My Blog

Parents

Parents

I wrote this about my parents more than two years ago. My mom has passed away just a month back, and we are still making sense of our loss. Amidst our profound sadness we find that the love she left behind warms our hearts and gives us hope. She loved us really, really well. It is my great joy that she knew how much we loved her all throughout her life, and even before she died. To my Mom, Francisca Maranan Varilla, our prayers and our love.

May 1, 2005

I went to Mass earlier with my family and while I was there, I felt a soft, gentle feeling slowly
envelop my entire being. I’ve felt it at other times before, and mostly inside a Church, which is why I love churches. It always has a way of calming me, sometimes not completely, but I always leave a church calmer than when I first arrive. This time was a bit different, although this has not been the first time I’ve felt it, nor do I wish it to be the last. I felt something different, something I feel when I am surrounded by the safe and the familiar, when I feel everything is real and I have no reason to fear and to hide. I was with my family inside that church, and I felt a good feeling celebrating Mass with them.

I felt loved. By the family who has raised me and who know both the best and the worst of me. I know this might sound mundane, and perhaps overly dramatic but I felt a bit overwhelmed earlier in Mass, that feel I need to put it down on paper so I could take hold of it and grow somewhat bigger to handle it.

I was in line waiting for the slow procession of people go nearer the alter to receive communion. I have always loved that moment—the moment where I stand up and slowly walk closer to my God, gazing intently at his sacrifice. It fills me with hope, and strength. It is during those moments when I feel, both physically and spiritually, that I am drawing closer to him. Those moments when I feel both alone in my faith in Him, standing and facing him as a complete individual, and simultaneously part of a family that has been one of the major reasons  why I love Him so much. That is a moment when I feel loved, called by my name to go closer, and feel that I am responding with my whole heart and reaching towards Him.

I felt love pouring out at my parents who stood in front of me. At their aging bodies that I have known all my life to be strong and unfailing, at their now somewhat slouched shoulders that have borne me when I was small, at their slightly weaker arms that have held me close. I look at their faces I know so well, at those eyes I have looked to for an unspoken word of encouragement ever since my youth, at those cheeks I have kissed countless times even into my adulthood.

I look at them and I couldn’t help but smile, to myself and to the world. Both in sublime joy and in overpowering pride, that these, these are my parents. They are wonderful human beings, with their numerous flaws and totally redeeming qualities, their idiosyncrasies I have learned to accept and celebrate, their raised voices and frowns I have learned to massage into smiles and tender speech. I smile at their familiar, reassuring, and accepting presence. I smile at their faces, now a bit more worn than ten, fifteen years ago, which are to me beacons of goodness and love.

I realize that they have made many mistakes in the past, as have I. With the world changing I once thought it changed too quickly for my parents to catch up. Their values therefore, and some of their thoughts and beliefs I once believed to be outdated and irrelevant. I once held pride over knowing more of this new world than they did. They would correct me, and keep me in line, and I would snap back. I realize that I definitely grew in knowledge during those times, but perhaps not in wisdom and character. Now I see their opinions more for what they mean rather than what they contain: I now see concern rather than control, direction rather than detail, love rather than dominance. Now I am more patient with them, mostly because they have infinitely been more patient with me.

I am witness to them being unreasonable and unwise at times, but I believe they have been witness to my own failures more. So I hold my tongue, or I try to lovingly but humbly correct them. In my amazement they trust me more and more, about my decisions and my triumphs and my mistakes. The most compelling act of trust I asked of them was my decision to go to Med School. I could not make them understand at first, and after an exhausting tug of war that lasted over a year, I told them simply to trust in the way they raised me, and believe that they raised me well. Well enough to make wise decisions and responsible choices. They relented after that, and now they can’t wait for me to become a doctor.

I realize that the kind of relationship they have is a truly nurturing one. My mom beams when my dad is home, and she becomes more bubbly and obviously happier when Dad is home from Benguet. My dad can completely let his guard down with my mom, and no judgment passes through her lips. They walk around the mall and are very simple with the things that make them happy, the things that at the end of the day they can look back upon and say, ‘this has been a good day’. These are few and simple and uncomplicated: any time spent with the family, whether at home or in the mall or in a moviehouse, and time together as husband and wife.

I like the way they communicate with each other, the way they can still make jokes and laugh together. The way my mom can fondly look at my dad without his knowing. I think it warms her heart just to look at  him, and it’s enough, really, to make her day. I like the way that they can be both themselves when they’re together, and how it’s obvious whenever I see them, that they truly need each other.

