Mindoro Meditation

It’s Sunday afternoon and I am at an internet cafe in Calapan City, taking a short break from the hospital, where my mother has been confined at the ICU since early morning of Wednesday. At first I thought only of checking my e-mails, but decided to post some thoughts that occupied my mind these past few days.

My aunt’s phone call last Tuesday evening said that Inay’s condition had worsened, but I didn’t realize how serious it was until I got to the hospital last Friday and heard the details. My sister Yen who flew in hurriedly from Puerto Rico is a nurse and had a better sense of the danger that Inay could have faced.

The doctors at the hospital diagnosed it as “sepsis” due to her gangrenous foot. My sister said that if the sepsis had been general, affecting Inay’s whole system, she had resigned herself to arriving too late to see her alive.

Luckily, the infection, which the doctors presumed was from the foot wound, affected only her pulmonary system, causing pneumonia. When I asked my sister what was the reason for Inay’s profuse cold sweating on Tuesday night, she said that it was her body’s reaction to a massive bacterial attack. This Sunday morning, Inay showed all signs of responding well to the treatment. In addition to her appetite which she thankfully never lost, she recovered enough to easily recognize her visitors, and even managed to speak again, softly but intelligibly.

All of us staying here at the hospital or shuttling between Naujan and Calapan can breathe more easily. But though Inay keeps asking to go home and leave the hospital, my sister wants her to stay a few days longer, to make sure that there is no recurrence of infection.

We take turns keeping watch at Inay’s bedside. During one of the hours I was alone with my sleeping Inay, I prepared to pray as fervently as I could for her. But I found myself asking, “What do I pray for?” Do I pray that she fully recovers? Do I pray that her remaining time is without pain, but accepting that she will not fully recover? I experienced at a very personal level the tension expressed by Gramsci’s attitude toward social transformation - “pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.” Perhaps more appropriately, optimism of love, and a realistic acceptance of the rhythm of life and death.

We have had frank conversations, my sister and I, and also my aunts and close relatives about Inay. Last February, when Inay went through a bad phase, Girlie asked me gently if Yen and I have ever talked and confronted how we felt and thought about the prospect of losing our mother. After all, Inay is 88, and practically all doctors we had consulted prescribed amputation to prevent sepsis from her gangrenous foot. But they also accept that her age and weakened condition make amputation a high risk option. Anyway, Inay does not want amputation, and neither do Yen and I.

We have to deal with the other risk from infection. Dr. Oabel’s treatment offered us some hope, but this recent infection attack reminded us of his earlier cautionary comment, that Inay’s age and constricted blood flow are factors that should temper our hopes for her recovery.

I travel back to Quezon City tomorrow morning, to a week that is crowded with previous commitments - Earth Day events, the Global Week of Action on EFA, meetings of the Foundation for Philippine Environment, advocacy for the extension of CARP, and a few more. My sister has managed to ask for some time off from her own work, and will stay with Inay till mid-May. I look forward to the loving company of Girlie and Ayen who have mobilized prayers for Inay.

We can give thanks that there appears to be no immediate danger to Inay. But these few tense days gave us pause to think of our priorities, and to give thanks for the gift of life.

They were also days that made us realize how blest we are with family and friends - Inay’s brothers and sisters traveling to her bedside, our cousins and other relatives visiting and sending their concern, priests, activists and “strangers” whose lives somehow connected with Inay’s. Thank you for all the prayers and affection.

Explore posts in the same categories: Family and Friends, Renewing our spirit