My Mom's Liberating Love

In a busy boat port one late afternoon of Monday September 4, 2006, the horizon was filled with spectrum of colorful hues - red, orange, yellow and blue as the sun was slowly setting. The water was calm, no surging waves, only intermittent wavelets. Yet, in this jocund company, I could not help but feel sad, reminiscing the sad state of my mother whom I left for work that Monday morning. As I headed to a boat at the port, I overheard the conversation of the driver and his passenger.

“Is the boat leaving now?” asked the passenger.

“Not yet, we are still waiting for two more passengers. They went to a memorial parlor to avail of its service and get a casket,” replied the driver.

As I looked straight at the driver, tears welled down from my eyes. My uncle, who was passing by to catch a boat, saw me, wiping the tears in my eyes. He came closer and without uttering any word, put his arm around my shoulders. His eyes communicated great sorrow, but left many things unsaid.

It was only a month ago when I received a text message from my cousin, an X-ray technician in a community hospital, informing me that my mother was confined to the hospital where she was working due to stroke. A minute later, my sister sent me a similar message that she rushed our mother to a hospital… I was really shocked that for a few minutes, I was immobile. I felt so weak like a melting candle in the night, like a wilting plant in a garden during summer time. Putting mind over matter, I was able to regain my strength. I did not waste any minute, I went directly to our College Dean and sought her permission for me to take a leave of absence so that I could take care of my sick mother. She granted my request and off I went directly to the hospital where my mother was confined.

Standing at the doorstep of the hospital room, I could see my mother lying on bed with my father seated on her bedside. I rushed to her side, held her hands and asked, “How are you, Mom?”

“Ahm, ahm, ahm…” was the only sound that Mom could laboriously produce trying to open her lips, but no words came out.

“Father, why can’t Mom talk? What happened to her?” I asked.

“She could no longer talk when she arrived at this hospital. The doctor said that her speech was affected because of severe stroke that paralyzed her left brain,” my father said in a low tone.

Looking at my Mom’s condition, my heart ached. I pitied her so much that her every moan seemed like a dagger piercing my very soul.

After three days of confinement, her doctor said that she was regaining strength and that her body system was responding to medication. She was given clearance for release, which means that she could already be brought home to continue her medication. It was a good news for all of us, her family. But the most difficult thing to learn was to feed her through nasogastric tube (NGT) a small tube attached to her nose down to her intestine. It was only my sister Weng and my brother Emil besides the nurse who were able to do her NGT feeding. After two weeks of home medication with the help of a private nurse, our family friend, and a caregiver, my cousin’s wife, we saw a little progress. However, something bad happened along the way, that out of irritation perhaps, my mother had accidentally removed her nasogastric tube (NGT). For only two days, that we tried to feed her through her mouth, she grew thin. So, Ate Weng decided to bring her again to the hospital. The doctor had put her NGT back, checked her up and gave her similar dosage of medicine.

After two to three days, she was able to recover. She gained weight and returned to her original shape. We were happy seeing little progress in her condition. Everyone in the family, then, believed that she would be able to recover like what happened in the previous strokes that she had survived.

Early morning of Thursday of the following week, we received a call from home, saying that mother suffered from another stroke. We all went home that day. When we arrived, her nurse talked to us, and said, “ After giving your mother her medicine around 9 o’clock in the evening last night, I went home. Just this morning when I came to check your Mom and to give her medicine, your aunt informed me that your mother was gasping for breath, trying to fight over death around 12 o’clock midnight. Then, after a few minutes of fighting for life, her body gave up and her eyes remained closed; she is now in coma.”

Upon hearing this, our family became divided whether or not to bring her to the hospital. Her nurse, being the only one in her right senses, said, “If you will bring your Mom to the hospital, there is a very lean chance of survival, because she could no longer move her left arm which means that her right brain is already affected as well as her heart. She will only find it more painful for there will be many apparatuses that will be attached to her body.”

What came to our minds then was the pain that our Mom would be suffering if she would be transported again back to the hospital from an island under the blistering heat of the sun, and then afterwards be pierced with needle for IV medication and dextrose, and be installed with catheter to measure her urine and oxygen tube to ease her breath. We never wanted to make her suffer any longer. Despite this argument, I felt so guilty that I tried to convince my sister Weng to bring her to the hospital again. Ate Weng called up her friend, our Mom’s doctor, and she asked for some medical advice as she narrated in detail how my Mom was attacked by another stroke which paralyzed her left extremities which before she could still move. Her friend said not to bring our Mom to the hospital anymore, but to take care of her and continue her medication. Perhaps, he could not only say this to my sister bluntly, “You take care of your Mom, because she has only a few hours or days to live.”