Many call my mom charming. To me she is beautiful. I will never grow tired of looking at her face. My dad has a ready smile. To me he is handsome and distinguished. I will never cease to be amazed at how much I have learned from him, and in many ways, wish to be like him.

I realize that my parents are one of the most important blessings in my life. My brother and sister complete the wonderful blessing that is my family. I stood in line, absorbed in my moment, feeling truly, truly loved by the family I did not choose to be born into, but I will forever choose to love back.

Witness to Grace

My mother and I finished our conversation about her diabetes and cancer with me sounding reassuring and in control. I used the gentle and encouraging voice I use with the patients I see everyday in PGH, the voice I use to calm small children when they cry, the voice I use to give bad news to patients about their illness. Inside, however, I was unmade. I managed to hide it from her—this feeling of helplessness—because I felt that to give in to it, at least publicly with her, was to do her a disservice. I am her son, yes, and I’ve thrown my many childhood uncertainties at her as I was growing up only to be always met with reassurance and encouragement. To her and to the rest of my family, I am now also her doctor (medical student that I am), and as her doctor I’ve been told to give hope and to be there for the patient. Now my mom was throwing her uncertainties at me, and in her moments of doubt and fear she would throw much more: hopelessness, despair at times, even her pain, and as her son and as her doctor, I try to meet her with the same reassurance and encouragement I’ve been met with as a child. Today, perhaps because I was tired from duty, I managed to be reassuring, but my lie was known to me: I felt as scared and as terrible as her.

It was heavy, this fear, this constant walking circles around the idea of her disease. I could not wrap my mind around my mother’s cancer, so advanced, detected so late even with the best of precautions. Because of what I learned in school I urged her to go on check ups every year, have ultrasound readings done even without symptoms, precisely because ovarian cancer does not have symptoms until it has grown big—many times too big—for cure. Every year she went, and subjected herself to the uncomfortable procedure of having a foreign object enter her body. The transvaginal ultrasound would paint a better picture of her abdomen, and that was what she would do, mostly to quiet my persuasive, firm voice, as cancer runs strong in our family. Her last checkup was February of this year, and by May the cancer has grown and has leaked into her lower abdomen. The doctors staged her III, which means it has already locally spread. We were all devastated, and I, the doctor in the family, was hit profoundly hard.

She called me today to tell me that her diabetes, which we have been able to tame successfully prior to her cancer, was spilling out of control. With her insulin and medicines, she’s been reading blood glucose levels in the two hundreds, twice that of normal. She would monitor her blood glucose religiously, and would gain a tiny sense of achievement whenever her levels would be normal, or at least slightly above normal. Tiny victories against a disease that she cannot see, and even doubted when I told her about it years back. But today, as has every day in the last week, her sugar is high, and that despite medications. I felt that she was placing a lot into those victories, as her body has not had many during the onslaught of chemotherapy. I reassured her that we can deal with this, that we can gain back the control that she feels she has somehow lost.

I said goodbye sounding reassured myself, but the moment I turned off my phone I felt waves of sadness hit my soul. My mom was sick, and now she also began to feel helpless against it.

I walked quietly, almost aimlessly, feeling tired and somewhat jarred by the phone call. I found myself in the Pedia ward, and I remembered I was really supposed to go there to see my girlfriend and eat dinner with her. I remember a small part of my mind marveled a bit about how my feet remembered what my mind was now too preoccupied to think about, that I have made plans for dinner. I stepped into the Pediatrics ward of PGH, still largely lost in my thoughts.

Once, every visit I had to the Pedia ward was a bittersweet experience. I would see babies, infants, and adolescents struck down by serious disease and it would move me. There was a mysterious injustice to it, something that felt profoundly off and unreal, about children, babies, suffering. I naturally like children, and I am usually not shy showing them that I do, and in the wards with my white uniform I felt I had an excuse to dote on them and touch them. The experience would be bittersweet because for every moment of pain and suffering I would be privy to an experience of heroism and courage, and I would always leave the Pedia ward a bit saddened, but also much more inspired by the bravery of little people.

Today I was locked in my thoughts. Again my feet were moving without my thinking, until I saw a relatively well dressed man standing beside an unkempt young mother and her baby swaddled in cloth, with a tube snaking out of her throat. He was mumbling something, and he was making gestures with his hands. Now curious, I went nearer. His mumbling began to become intelligible, his voice began to be heard, and I made out the words “love” and “child” and “baptism”. I realized that the young baby was being baptized. Her eyes would blink occasionally, but otherwise her body was quiet and remained still.

