MANILA, Philippines — For 12 consecutive days now, the 31-year-old narra tree in our garden in Gulod is relentless in its profuse display of golden yellow blooms. Regal and majestic is the canopy of tiny flowers, they look like floating buttery cotton candy that dance even to the shy whiff of the breeze.
Joyful, celebratory, triumphant they are as they bloom with the rising sun. Magical, enchanting, mesmerizing they are as one by one the tiny flowers pirouette down the ground on the same day by sundown. In our yard and on the roadside, carpets of golden shower are revelry and reverence only nature can design.
Passersby are awed. They look up to the generous tree whose branches with flowers are like an awning high above the road. Some folks in the neighborhood stop and literally smell the flowers.
But the No. 1 fan of our narra tree blooms is not present to witness nature’s festive display of beauty and wonder my mother Candida. Not yet, at least, for Candida has been in the hospital for 15 days now. It is our hope, as her doctors, as of this writing, had already given the go-signal, that she could go home Wednesday.
She lost her appetite for a week and by Palm Sunday she barely had the energy to look at the freshly blessed palm fronds brought home by my youngest brother Rod. Strong-willed Candida refused to be brought to the hospital. Early morning of Holy Monday, my four brothers and I were able to convince her to go to the ER. She had some tests done and while the results would be available after 6 p.m. of the same day, Candida, because she was unbending despite her frailty, was able to twist the hospital staff around her little finger to allow her to go home. My niece Paula, a registered nurse working for another hospital, got hold of the test results that yielded doom. Nanay was suffering from multi-organ complications and right away she was rushed to the hospital that night.
It’s definitely not an easy ride for her. It’s also not an easy ride for us. But we all enjoy the ride. We coast along well.
On four consecutive days that we all thought it was a close call, my brothers and I kept silent; each one of us saying a prayer, a plea. Each appeal to the divine is a sincere thanksgiving. Candida is 78, going 79 on June 6.She has had a long life indeed and we welcome it with a grateful heart if God so allows her to live longer.
We see extraordinary beauty in her condition. An illness is also a call for celebration, a gift so extraordinary it creates wonders for the heart, of the patient and the caregivers. We have more time to pamper our mother with love, hold her hand when she’s in pain, sing to her as we lull her to sleep, embrace her endlessly when she feels cold in her hospital bed. Every minute counts. Every moment matters.
Some days are bad. Other days are good. The same copious prayers are said in both days good and bad. Then we have all decided that there are no bad days as we treat each passing day with a celebration. Every day is a blessed day.
In my mother’s infirmity, she remains to be the queen of her five boys. She’s able to eloquently verbalize it to her primary physician, Dr. Rene Librojo, a no-nonsense and sought-after cardiologist in the area, before her confinement that she only allows “private room and no ICU for me.” She’s a faint believer in intubation as well as resuscitation. So far, so good.
Hope floats. Love overflows. Miracles happen. We keep the faith.
When full medical attention is administered to the patient and still the patient’s life still hangs in the cliff, faith is the tranquilizer that silences doubts and fears. Faith is the thick safety net under the cliff—unseen but not imaginary, consoling but not cautionary.
Faith is the green flag that solely puts to shame all the red flags around. The white flag will not be hoisted or waved. Candida is a fighter. Wounded and weak, bruised and beaten, so to speak, but she marches on and keeps the fight. One, because her mind says so. Two, because her heart says so. Three, because her spirit says so. Her body may not be in consonance but that’s one against three in the equation of the patient’s desire to live, to survive, to kiss anew each day. All that despite her infirmity. All that despite the fact when Rod and Paula, the round-the-clock caregiver of Candida, pulls her up her from the bed so she can exactly find a most comfortable, painless position.
Every day I sing to her “Bituing Marikit,” a kundiman by Nicanor Abelardo that my mother taught me when I was in Grade 1. Tables have turned when it is my turn to sing her the song. When my emotion gets the better of me and I skip a word or two, she corrects me, her voice like a lull, no lilt, flat many times unlike when she was a kundiman singer in her barrio of San Isidro, but her lyrics are exact. From memory. From a distant place when life was hard for her, where she began to dream, where she did not achieve her dreams but made sure her children could touch their stars.
Every day, my three other brothers Kuya Ronnie, KuyaGaddie and Odick come to her room with a joke or two. She smiles. Faintly. But she smiles. The going-ons in our little, sleepy barrio are reported to her with a twist that make her laugh in silence. When there are moments when her glazed looks become apparent, my bothers make sure to hold her hand—and continue with a joke. She smiles.
Humor heals somehow. I thank God I belong to a family whose sense of humor is uncalibrated. It comes in handy in moments like this.
Candida, God willing, will be home by the time this piece comes out, home where we will all continue to care for her.
Our narra tree with its yellow-gold bloom profusion is waiting for the return of its No. 1 fan.
Hope floats. Love overflows. Miracles happen. We keep the faith. Please say a prayer for Candida.
(For your new beginnings, e-mail me at bumbaki@yahoo.com. I’m also on Twitter @bum_tenorio and Instagram @bumtenorio. Have a blessed weekend.)