11:20 am
I combed his hair, cleaned his back, his face and groomed his toenails. I jokingly grumbled I told you that I will take you for a facial and back-cleaning but you’re so stubborn. Just look at this. And I haven’t even cleaned my own toenails in nine years and here I am cleaning yours. We are waiting for 1 pm. I almost find myself praying that he would not be in so much pain when he wakes up after. How will I endure moans of pain from my father? We’ve all become older, the roles reverse. I realize that I have his feet. I took off his watch and placed it in my bag. I took off the gold chain with a cross and diamond pendant around my neck.
The chain and the cross was his retirement gift to my mother which Mother gave me just after the New Year. Mother said Sshh, don’t show it first to your siblings. I had laughed Surely Ma it won’t be a problem. Father had taken me before that to a jewelry store, saying Pick. I shrugged off the whole lot and said to him that I didn’t like anything except what Mother was wearing. He bought a gold ring with diamonds for my brother instead. My brother doesn’t wear it, gave it to my eldest sister for safekeeping. Brother had laughed Good God bling-bling and said That will surely get my finger cut.
Mother likes giving us jewelry because she feels that we’ve been begrudged more than enough in life. She likes giving me jewelry because I don’t know how to pawn or sell. That’s really the investment in jewelry: pawn or sell it when you don’t have money for an emergency. I had once jokingly laughed to Basha when we were thinking of just driving off to Batangas to spend the weekend drinking rum there because we were fed up with the city, I’m sure one of these I’m wearing would be enough to pay for whatever if we’re ever short of cash. He had scolded Tsk and laughed And you? Part with Mommy’s jewelry?!
The diamond pendant was her gift along with diamond earrings on my graduation. She said that they were supposed to be for my wedding and said that nobody made those kinds of earrings anymore with screws for locks especially in white gold. During that graduation dinner in Cafe Ysabel, Joey gave me a ring in gold and silver and I had said Ano yan? while Father was busy clicking his camera away. Froddo said that I was hiking my dress, ready to run away. Collins had scolded me about the dress that I was wearing and praised how I walked on my heels. Sly had said that he would station people around all the exits of the church. Joey laughs that those two words are forever burned in his head. I don’t wear that ring. I think Joey gave it to Elena for keeping for a while. I look at the pictures though and see that we were happy.
Months later, on my sister’s wedding, Mother gave me one of her diamond rings, bigger than what she gave the bride. Mother said that this was just right since I was supposed to be wedded first anyway. Ma’am Marj once admired that ring and I told her A gift from Ma and told her stories. She said I like the women in your family. Later on Mother gave me another pair of diamond earrings set in white gold for Christmas. I like white gold because it looks like silver and my skin likes silver though it’s partial to brass nowadays. My sisters and I started wearing silver years ago because silver is not robbed or cannot be pawned. I think most of my and my sisters’ diamonds came from that bracelet Mother had that Father told her to have it melted and parcel the diamonds to her daughters. I had once told my mother I want smaller diamond studs for my extra ear piercing. She laughed Okay even though she disapproves of my extra piercing.
When I miss my mother, I wear the jewelry she gave me. I wear them while I cook or do household chores (which were mostly taught to us by our father). It gives me pleasure to sweat over diamonds and gold. I wear them wherever and I am always warned by my sisters Careful. I just laugh. They wear theirs for special occasions. Once I was asked by Selena Ohmygod are those real?! I had laughed I don’t wear fakes, honey, not when it comes to this. In any hospital, I am asked Allergies? I always reply Fake people and fake jewelry.
I now wear Father’s jewelry around my neck. A white gold chain with a white gold cross discreetly studded with diamonds, a pendant with the Scared Heart on one side and the Carmelite on another (I have a different one given by his mother), and I slipped into the chain his wedding ring in white gold and subtle diamonds. The latter is a re-making of his original wedding ring; he said he lost it in the States in the 1980s.
If I’m drunk enough and I think you’re special and it’s your birthday, I give you jewelry but never Mother’s. Why I was asked. I laughed Isn’t that what people do when they’re dying? I told my niece My jewelry will go to you, you like that? She loves it. For a long time we couldn’t afford new things especially jewelry. Until now we have money problems just like everybody. We’re just better at finding and rolling money and making do with what we earn and have to pay for the necessary and enjoy the unnecessary like jewelry.
I joked to Father Daddy, you’re still going to walk me down the aisle.
I am somewhere I cannot be.
But I always do what is necessary.
I am waiting.
1:05 pm
They took him away before 12:30.
He disappeared inside the operating room with a smile and a wave and a Go back to the room. Don’t wait here. I smiled and just shook my head I’ll be right here. He was afraid. After the doors closed, I cried.