Tears suddenly and unexplicably welled in my eyes. I was drawn to them, and I stood wordless and tranquil in the noise and confusion of the ward as if inside a pocket of peace with the mother, the priest, and the baby. I was beginning to make out the emotions in my heart, and within my own confusion I realized I was being witness to grace.

I walked away after a while, not finishing the quiet ceremony. It began to feel as though I was intruding upon a private moment, and I respectfully stepped back, and away. Perhaps I felt as if I’ve witnessed enough, seen enough, to be changed by the experience.

I realize that within the oceans of our own despair we are the recipients of grace. I have never subscribed to the belief that our suffering is the will of God—nor our illnesses or infirmities—and instead believe that it is through grace that we heal and recover our wholeness. While suffering and disease are almost never sought and asked for, they become ways for us to experience grace. They were not willed, but they can be triumphed over. Like this child who was being baptized he receives, unknowingly, blessing and baptism. I feel that in the midst of his illness he has been blessed, and he has been reassured that he is loved and being watched out for.

I felt largely re-energized by seeing someone else receive blessing. My mother’s illness—perhaps any illness—feels small in the midst of so much grace. Illness and disease make us feel unwhole and even unloved. There is grace in recognizing that healing can happen whenever there is love.  I realize that it is our task—especially as doctors—to direct grace into the lives of our patients, and to make them remember that there is both grace and love for them, many times unexpected and unasked for, but present nonetheless.

July 8, 2007

Rites of Passage

We watched “Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros” at the insistence of our blockmate, who’s cousin is the actor who plays Victor, the policeman. We weren’t sure at the beginning, but we were glad we agreed.

When Maxi walked past a waiting Victor on the street, it was probably a triumph for the young boy. It was his rite of passage, his pagdadalaga. It made me smile to see the once love sick Maxi move past Victor without nary a glance.

I was thinking of that last scene though, as I left the moviehouse. There was a quiet sadness that was slowly creeping into my thoughts, something that was unexpected, and admittedly, quite confusing. I couldn’t understand it, not at first, because it was vague and unformed. I just felt that the moment of young Maxi’s triumph was bittersweet in a certain way, that it wasn’t a victory, that there was a reason to be sad.

Maxi moving past the object of his boy/girlhood dreams was his rite of passage. Rites of passage are unique to us: it is a very personal moment, one where you straddle a past and a future. It is when you look determinedly forward with a different, more mature outlook, and leave a past behind. A past love, a past self, a past life: you move forward feeling that something is new, something is old, and that knowledge alone changes you.

But what is there to be sad about rites of passage? We all have them, we all go through them. Heart-wrenchingly painful at times, and effortlessly smooth during others. They are milestones, can appear many times in a lifetime, and seem to be integral to the normal growing up process—a meaningful part of life.

I think that rites of passage are sad, because while they punctuate our lives, they are in a very real sense, deaths, too. The old dies, for the new to commence living. Gone was the Maxi who believed in true, innocent and simple love; he has been changed into a Maxi who understands that life and relationships are much more complicated than just loving life, or someone, completely. When we move on from our own personal tragedies we realize that a part of us transpires, that a part of us does die (and sometimes, over and over again).

It was a bittersweet moment because while we all realize that Maxi can take care of himself better, that he has grown stronger and more capable of facing life’s storms, that he is far less likely to be a victim, that he has become much more of an adult, it fills us with some trepidation to realize that truly, he has become more of an adult. And as adults we know life will be easier, or if not easier then better, if we have some of Maxi in all of us: his carefree spirit, his uncomplicated love, and his kind heart.

As adults, don’t we yearn for the simple joys of our childhood? When everything seemed simple because life then truly was simple? Or perhaps simple only because our innocent eyes can see only a single story, a single layer, a single, simple way of living? The people we want around are the people who bring us a piece of that innocence back. Who make us laugh, who make us see the world in color and beauty, who love wholly and simply. Yet the world makes it necessary to be complicated, to exist in many, many dimensions, to have layer upon layer of puzzle and mystery and personality.

And don’t we mourn when we lose that simplicity, and when we see that innocence lost in others? None of us is proud to lose his innocence. There is something sorrowful about this, something truly, truly sad. It is sad because we realize that in this world to live life purely with innocence is not right, not safe. So when Maxi walked past that policeman it was a birth of a new Maxi. But it was a death, too. And while the new Maxi may be more equipped to handle life in the real world, the old Maxi may be happier, have more bounce in his step, more zest in his life. Maybe even more love in his heart. There is a reason to be sad, for this death.

