, probably by his extreme fatigue and injuries after his earlier dashes into the flaming quarters.

A very famous and classic story tells about the sacrifice made by a man who exchanged places with a condemned friend. The most often quoted sentence from the story is about there being no love greater than that of one who gives up his life for a friend. In the case of Jimmy Yu, no sacrifice was too great to make for his family, his loved ones, without whom life would have no meaning, anyway.

So often these days we hear about parents who neglect their children, who give more of their attention to making money on the excuse that they are working themselves to death so their children could enjoy material benefits. They burn themselves out, and forget that what is most important is their care and guidance, the lack of which could lead their children into undesirable habits or practices that they can no longer prevent, much less stop. Then they ask themselves where they had gone wrong in raising their children.

Not all fathers will be called upon to make the supreme sacrifice to prove their love as Jimmy Yu had done. But, while their offspring are young, they could still do something to save them from a fate worse than being burned alive.*