When a caterpillar dies, a butterfly emerges.

When a caterpillar dies, a butterfly emerges. When one career ends, a new career emerges. The story of Nydia illustrates the resiliency of a human being.

A Happy Dancer

Nydia was a dancer since she was born.  Her mom told her that she danced in mommy' tummy whenever her brothers played drums.  Her two brothers were excellent drummers. Listening to the drum beats, Nydia could caliographed herself into the rhythm of the drum beats.  Nydia and her family lived on a shore of Phillipine, where the sun rise and sunset provided nature rhythm that had both nurtured and inspired her brothers to drum, and Nydia to dance with the drum rhythm.

Typhoon Changed Her Life

Their life was changed when Typhone Ellen hit Phillipine in 1959.  The wind howeled, and tsunami-like wave swept through the Phillipine shore and swept through her house and tore her house apart.  During the Typhone tormenting hour, Nydia felt something hit her head.  In a bleak moment, everything turned dark.  When she opened her eye, she found herself lay in a hospital with a big plaster cast on her legs.  Her uncle and aunt were there; but not for her dad, mom, and two brothers.

"Where are my dad, mom, and brothers? " asked the Nydia.

"Unfortunately, they were all dead;  we are lucky to find you still alive.  We sent you to a hospital right away?"  Said the uncle and the aunt.

"Am I going to be able to dance again?"  Looking worrily at plasters casted on her legs, Nydia asked.

"We hope so; however, the doctors were not as optimistic as we are."  Said the aunt and the uncle.

Nydia was so sad or she had lost her dad, her mom, and her mothers.  She also realized that she could not dance any more.  In the hospital, she ate less, and less.  As a result, she got thinner and thinner.  Her doctors were worried.  So were her aunt and uncle.  

A New Hope

One day, her uncle showed up on her hospital bed and presented her a drum.

" We managed to salvage your brothers' drums and saved this one."  Said the uncle, nd began to beat the drum with a rhythm that Nydia was familiar with, and then gave the drum to Nydia.

Nydia beamed on her face; but she was too weak to have the strength to beat the drum.

" You must eat to gain your strength back to play the drum as good as your brothers".

With 'hope' in her mind, she began to eat and gradually gained the strength back.  When she was fully recovered, she was discharged from the hospital.  However, even she was discharged, she was still in wheel chair.  The doctors told her that she would no longer dance again.  'It is quite ok; I am going to be a great drummer like my brothers."  she said.

As soon as she was discharged, she began to search a teacher for drumming: the master drummer of the village, Mr. Acosta.  When Nydia knocked on Acosta's house, Acosta opened the door and said, "Welcome, you are the smallest drummer of the class. ".   "But I would have the loudest drum beats in the class."  She replied.

Learning Drumming from a Master

Mr. Acosta was approximately in the 60's.  He had been playing drum all through his life.  Besides learning basic drumming techniques and rhythms from his teachers, he also created his own.  He had been performing all through Phillipine; sometimes went oversea to Taiwan, Korea, and Japan.  Naturally, he had many students in the class.  They were older kids; Nydia was the youngest.  But Nydia was undeterred.  She was always the first person showing up in the class, while the last person to leave. On many occasions while waiting for other students to show up, Mr. Acosta would teach Nydia special drumming technique and rhythms.  When Nydia went home, she practiced drumming hours and hours on drumming.  Nydia's was making exponential-type of progress in drumming.

Many times her teacher asked her to play a bigger drum; she always politely refused.  She said that this was the drum that my brothers played when they were alive.  This drum gave her strength and hope.

As expected, she had become the best drummer in Mr. Acosta's class.

Parade

One day, the mayor of City Imari, where both Mr. Acosta and Nydia lived, came to visited Mr. Acosta and invited Mr. Acosta to lead a city parade with a group of drummers that Mr. Acosta picked.  City of Imari was celebrating her 100 years anniversary.

Mr. Acosta hand-picked a group of drummers and rehearsed 3 times per week for three weeks.  The day before the parade, Mr. Acosta announced, " Nydia will lead the drumming with me".  This was quite a honor to Nydia for four the past 30 years when Acosta led the drumming parade, he had never asked his students to co-led the parade. Nydia was the first he asked to co-lead.  The youngest drummer who was a wheel-chair.

The parade day came; and all the drummers and other performers were gathering in front of the City Hall; but Mr. Acosta was not there.  Mr. Acosta was known to be late in every gathering; so people at the gathering patiently wait for him.  

But, after waiting 30 minutes, and the time was 15 minutes passing 12:00 PM, the Mayor  decided to proceed the parade without Mr. Acosta.  The Mayor looked around and hand-picked an a tallest male drummer to lead.  'I am the person Mr. Acosta asked me to lead', Nydia protested, and said these words firmly and assertively.  The Mayor apologized and Nydia proceeded to lead the drumming troupe.

Thus Nydia led the drumming troupe with her uncle push her as she was still on a wheel-chair.  The parade started with a steady drumming rhythm; after 10 minutes, the rhythm changed to a different pattern with a gradually increasing drumming volume.  Nydia then gave a signal for the parade to change the orinally planned route to a route that would lead to Mr. Acosta's home.  After 10 minutes, the parade came to a halt where they saw Mr. Acosta hurting under the bridge.  Mr. Acosta was riding his bike with a full speed to catch up the parade; he rode too fast and slammed into a light pole on the bridge and was throwing out the bike and felt onto a river bank.  He was painfully and severely injured.  The Mayor dispatched a medic team to quickly send Mr. Acosta to hospital.

Nydia Rescued Her Drumming Master  

When the rescue work was done, Nydia continue to lead the parade until the end.  The Mayor thanked her, and congratulated her for the successful lead of the parade.

A few weeks later, Mr. Acosta recovered.  When Nydia went back for lessons, Mr. Acosta gave her a new drum.  " I think you are at least as good as your brothers; you should try something new".

Nydia accepted the new drum with gratitude and satisfaction.  She has turned herself from a dancer to a drummer.