How do we make sense of this, then?

I have heard a wise priest tell me that life is a series of deaths, and the only way to live life well is to live it dying everyday. And that living is dying, and living, and dying, again and again.

Perhaps these deaths reflect our human condition. Things end. People die. We are limited. There is hopelessness, yes, reasons for sadness. I hope that when we do experience these moments, these moments when we straddle the past and future, when we look forward and see our changed selves, we decide to move forward with hope. Hope that these deaths bring us more life, that these rites of passage push us to more joy, that while we have lost our innocence in rites of passage of the past that in our future we move to regain them. And perhaps, who knows, while we will no longer have the innocence of our youths we will have the hopefulness of adults. And hope that while that is different from what we have lost, that it will somehow be better.

Sept 26, 2006

Selling Sampaguitas

“Kuya, bilhin mo na, sampung piso lang isa kuya,” he said while tapping at my window. He was about 5 or 6 years old, with short, straight hair in mild disarray. He was thin and small, he was wearing an old, green shirt with numerous dark stains. He had big eyes. And he was asking me to buy his sampaguitas, in a small, earnest, and strangely persuasive voice.

He tapped at my window while I was peering out into the street, my mind preoccupied by random heavy thoughts. I was stuck in traffic, waiting for the light to turn green so I could make a U-turn and speed away towards home. I was unusually irritable that day, impatient, and quite stressed, and I had wanted to go home as soon as I could.

“Kuya, sige na, bili ka na.”

I looked at him more closely. I like children, maybe even enough to become a pediatrician after I graduate from med school. Immediately I observed that he was a bit malnourished, and he had dry lips.  There was something about him that made him not seem to belong out on the streets, but there he was, dirty and unkempt. His eyes, though, were innocent and trusting. For some reason because of that it seemed to me that the streets haven’t claimed him completely yet.

It struck me that his eyes weren’t hardened like most of the kids I see living in the streets. There was an openness about him, an innocent quality that you find often in the young, but not in street children. More often I observe young mouths contorted in sneers, small noses covered by clear plastic with handfuls of rugby adhesive, little eyes toughened by seeing too much, too soon, too often, and ears grimy with soot and dirt on these young children. But this child seemed new, even fresh. He was dirty, his face had the grime of the streets, but he looked breezy, almost cheerful.

“Kuya, sige na. Sampung piso lang isa,” he said again. I don’t understand why he was so persistent. These children would normally dart quickly from one car to the other.

I hesitated. I have no real use for those white, beaded flowers. But lately I have been following my sister’s lead. She would buy a bunch of sampaguitas from street children and place them on her side mirror outside her car. She didn’t like the flowers, but she wanted to support the children in some way.

I decided to buy his sampaguitas. The going rate for sampaguitas, I think, was about half his asking price, but I felt that haggling for a sampaguita would be excessive even for me. I rolled down my window. I said, with a weak smile, “Sige, bigyan mo ako ng dalawa.” He beamed.

I looked around the car for some coins to give to the kid. I pulled out the coin drawer, I felt the dashboard for change, I looked inside the glove compartment. I couldn’t find any coins. At the back of my mind I realized I was taking a lot of time doing this, and that soon the light would turn green and that I would have to go.

I was still searching the car’s crevices and compartments when the car behind me suddenly beeped his horn; the light had turned green, I should go. I frenetically patted my jeans pockets for coins. I felt them—loose change, probably enough for twenty pesos— but they were buried deep in my jeans. It would take me at least 5 seconds to fish them out. The car behind me beeped again, this time much more impatiently. I do not like cars who would make me wait unnecessarily, and I imagined the temper of the driver behind me rising. Already there was a stretch of clear road in front of me until the intersection, and cars beside me were inching their way to my lane. I felt for the coins through my jeans again. Too much of a hassle, too long of a time.

I gave up. I tapped on the glass, gave a curt, “Next time na lang,” to the kid, and I rolled my window up. I shifted the gear stick, and accelerated forward.

He instantly realized that I was leaving. I’m not sure, but I think he panicked. He started walking, and then running, to catch up with me. He was saying, “Kuya, eto na o.. eto na o..” in a voice that was earnest and beseeching, while softly, politely, and uselessly knocking on my window with his tiny hands. I said, “Next time na,” this time a bit more forcefully and much more resolutely, maybe even a bit irritably, and concentrated on moving ahead. I was leaving him behind.

