I always wonder what goes inside the mind of the people I share seats with inside the bus each night as Makati repeatedly proves that it never sleeps. The cold air somehow makes it easy to breathe but the competition of people rushing, cars and vehicles honking, and city lights illuminating on all sides sometimes becomes unsettling. I assume that some of these people complain about the traffic because their usual 1 to 2 hours of travel gets extended before they reach home.
Sometimes, I badly wish my travel every night is like theirs. No matter how long it takes, I’d go through it, every night. If it means I can be home with my family.
And sleep knowing that I am with them. For me, that’s priceless.
Before I came to Manila in 2014 to take the CPA Board Exam and even before I studied college in Marawi City, I spent my earliest years growing up in a small town in Surigao del Norte. It’s the typical rural setting where people’s main livelihood is based on the sea or the field. Each one almost knows everyone else in town. People are very religious. And despite going through hardships to make ends meet, family ties are very close. Family always comes first, in one way or another.
I moved in Makati City for work and have stayed here since then. I am just one of the thousands of many professionals and workers here in Metro Manila whose true home lacks skyscrapers, underpasses and wide roads. Many are from the provinces in North and South of Luzon. These are those who ride the bus on a Friday night to spend weekends in their respective home provinces. However, there are also those who are from Visayas and Mindanao. These are those who could only see their families on video calls since no matter how much they want to go home everyday or every week, it’s just not wise and feasible.
I am one of them – those people who are jealous of others who can spend quality time with their family on a regular and consistent basis.
But I have a bigger reason why I want to go home as often as possible – my sister, Niña Marie.
My mother who wasn’t expecting anymore to bear a child since she was already 44 at the time found herself in a crossroad of fear and excitement for my sister. Excitement because as she would tell us, our youngest sister is a “gift from heaven”. And fear, of course, because getting pregnant at that age may cause some complications to the child. In January 2015, Niña Marie was born. Prematurely.
Inside the hospital room on the day she was born, the doctor said my sister Niña showed symptoms for an Infant jaundice. Everyone was already crying and panicking. I was in the office that day, anxiously waiting for news on my mother’s delivery. The only thing I heard from them was that my mother was physically fine but emotionally, she felt sorry for the baby. My heart skipped a beat.
When they explained it further to me and it started sinking in, I went somewhere private and stopped holding back my tears. I thought of my mother and her fears. I thought of my father and his self-pity. And I thought of my sisters and their restlessness. At that point, I realized how much strength our family needs for the next years to come.
And despite the complication, I knew my mother has always been right. Niña Marie is indeed a gift from heaven.
The doctors found out that Niña Marie has Patent ductus arteriosus (PDA). It is a condition in which the ductus arteriosus, a blood vessel that allows blood to go around the baby's lungs before birth, does not close. This condition leads to abnormal blood flow between the 2 major blood vessels that carry blood from the heart to the lungs and to the rest of the body. And as my cousin doctor put it, her motor development, or physical development in general, may be delayed due to the abnormal blood flow, especially to the brain.
Things were hard for me understanding all this. As the eldest among 6 of us, this was too much to think about. I could only imagine the pain my parents have been feeling.
I get the chance to go home once or twice a year for family occasions and each time I do, my mom’s list of “should-have-been’s” for my little sister gets longer.
She would mention how other kids in the Church who are of Niña's age run back and forth to their parents after the Mass. Niña couldn’t do that because her body can’t even manage for her to sit let alone stand on her feet. Her head is too heavy for her body to move. My mom would sometimes jokingly ask Niña to cry out loud when she needs something and no one watches her. This is because the little baby creates very minimal sound that you wouldn’t know she is already heavily crying unless you look at her.
And my mother would also say that Niña must have been embracing all of us every day if only she didn’t have complications.
My mom says these things with a smile on her face but I know that something behind her eyes drags her down. No one just talks about it at home - our struggle. Because as a family, we need to be stronger for our little fighter.
A part of me hurts sometimes thinking about the earliest years of my sister where everything feels and seems late for her. It sometimes crosses my mind that all this could impact the rest of her life – her not being able to learn how to interact normally, how to speak words and how to move around like every other normal child.
There’s also a part of me that feels guilty for being far away from home – for not being there when she shows some improvements, for not taking care of her when my parents and sisters weren’t available and in some way, for not being a brother who could be there for her and hold her.
But I am doing everything I can, miles away from her, so that she’d be better in the days, months and years to come.
I could say that my little sister definitely changed the way I see love. I had always defined love as an isolated product of joy. But when Niña was born, I realized that even if the foundation is pain, love can still rise. She made me realize that even in difficulties, love for the most important people in your life can be a source of great strength - that strength we need to go on and move further. Her existence, instead of causing me grief, is making me appreciate more things and more people around me.
She has become a constant reminder of how I should never complain about doing things for myself and for others even if sometimes it’s hard for me to do so. She has become my symbol of strength.
Each time I come home, I spend the first 10 minutes kissing my little sister and the rest of my days are spent taking photos of her 24/7.
Niña may not be able to speak yet but when I look in her eyes, I can tell that the love I have for her and the rest of my family will always be powerful. Her eyes tell us that love transcends and no matter how hard things may be, we are always going to make it through.
xxx
@callmenorby
