The weight parents never expected

By Herman M. Lagon

Some news stories pass quickly. You know the kind of story. You read it once and cannot quite shake it afterward. This is that kind of story.

A son leaves home to chase an opportunity. His family celebrates. His teachers are hopeful. His coaches see a bright future ahead. Everyone assumes there will be more tomorrows. There usually are. But not always.

That painful reality sits at the heart of the deaths of Ateneo de Manila University student-athletes Rene Clert Baterbonia and Divine Adili. This is not really about basketball. Not anymore.

It is about families. It is about futures that suddenly stopped. And it is about the painful emptiness left behind when a child does not come home.

What struck me most was not the noise on social media. It was the parents.

A mother from Mindanao trying to understand how a son she entrusted to a university could be gone so suddenly. A family in Nigeria waiting not for a graduation photo or a championship update, but for the return of a son they never expected to lose.

No parent wakes up prepared for that conversation.

For many of us, Rene’s story feels familiar because it mirrors countless stories across the country. Maybe not the basketball part. But the sacrifice behind it.

We know parents who work overtime so a child can stay in school. We know mothers who quietly skip things they need so their children can have what they need. We know fathers who tell everyone they are fine even when they are carrying worries nobody sees.

When a child leaves for college, especially far from home, an entire family leaves with him in spirit. The hopes go too. The prayers go too. The dreams go too.

Rene carried more than athletic talent. He carried years of sacrifice, faith, and expectation. Like many young people from the provinces, he represented possibility. The belief that life could become a little better through education, discipline, and opportunity.

The same can be said of Divine Adili. Imagine being a parent and allowing your child to cross oceans to study in another country. That decision requires trust. It requires courage. It requires hope. Now, somewhere in Nigeria, a family is carrying a grief that words can barely hold.

That reality alone should remind us to be careful with our judgments.

Many people have already chosen sides. Some are defending. Others are accusing. But the truth is that most of us still know very little.

Investigations exist for a reason. Facts matter. Evidence matters. Truth matters. And ultimately, justice matters most.

What we know for certain is simple and heartbreaking: two young men are gone. That fact should make all of us a little quieter. A little kinder. A little slower to rush toward conclusions.

Team-building activities are not unusual. Schools, sports programs, and organizations conduct them all the time. They are meant to build trust, friendship, and resilience. The question is not whether they should exist. The question is whether every reasonable precaution was taken.

That is what the investigations must answer. And the families deserve those answers.

To its credit, Ateneo has stepped in with support, counseling, and a commitment to help uncover the truth. Those actions cannot erase grief. Nothing can. But they do matter.

In time, reports will be released. Findings will emerge. Difficult questions will be answered. That process is necessary. Yet amid all the investigations and statements, I hope we do not lose sight of something painfully simple.

In time, schools recover. Organizations recover. Teams recover. Yet families do not recover in quite the same way. They learn to live with loss. There is a difference.

For the Baterbonia family, there will always be an empty chair during gatherings. A birthday that feels incomplete. A future imagined but never lived. For Divine’s family, he will always be the son who left home with dreams and never returned the way they imagined.

Before the investigations, there were simply parents letting their children chase a future. And like countless parents, they probably said the same words many of us have heard all our lives:

“Mag-amping.” “Ingat.” Take care.

We hear it every day. At school gates. At airports. At bus terminals. At front doors. Most parents do not remember every conversation they have with their children. But they almost always remember the last one.

Perhaps that is why this tragedy hurts so deeply. The facts must come out. The questions must be answered. Accountability, if warranted, must follow. But before all of that, there is a quieter truth. Two families woke up expecting a future that included their sons.

Now they wake up learning how to live without them. The headlines will fade. The hashtags will disappear. The news cycle will move on. Their grief will not. And that may be the hardest truth of all.

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Doc H fondly describes himself as a “student of and for life” who, like many others, aspires to a life-giving and why-driven world grounded in social justice and the pursuit of happiness. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions he is employed or connected with.