It is every student’s ultimate dream to graduate from college and every parent’s dream, too, as it is also their achievement. It is a milestone that no one wants to miss especially when one has faced several challenges in their journey and made it still.
Sadly, a graduating student from Camarines Sur, Ma. Isabel Garcia, wasn’t able to experience that much-awaited joyful milestone in her life after she succumbed to diabetes and kidney failure at the age of 21 on her last year in college.
Before that fateful day in September 2021 she had been diligently attending to her studies while taking care of their own mother who was suffering from breast cancer. The grieving mom passed away too in the same year, month of December.
Graduation Day
The commencement exercises of Ma. Isabel’s batch at the Camarines Sur Polytechnic Colleges got tinged with emotions after her classmates decided to have a standee of her so she could ‘graduate’ with them. They knew how much their former classmate was looking forward to this day; to finally have that degree in Bachelor of Science in Office Administration.
Ma. Isabel’s siblings, Mariela and Marvic Garcia, took her standee to the stage as their sister’s name was called. They received her diploma on her behalf.
How not to get emotional over such a scene as Ma. Isabel was known to her classmates and family as a bright, kind, industrious and thoughtful kind of person.
According to one of Isabel’s siblings, they miss their Ate so much and want to hug her. She was always a very supportive sister especially when the former joined pageants.
Hence, it is their promise to their dearly departed Ate to study well and graduate from college and to be able to give their father his own jeepney.
With a heart full of love and longing, Mariela said, “Ate, Mama, sana happy kayo sa heaven. Sana gabayan ninyo kami, si Papa, sa pagmamaneho araw-araw”.
She also wrote a poem for her Ate Isabel as shared on her Facebook wall.
Basahin ang tula para kay Isabel:
Mariela also thanked her elder sister’s classmates for making huge efforts regarding the standee. She likewise expressed gratitude to the professors of her sister as well as the universiy president, those who knew and were friends with Ma. Isabel.
*Maraming maraming salamat po sa mga kaklase ni Ate lalo na po sa pagpagawa ng life-size standee niya. Sa mga naging Professors po, mga kakilala at mga naging kaibigan niya maraming salamat po sainyo. Kay Sir Dr. Charlito P. Cadag, University President of CSPC, mula po sa aming puso, maraming salamat po.”
Indeed, it was bittersweet occasion for her classmates and family. While Ma. Isabel is no longer with them physically, in spirit they all know that she is there and appreciating all their sentiments.