Trudging along: I wiped my tears, exhaled, inhaled and hurried outside to talk to the waiting mechanic about the repairs to the cars while I smoked a cigarette. I nodded to his Please tell Sir we hope he gets better and let us know if we can do anything to assist you. I remind my brother-in-law and baby sister about the things that need to be done in the house. Hurrying back, here.
I had watched Father take off his teeth, his pants, his underwear assisted by the nurses. In my head, Please, let him be saved. I remember how he held my hand and walked me out of McDonald’s just after I got out of the hospital. I was crying, upset by harsh tones. He held my hand and led me to the plaza. We sat and he held my hand while I cried, trembling, we were both quiet.
I am waiting outside the operating room. I’m remembering how it felt with me alone inside. (Stop.) I wait, almost wanting to sleep. I do not appreciate the irreverent chatter, unknowing of vigil. This chatter. This silence. This slowing down. Music is almost alien and unwelcome. Without teeth, without clothes, we all look the same---- brittle and old.
1:29 pm
Doc Ronnie who will be operating on Father just arrives and smiles at me before entering the OR doors. Father told me that Doc Ronnie was a close friend of Uncle Pempe. When Uncle Pempe died, he cried and got so drunk. Father and his cousins, their friends--- this group they called the Playboys--- was telling him to go sleep in one of the rooms in San Nicolas. Doc Ronnie didn’t want to, drunk and afraid. They all slept in the living room.
Uncle Boying also came before they took Father away, warning his Manoy about the pain but that he would be all right. So that you and I can drink they both laughed. I laughed Can you include me in the drinking, too? Uncle Boying is a doctor in Internal Medicine. He’s my father’s first cousin. Uncle Boying’s mother is my lolo’s sister. Lolo married her off to this man who was his friend and who also survived the Death March. He married her off because the Japanese were raping unmarried women at that time. Uncle Boying and his siblings would be in Lolo’s house in San Miguel then San Nicolas almost every weekend when they were young.
It seemed that their fathers became harsh after the War. Who wouldn’t be if you were in that War and in that Death March watching your comrades who could no longer walk had their legs cut off by the Japanese and left to die bleeding? My father’s eldest sister, Evelyn, died as a baby in the War. They had no milk.
Father has been waiting for an hour in there. I hope he’s been given the anesthesia so that he’s sleeping.
I am waiting and I cannot talk once more.
Writing has always been about this: I cannot talk so I write. The acclaim of awards and publications are unnecessary like jewelry. I’m just having fun with the jewelry. It saddens Joey, knowing that one day I will stop publishing on print because it has become unnecessary.
I can walk away from that because I can.
If I choose to.
Nowadays, it’s all a matter of living laughing and laughing with those who are alive and brilliantly crazy enough to see the joke while waiting to croak.
4:38 pm
I’m still outside the operating room, still waiting. The bleeding is about to come and I can’t find ease in this waiting. I fell into exhausted sleep on the bench for about 30-45 minutes, woken, startled with a nurse’s request for eight more gallons (in addition to the five) of Absolute distilled water. They use the water to clean and wash the patient. I called my brother-in-law and told him to buy more water, please be quick, Noy. I wait and wait, just hoping that when Father wakes up he won’t be in pain.
I’ve always disliked the hallways of hospitals--- the silence and echoing chatter and patter. Disliked it for here is a pause that may suddenly be a stop. Last night I slept deep and dreamless after I allowed myself to sleep. After all the blood testing requested by Father’s sister, a nurse in the States. This is the first night I slept here, in this place, in eight years. It all returns to a beginning of eternity. Eight for eight. My first night home I slept in three nightmares. I wait, I wait, that deep nap helped to keep me awake in this haze. I’ve been moving the past couple of days in a daze, in this haze of alteration in a cusp. We are all in vigil outside the operating room and I wished I still prayed the rosary. Night is almost rising in these halls. I feel alone yet I am not alone in this waiting.
And just like that, it now comes---
I remember being cold, trembling, alone, feeling the cold in my hospital gown. I was asked to curl, my knees to my chest--- an endless stinging on my back--- my breath locked---- I couldn’t scream. I remember crying, asking for this stranger’s hand, this nurse, to hold my hand. Cold, so cold, locked. I remember being in and out, looking at all these shiny steel. I remember a prick of this long needle on my womb, saying ouch, strangle looks--- Why does she still feel it--- more injections. I remember begging them--- Please, please, put me to sleep first. I remember being woken--- a chiding--- here, look at what we took out of you--- my Auntie Alfea said, Uncle Boying’s older sister, another one of our doctors. Their other sister, Auntie Lita, has been our pediatrician, the children’s pediatrician now. They all joke about it, seriously—they cannot let anyone die in our family under their watch.
