Her Journey Ends

Grief, in other words anguish, heartache, misery you can call it many names. When a loved one leaves you it opens a window where you find yourself staring and glancing at the life you had when she was still there. It suddenly opens up your eyes and gives you the picture of where you are right now.

My mom died of acute stroke. In less than 6 days after her admission in the hospital she passed away. No words of goodbyes, no tears and no “I love you!” It was a shock for me and my brother. It all happened during our birth month in April, just a few months back. Up until now I can still remember how she was in that death bed and the times me and my brother would go knocking in someone else’s house late at night to beg for financial assistance so we could buy her medicine. Medicines so she could live a few hours or days more. She was declared brain dead on the third day, intubated.

The only thing that my brother and I could think of is how to survive the hours that passes by without showing each other how sad we are, trying to control our emotions not to shed a tear. Not in any way to show our anguish and pain. We both need to be strong for one another. When something comes up, new findings, most of the time bad news, it was all “kuya what are we going to do?” Each time I try to answer I feel like holding the life of my mother in my hands.

It was the same heartache I felt when my brother was confined in a local hospital in Pasig for a case of Dengue. The disease then was feared because many young children have already died. A few decades ago Dengue was a vicious killer. Modern medicine now has ways to detect the virus early and cure it. His illness was so severe that the doctor told us it would be 50-50 chance that he will survive. Blood comes out of his body everywhere. Platelet’s count is too unpredictable, and we don’t know up to how long we will be lucky to find the blood type that he needs. After less than 3 weeks he survived, to be with me in my mother’s critical moments.

Whatever transpired in those 6 days, it was the longest days of my life. We hardly sleep, hardly ate and barely talk about anything except on how we can find money to support my mother’s medicine. It was on the third day that I started noticing something. It might not be a miracle but it is almost like one or maybe it is. Whenever the doctor or nurse will be coming in to give the new prescription (which is usually 3 to 4 times every day and each prescription costs no less than Php4, 000.00 to 6.000.00) there would always be someone either a friend of hers or from the company she’s working for, that would be handing over some help, an amount almost exact by the hundreds to what we really needed that time with some spare for our snacks and fare.

On the night of that third day my whole world suddenly stopped when I heard from the doctor what I feared for. The doctor told me that she is already brain dead and that she has no chances of living without the respirator. That was the night that everyone is asking me the same question “will you let her continue to suffer?”

My mother was the greatest story teller in the world. She has the answer to everything and so that was she thought. A typical wife with the machine-gun-type mouth, a personality not every peace loving people would love. I use to ignore her words before, now it sounds louder. She wanted to die a swift death so that her family would not have any hard time caring for her. She feared living like a vegetable. She is terrified to see her loved ones hate her, when she becomes a burden. “When I die burn me up and throw me into the river, so you wouldn’t have to spend a single peso on my worthless soul.”

Believe it or not, from the time she was admitted to the last day we laid her to rest everything was taken care of. She neither has any PhilHealth coverage, SSS or any other insurance but we were able to give her a decent funeral and have her cremated bought and urn and placed in a columbarium.

I could go on writing a hundred pages more just to recount all the memories she left and the things that she said. But none have taken me aback to the fact that in our deep sadness God has taken care of everything. From the smallest of need to the last days of her life to the very place she rest.

Before I even knew how to read and write she already taught me how to pray the “Lord’s Prayer.” At a very young age I’m already praying the Rosary. I can still remember when typhoon Rosing hit Manila a few decades back how she fell on her knew and urges us to pray. She was never perfect, known to be annoying by many but, as a saw her life unfold and ended I have realized how she fought to be different and to perfect in the eyes of God.

It made me think how complicated my life was. How I distanced myself from God because of hardships and too much worries. She survived all trials of life with the only the grace and providence of God. That up to the end, I know she prayed that we will be taken care of. She told me that there should be one in the family that stays close to God. She was the symbol of real Faith and Hope. And now, it is my turn to take up the cross, fight my own evil and carry the pains of everyone and lift it up above.

As her journey ends, I begin a new one. Complete with the guidance that wherever she is right now I know for sure that she is happy and looking down on us asking Jesus for mercy, grace and love.

“Thus, as you distance yourself from God, return to him and seek Him ten times more earnestly. For he who caused these evils to fall on you will bring you salvation and eternal joy.”

- Baruch 4:28 to 29