I saw him when I looked at my rearview mirror. He was running after the car. His face was contorted and pained. He was running after the car with his hands reaching out, calling “kuya”, and he began to cry. Immediately my heart fell. I didn’t realize I would make him cry. I felt terrible, but I had to look ahead to drive. I signaled to go left, and when I reached the intersection I made a U-turn. I drove slowly. I looked for him again, and I saw him. He was still crying, much more so now. He cried the tears of a young child. I glimpsed at his shoulders heaving, and I felt immediately distraught. I saw his face. That’s probably how I looked prior to my first major disappointment. I could not buy him his sampaguitas when he thought I would, and he cried because I made him hope.

I drove on. A part of me wanted to stop, to cross the street and buy from him his sampaguitas, and make him stop crying. A part of me stopped me from doing such an impractical and nonsensical thing. I wanted to tell him that it was ok, that many people would buy his flowers from him, and that I didn’t mean to make him hope and then simply drive on by. I wanted to show him some kindness, some generosity, because it seemed like he didn’t receive much. But I looked ahead at the road, stepped on the accelerator, and drove on.

I was bothered by this experience. I do not know him, but I felt that I understood him. What I did hurt him, much more because he trusted that I would not let him down. It probably would have been easier for a child completely swallowed by the streets to handle a situation like this. He would probably be numb to these small hopes, and would have just watched me drive away with the indifferent acceptance of those who have no more energy to hope for anything better.

I think that life is probably more hurtful for those who hope the most. They hurt more deeply. When they hurt they are completely surprised by their hurt, because they never expect it. They ask with the brazenness of the young, those who have not been educated by pain yet. They make declarations with calm abandon, they quietly believe that their best dreams are ready for the taking. There is something so beautiful about that kind of eager and hopeful trust. And something so tragic to break it and change it forever.

Near the next stoplight I was looking for more kids with sampaguitas. I wanted to drown my guilt by buying a bunch of sampaguitas from the next child—the next children--I would see. But there were none. It was bizarre; I saw not a single street kid selling sampaguitas from that intersection to my home in Cainta.

He affected me so much because I suddenly felt that to him, I was part of the uncaring world that he was being slowly swallowed up by, a world that is slowly obliterating his hopes.

Here I am, back home, and I still think of the child who was trying to sell me his sampaguitas. I wish that he was able to sell them, sell them all. I try to imagine him healthy, living in a decent house, going to school. I hope he fulfills all his dreams.

I hope in the future he will have a better life so he will never have to sell sampaguitas in the streets. I hope that I could do more than buy him sampaguitas, that I could be part of something that would give him something to look forward to, a world better than a street, beaded flowers, and uncaring cars.

April 29, 2006

Food Talk

“I love appetizers the best because they only hint at what’s coming after. It gives you something to look forward to, although many times it says nothing about what flavors and smells and textures will come after. It says only that there is an after, there is something unrevealed and hidden that is yet to come. That’s why I love appetizers.”

“What if the food’s lousy?” I ask.

“Well, that’s the good thing about appetizers. You never really know.”

“Hmm…” I tried to unconvincingly agree.

“And you never really care.”

“I don’t?”

“It doesn’t matter, actually. Your appetizer’s not about that. While you’re eating your appetizers you think, ‘what does my appetizer tell me about my dinner? will I find tastes, glimpses, hints of my dinner in my appetizer?’

“Okay.”

“Or will my appetizer add something to my main dish, or will it take away something? Is this meal going to be a train slowly building up momentum and speed, accelerating, ready to hit me with incredible, impactful dessert? Or is this great appetizer a let down, this meal a fall, a spiraling down into the ground? Does this appetizer tell me something, or does it tell me nothing at all? For me, that is my appetizer’s reward; it’s when my appetizer throws me into all these wonderful wonderings and silent seeking. In the end when I finish my appetizer, I wait for the rest of my meal in heightened anticipation.”

“You get all this from an appetizer?” I asked him evenly.

“From food,” he chuckles. “Food. Food has personality, it has character.”

“Haha, so what does sisig tell you?”

“What a pig looks like in mosaic. Oh what big ears Ms Piggy has.”

Haha.

“But don’t you know what your getting because you ordered the appetizer with the main dish? Isn’t this entire anticipation too contrived?”

“Yes, I do know what I’m getting. I did order my food with my appetizer. But contrived? Not at all. That’s what’s amazing with food. My anticipation is valid, it’s real. Food – they’re like people. They can be weird, they can be completely strange and unfamiliar. You think you know your sisig (I smile), but it can surprise you. It can strike you with a sour aftertaste, or its crunchy bits play with your tongue and imagination. Or it can be unbelievably bland, an insult to all sisig everywhere. Or hard, like it was keeping something in. Or it can grow on you.