I remember waking up to pain, pain, pain--- don’t talk, don’t open your mouth, Joey telling me that he was leaving and that he will be back soon. He had to leave to spend New Year with his family. And the next time he came back, that summer, I was a weeping corpse in this hospital. Post-op depression, the doctors had said. Oh no, something more, something worse. Joey didn’t leave anymore for the Sates with his family which angered his mother. He chose me. He was once asked by my second sister ten or nine years ago You think Mia will choose you over her own family? He had said Yes. She had arched her brow You think? Joey will never make the mistake of making me choose him over my family. He has opted instead to become family. Friends and loves and things come and go and return and leave but my family stays. I learned that lesson nine years ago and I have been mindful of that.
I had felt that loss when I woke up outside the operating room that day, the 30th of December, that I was incomplete once more. There and then I began vomiting, my wound, my womb screaming.
The night before that I remember going to a party with Joey, my eyes and nose red in a reunion with happy drinks. I was thirsty for it but only sipped. Before that, I was in a hotel room interrupting a dinner with scared and frenzied kisses and touches, that pleasure. I do like being made love to or fucked or however you would call it naked and only wearing jewelry, that pleasure. Before that I was in a bathroom in my home, crying. Before that I was told by Joey, It is you I love, always, never mind a child. Before that I was calmly driving. Before that I was in a bathroom in a clinic, crying. Before that was---There, look, your ovary is like an alien Mickey Mouse, we have to take it out tomorrow (only way to find out if might be cancer, shit). Before that, Joey was asked by Father What are your intentions? and I was so angry for being discussed like a cow, smoking inside the bathroom. Before that, Joey arrived and I was happy, happily taking him around the place where I grew up. Before that, I was told by doctors that it will be okay. Before that was six months of pain, pain, pain.
Ten years later, I remember, my womb aches as I wait for it to bleed.
Will it be okay?
Last year, my womb bled while my lungs struggled to breathe in a hospital four days from now. I had sniveled to the nurse who was taking my blood You’re a vampire and Count Dracula is cuter than you. They said There’s an anomaly in the blood and I wanted to laugh Well, of course! I had coughed and coughed instead.
Will it be okay?
I wait for Father to come out of the operating room--- four hours now.
Will it be okay?
I am waiting.
5:17 pm
Outside it is pouring roars.
Inside we see and hear Nimbus.
Nothing matters but here and now.
The lights are on now.
I am asked---
how is he, how is he, how is he
I want to scream---
I don’t know!
Of course I throw away everything and everyone
for Father, Mother, Family.
Next to Love (and love at its purest is to Protect), my virtue has always been Duty.
Ahmed said five years ago that I had that virtue branded on my forehead.
I accept my virtues, my faults.
I weep and laugh about them.
For those I am so loved.
And I love in return.
Because, really, I can simply walk away and disappear.
5:55 p.m.
Dark outside, night inside.
We’re back in our room.
Father is still sleeping.
He looks old.
His skin feels cool and I tuck the comforter around him.
Dextrose.
Sodium Chloride solution for the tube to his bladder.
Antacid.
Antibiotics.
Anti-bleeding.
Biopsy (wait for 3-5-14 days).
I ask the nurse, “What painkiller?”
I was joking about the fun and horror of Morphine, Demerol and Tramal with Father just hours before.
The nurse answers, “Tramal injections every four hours.”
I wince.
Uncle Boying arrives and checks him, “Just let him sleep.”
I nod.
I ask him what exactly the doctor did to Father because the language of anatomy they have been using was alien to me.
I shake my head, “I still don’t get it because I don’t have that part.”
Uncle Boying laughs.
I will not sleep.
When he mumbles, I rub his back and pat him like a baby.
I am waiting.
When he wakes up and after, I will talk to---
my mother in Florida (who told me months ago while crying that they only left because they knew Joey was there to take care of me and will cry and thank me for being here and say I love all of you and Tell your Dad I love him and I will cry in the bathroom after);
a sister in an Art Conservation Seminar in India (who apologizes for not being here, I love you all, Take care of Dad, Don’t leave him alone, I’ll come home);
a sister in
a sister in
a brother in
and a boyfriend in
and a sister (who will hug me after I cry in the bathroom) and brother-in-law;
Elena who gives me strength while I become thoughtful on the personal
and Adam who asks almost daily How are you? How’s your Dad? and makes me laugh about business
--- and tell them what happened: I will not cry.
I will not bleed until he’s out of the hospital.
Then he and I can happily smoke.
I sound like the terrified young but I feel as tired as the old.
I am waiting.
I am waiting to return to Daddy his jewelry.
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