Everyone of us cried, with tears in our eyes, we prayed over her and surrendered her to God, our Heavenly Father.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday passed and with God’s miracle, she survived for four straight days, and was able to open her eyes, too. But that Sunday night, September 3, 2006 was the most painful one, lights went out and it was a very humid night. We took turns in fanning our mother manually using a fan and a cardboard alternately to ease her breath. I slept around ten, leaving my other sisters and aunts to look after our beloved mother. At dawn, I was awakened by my mother’s grip; I felt her hand pressed mine. When I went down, I saw her sleeping and beside her was my aunt asleep while seated. I realized that My Mom whose soul was already wandering really woke me up out of her concern for her sister who might fall from her seat while dozing off.

That Monday morning, my Mom could no longer urinate, nor excrete her wastes. At that time, I knew that her time was near, but I still went on to report to work, to file a leave of absence for a week and to prepare worksheets for my students and I promised to be back that afternoon to be with my Mom in the remaining days/hours of her life. Had I known that I could no longer see my Mom alive that very day, I would not have returned to work.

My recollection of my mother’s hospitalization and her suffering was interrupted by the arrival of a funeral car which transferred the casket to the motorboat. My sister Weng and Uncle Elding who made arrangements with the Memorial Chapel, boarded the boat. My other three sisters who also reported to work that day came. Then, the boat started to move heading to our hometown.

As we arrived home, I saw my Mom lying on her bamboo bed with her eyes half open as if she was just asleep. I could have rushed to her side and embraced her but what prevented me from doing it was my fear of the dead. Memories of my childhood flashed into my mind. Many years ago, I was only five years old then during the wake of my grandfather, we had this tradition that family and relatives of the dead should pay homage by either kissing his hand or for a child, by having her pass over the coffin. At that time, my mother was forcing me to kiss my grandfather’s hand, but I never did out of fear. At my young mind, I have developed this fear of touching or even holding the dead person’s hand. I carried this fear until now. That was the very reason for my not being able to hug the remains of my mother.

I went directly to the washroom where I cried and released the grief and the guilt that I felt. While I was there crying out, my eldest sister Ching sat beside our mother and whispered to her ears, “Mom, your children are already complete. We love you very much. Don’t worry, we shall take care of our father. May you rest in peace!” After saying this, my mother’s eyes closed tight.

On the day of my mother’s internment, after the Holy Mass, my uncle Felino delivered his eulogy for my mother, his cousin. “Our beloved Aniceta is now with our Heavenly Father. During her lifetime, she had been a good mother to her children and a good wife to her husband. She helped her husband to earn money to be able to send her children to school. As a good family woman, it is no doubt that God would find her life pleasing and would merit her eternal life with Him forever...”

Listening to Uncle Felino’s eulogy made everyone of us, including our relatives and friends, shed tears. That very moment, in my trance, I was back to my high school years when I was living in my aunt’s house. It was late Sunday afternoon, I was so excited to see my Mom visit me again, (her usual routine every week), from whole day’s work of selling fish in a distant town, enduring the excruciating heat of the sun. Every time she came to see me, she would give me allowance and fish to cook for our two to three day’s meals. I used to give her early dinner then, and while she was eating, she would ask me about school, and I would always tell her practically every thing that happened the whole week in school. Then, after finishing her meal, she would say the most painful goodbye; and I would be left again alone with my aunt and her five sons.

I was still in my deep reverie when I heard the priest say, “The bereaved family and relatives may now bless their beloved dead with holy water.”

As I lined up in front of the coffin, seemingly my great sorrow was wiped away by the thought that my mother would no longer suffer as we do, and that she is already in Heaven, happy and at peace with no worries and no anxieties.

After a year of my mother’s death, I no longer feel the guilt that I felt before. My mother’s love liberated me from such guilt. She appeared in my dreams many times saying, “My child, I understand what you had done. You only showed how much you loved me that’s why you let me go to be with God forever. You have to move on now.”

In another dream, I was able to embrace her and felt the warmth of her love.

“Inay, thank you,” I murmured. I was awakened by the tears rolling down my eyes. For the first time after a few months, I felt inner peace.