“A pig’s face grow on you?”

Haha.

“It’s taste. You don’t like something and then it slowly grows on you.”

Pause.

“You never really know.”

“Don’t you pay for predictability? Don’t you like your food predictable?” I ask him.

“Yes, sometimes. Admittedly predictability has its place in my stomach. I will always love what ginataan does to me. If people have chocolate to awaken their senses, I have my ginataan. And it has to be prepared just right.”

“Ginataan, huh?”

“Yup. And it has to be prepared just right.”

And we grow quiet, and we go to a special place inside ourselves where we are alone with our most favorite meal and we laugh inside because it feels so good.

“But a nice turn of events,” he beams, “is welcome. It’s a sweet taste where I wasn’t expecting one. That’s the best. Or a pleasant mix of food you didn’t expect to blend well, like our sisig and chicken ala king. Amazing. Sometimes there’s no way to tell (I like these the best) because even when you try to orchestrate a gastronomic failure, say like mayonnaise and bagoong, it surprises you and becomes the best dip you’ve tasted. I like the surprise food gives me. And it all begins with the appetizer.”

“With the appetizer, huh?”

“With the appetizer,” he says. He smiles self-contentedly.

Some silence. I take a sip of water. I take a last bite of our appetizer. And I begin to wonder how my dinner is going to be like. I feel the beginnings of real excitement, the quickening of anticipation in my stomach.

“So, ‘musta trabaho?”

And we fall back into conversation, waiting expectantly, wondering, waiting, waiting for our meal to arrive.

March 26, 2006

What does it mean to lose a part of you?

What does it mean to lose a part of you? A hand, an arm, a leg: what does it mean to lose it?

Am I less of myself if I lose my hand? Do I ascribe ownership of my hand, in which case I retain my identity in its totality and feel simply as if I’ve lost a house or a job, things important to me but not in essence, “me”? Or does my hand help define me, does it make me, is it essential to my being? Do I diminish as a human being because I have lost a limb, a part of me?

And what if I lose my hand? Do I move on? Or does the mark of that kind of loss always wound me, affect me, inflict pain upon my very personhood? Am I less disfigured, am I less damaged compared to if I lose my leg, or both legs? Or am I broken just the same?

I was affected by our forum today. Our teachers (kind souls that they are) thought that it would help us all understand our lectures about the musculoskeletal system better if we would meet a patient, not far from our age, who lost an arm to an accident. We would understand what disability, impairment, and handicap mean, vicariously through our patient, and hopefully, first hand in the emotions, sympathy, and desire to ease suffering that we would all feel in the face of a suffering patient.

Jose (not his real name) is 20 years old, and he lost his arm last October when he fell from the 15^th floor of a building he was helping construct in

Makati.

The very idea of someone falling from a height that extreme leaves me out of breath. Jose came to our class with both legs bandaged until right below his knees, and the sleeve of his dark shirt just barely covered the stump that he would self-consciously try to keep out of our sight. He had an above-the-elbow amputation of his left arm about three months ago, and his arm was so apparent in its absence that his body seemed to glare at me in its asymmetry. Apart from his bandages and his absent arm, he looked surprisingly normal and healthy. His face, the rest of his body, escaped disfigurement, and he was introduced by our teacher as “ang gwapo naming pasyenteng si Jose”, and nobody disagreed. Jose is shy, he came from Bicol, and he works as a construction worker to help with his family who lives back home in the province.

Our professor asked Jose to introduce himself and to tell us what had happened to him. He shyly shrugged; he simply wanted to be asked questions instead of narrating his story. Our professor began by asking him his name. He said his name was Jose. He spoke with the slight lilt and rhythm of the people from his province, and he would avert his eyes from us whenever he would speak. When he was asked his age and he answered that he was only 20 years old there was a noticeable flutter in the room, for he was so young. When disease strikes down the old we mourn yet understand and accept, but when disability is seen in the young we always wonder why this can happen. Then he told us his story, and in an even, unaffected voice he shared with us what had happened to him.

He told us about his accident, how he fell, and how he spent one month in Makati Med, recovering, thankfully at the expense of the construction company he worked for. He told us that he had moved to the Rehab Ward of PGH to heal and regain use of his limbs, and how he has stayed there for 3 months already. He told us that he could no longer take a bath by himself, how he would need others to scoop water for him, because he could not reach for the pail. When he told us that he had no problems eating by himself, I could detect a very slight hint of pride in his voice for his achievement. He also told us that he had his brother with him, that he was being cared for by his family while he was in PGH.

