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MYRA V. LOPEZ, my eldest child and eldest daughter, died 9 in the
morning of Saturday (US Pacific Time) March 29, 2008, at the John
Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek, California. She was 37, half
the life expectancy of a growing number of Filipinos.
Myra died apparently after a massive brain
hemorrhage and blood clots causing her to fall into a coma, stop
breathing and died. She had a two-inch blood at the brain stem which
connects the brain to the spinal cord.
She was the chairman of the board of BizNewsAsia,
my weekly business and news magazine, and was a hardworking sales
rep of AAA in California. She emigrated to California in early 2000s
and was due to become an American citizen this year. In Manila, she
founded and managed an events planner company.
She fell ill after having lunch on Friday noon
(California time) at a Chinese restaurant across her California
Automobile Association (AAA) insurance office at Emeryville,
California. Back in the office, she looked pale, shouted in pain,
and lost consciousness. She was rushed to a hospital and was revived
with tubes inserted into her for artificial breathing. A few days
before that, she was complaining of severe headache but refused to
see a doctor.
Myra’s body will be brought to Manila by her
mother (Gloria, from whom I have been separated for 20 years)
possibly this Sunday, April 6, on a Philippine Airlines flight from
San Francisco. The wake will be at the Mount Carmel Church in Quezon
City. Burial will be at the Manila Memorial Park at a date to be
announced later.
Please offer prayers for my daughter. Please
omit flowers. If you must send flowers, offer a donation instead to
the Myra V. Lopez Scholarship Fund created in her honor to finance
studies in journalism and entrepreneurship.
Myra finished AB Communication Arts (1992) and
MBA, both at Ateneo de Manila University. She finished high school
at De La Salle Zobel in Alabang and elementary schooling at
Benedictine Abbey Alabang.
She was a kind, gentle and happy soul. I am sure
she is happy where she is in the company of loved ones who had
earlier departed.
She is survived by her siblings, Ivy, a lawyer;
Ranel, a director of BNA, Noreen and Ciara, both entrepreneurs. Myra
taught me the meaning of responsibility. I married early and so I
had to nurture a family early. She was a very responsible child,
very organized, and very intense. She took care of me when I
collapsed from exhaustion and was hospitalized. A couple of weeks
before she died, Myra texted me what I wanted for her to send me
without putting too much burden on the courier. I said iPods. She
bought those.
She also asked my daughter Ciara what gifts she
wanted for her big event this year. Apparently she sent that, too.
She even had the foresight to donate her organs. One consolation is
that Myra has quit the rat race. But for me, the pain is deep and
will last forever. I have buried my father (who died in 1973), my
mother (who died in 1975), and a brother, Ely (who died in January
2006). Burying a child, your own flesh and blood, is to me the most
difficult and painful of all deaths.
biznewsasia@gmail.com
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