We then had a chance to ask him questions, and I think, a chance to try to connect with the person behind the accident, the person with the amputated arm. He seemed normal, Jose, and I tried to imagine him laughing, or at least smiling, and it wasn’t very difficult to do. I worked up the courage to raise my hand and ask him a question. I asked him, “Ano ang naramdaman mo nung naintindihan mong wala ka nang kamay?” because I sincerely wanted to know how it feels like to lose a part of me. He replied quickly, “Nainis ako.” He then told us that because he was so shook up and confused with what happened, he had to ask his parents who came to visit him whether he really was born without a left arm. I was confused by his answer, and then I gleaned understanding. I took this to mean that the idea of losing an arm was so impossible that unless he was born without one, his arm could not be taken away from him. And I realize that it is so easy for us to think that about so many things in our life: that it is so impossible to lose our arm, our leg, our families, our loved ones, our lives. I think for Jose and for many of us, the idea of being torn apart from the things that have defined our very being and our identities is utterly impossible, yet the misfortune that happened to Jose tells us that it is very possible to lose them, and very abruptly.

I then felt that I needed to ask more, and I aked him through our teacher, “Ano ang mga pangarap mo?” It took him longer to answer that question. He answered “wala na”, and then corrected himself, “Gusto ko dating maging sundalo.” I felt uncomfortable when he answered this, for I knew that he was aware of how difficult his dream had become.

I needed to ask him about his dreams because in my experience, dreams define us. They tell us what kind of person we become, and even the act of dreaming is empowering. It is when you tell the universe, “I dream this” with the intention of claiming it in the future, of helping create that future where that dream is possible. I was afraid that this experience would not simply tear him away from something truly important to him, but it might rob him as well of his dreams. I felt that to be robbed of dreams is to be left truly impoverished.

Jose was slumped in his wheelchair when we thanked him for spending time with us. I wish that I could write that he looked at us with determined eyes that said, ‘I will grow bigger than my disability,’ but that was not how our time with him ended. It pained me to see him burdened by this, yet I know that I do not understand the depths of his hurt and confusion. I have every hope though that he will rise from this experience and become who he is meant to be. I know well enough, though, not to try to hasten the process of healing. Something in me, however, refuses to believe that the shy 20 year old from Bicol will be defeated by his disability.

Now, less than 2 hours later, I try to write down my thoughts about our experience with Jose. I do not understand why I am so affected by the loss of another. Part of me believes that we deserve no such pain, no such loss, and yet there is so much pain and loss in the world. Another part of me feels that suffering is without value, it is unjust most of the time, it is unfair. As I reflect on this my thoughts turn inward, to myself and to my experience of suffering. I am a happy person and I know true joy is in my life, and I feel blessed beyond my expectations. My family, my loved ones, my friends, my vocation: for these alone I am so grateful. Yet the road to happiness and joy in my life was not without pain and suffering. In that way I feel strangely respectful of pain, I appreciate it. I do not, however, seek it. I do not want it in my life, or in others’, nor do I cherish it. In fact when it is here all I want is to rid myself of it. However unwelcome a visitor it is in my abode, it is also without doubt a peculiar presence through which my comprehension of the world becomes deeper. I do not know what to make of it, I doubt if I will ever have the wisdom to grasp its meaning, yet it is here in this world.

What does it mean to lose a part of you? I do not know what meaning to ascribe to loss. I do know that it happens, and happen it will, again and again. Some of us feel the weighty presence of loss by losing a part of us: a leg, a foot, or like Jojo, a left arm. Others feel the profound presence of loss deep in their hearts, where no one sees the disfigurement it has caused, the disability it has wrought. But again and again it will come, like a strange visitor who does not know that its presence hurts and maims. What are we to do then, in the face of loss? What are we to do when we hurt?

We try to heal. As a future doctor I realize that the act of healing is a universal gift, something that we are all born with, something that we have the power to give, and receive. We try to heal what we have lost, we try to ease suffering wherever we can. We heal those who are hurt; we try to heal ourselves when we have lost. We heal our hearts when it has been broken, we heal our wounds when our bodies have weakened. We heal whenever we can.

So am I less of myself when I lose a part of me? Maybe. But inside of us is a way to grow bigger than our loss. Inside all of us is the power to heal.

January 30, 2006

6:51 pm

Enjoy this part of the journey too

August 30, 2005

Dove Reunion

I met up with my teammates from Dove. Alex cooked food for all of us, and the brand team was there (Alex, myself, Trina, Irene, Charles, Neil, Cherry, Ms Bambs,  Ayra, Dimple). The laughter was quick and lasting, and friendships were renewed that night. It was fun to reminisce about Dove.

I think we’re all thankful for that experience in our lives, when we all worked together to make something really wonderful. I think the brand was an excuse to share ourselves with each other, be with each other, take care of each other.

I was looking at everybody, and I was happy to see that everybody was really growing and blooming. In some parts I felt I wasn’t growing as quickly, or perhaps as much as my friends in Dove.

I know for a fact that Medicine is really where I want to be. That’s something I know is real and true. But at times I get impatient with the wait.

Lord, help. At times when I see my friends successful and moving ahead with their careers I feel envious. Envious because I know I was part of that group, and that I could have been moving ahead with them had I simply stayed.

But I know deep down that that kind of life is not for me. I know it. I’ve been there. And I know I will look for ways to serve others. I know that this path, however long and arduous it is, is the right one for me. I’m just getting impatient at times.

Neil reminded me to ‘enjoy the journey as much as the destination’. I think I’ve been too focused on what lies ahead that I forget that the journey is as important as the destination. I realize that the relationships I build now are most important.

I need to love this part of my life, too. Not just where I’m headed. I need to love the gifts God has granted me.

I have committed to live in love. This life, this time of my life, is important and has purpose.

Moulin Rouge

Confessions of a Late Bloomer

December 31, 2002

11:14 pm

Love. I yearn for it so yet I know so little about it.

The majestic tide of romantic love. I have never been swept by its crests, never been borne by its waves. I have just watched 'Moulin Rouge'. I feel the ache of longing so sharply in my chest I do not know how to let it go.

Will it ever happen to me? Will someone love me so much that I will mean the world to her? That my love will be enough?

As soon as I wrote that I know my love will never be enough. Somehow a love higher than my own, more infinite than the endlessness of my love, should bind us together in the meaninglessness of the world. In that all encompassing love the meaningless world is given meaning. In a world of despair, love is a shining light of hope that pierces through the darkest of nights to divide nothingness into life.

Which is why this is my prayer: that the Infinite bless me with love, so that through me, His love can forcefully be channeled to some One. And that we, she and I, be swept away by the deluge of overpowering meaning, of irresistible love.

Hell

December 27, 2000

Five years ago, contemplating hell. Is it there?

The circle has not ended, although at times I feel that it has.  There are times, embarrassing as they may be for me, that I forget lessons learned in the past. I forget the lessons that have made me strong, that have forged me into the kind of human being I am now.  In a delirious spiraling of despair I smack once more against that wall, wanting, needing, and sadly rediscovering that I have blindly hit a wall I’ve hit before. The rediscovery of another one of life’s previous gems is not as euphoric as when you discover it the first time.  The unsettling feeling that I’ve been here before mixes with the disappointment I feel for being here again. I realize that I do not have to pass through hell again to know what heaven is, but at the same time a chilling realization envelops me: hell is becoming frighteningly familiar.

               What is hell? For many years I have grappled with that question, with a serious heart asking in the throes of despair where hell is so I would know whether I am already there.  I have asked it countless of times: walking alone in the shadows of my personal dungeons, contemplating evil in a society becoming more and more devoid of meaning, or simply in times of lucid thought while riding a bus home.  The mere questions are painful, motivated by foretastes of hell I experience in my everyday life. 

               What is hell? Hell is lacking meaning. Hell is going through life without knowing genuine love. Hell is not loving completely without your entire heart and soul. Hell is finding my sole worth in the possessions I own. Hell is asking again and again why the world is already contented with the answers that it gives. Hell is isolation.

               This is where I rediscover a truth about hell that has terrified me at times and has inspired indiffirent grunts in other times. Hell is being away from God. Terrified because what kind of world is one that is away from God? Indifferent because in times of existential angst I answer simply: so what?

This Choice

Steps overlooking the pond

Run Run Shaw Building

Hongkong University

February 7, 2003

I have to admit that I'm scared. Life has never been this difficult to live. The decision that I'm about to make, the person that I'm choosing to be--I sometimes have the feeling that everything depends on this choice, this moment. I'm scared. 

And sometimes I feel alone. I wonder if others are going through this crisis, like me, as intensely and as earth-shattering. It sometimes feels that this loneliness is intensely personal. Who would care if I made the wrong decision? No one as much as me, perhaps.  Is everyone just impatiently waiting for me to make up my mind and decide?