Just this morning, I called Mama to ask how they were, given that my older brother Bobot had informed me that Papa has not been sleeping and seems unable to see anything. It pains me that I cannot even be with my parents at this time -- even as Metro Manila is on GCQ, Butuan is on MECQ and there are a lot of travel documents that need to be put together before you travel. This is like living out the old joke that we may be required to have a passport when travelling to Mindanao.
Papa has Alzheimer's disease. It could be that the deterioration just accelerated and everything went downhill for this once robust and active hulk of a man who loves reading, going to sabong, womanizing and just about doing everything he wants with his life, unmindful of consequences.
I do not know if the restrictions on mobility the Covid 19 lockdown contributed to this, but I think not being able to go out of the house meant a lot for someone who has always been out there.
Papa lost his own father at the age of 8. He has always been close to her widowed mother and was a major crutch in his life. He was the reliable companion, the strong little shoulder to lean on, the listener to her many stories, never questioning her wisdom and actions and loving her to the end.
Now, I contemplate on this whole idea of loving until it hurts, sacrificing until you feel none is left of you, putting the needs of another over your own.
I think that the women in my family are blessed with that strength.
We may say a lot of things against people we love but the willingness to bleed for their sake is there -- spoken or unspoken.
We all know that Papa's days are numbered. Just this morning, Mama told me he is laboring to breathe so she is afraid to give him anything as he might choke. They just watch him helplessly...painfully going through the physical ordeal. They are afraid to go to the hospital as it might aggravate his condition. Alzheimer's is a monster that eats you alive. It chains your loved ones sometimes to anger and desolation that there are times when it saps your energy and even your spirit.
I look back at the last days of my own husband who chose to go home to his hometown despite his condition. It must have been the calling of home. No matter how we argued and fought against it, he always had his way. He always found ways to go the casino, to smoke, to travel -- much to my consternation as any deviation from doctor's orders to rest, take his medicines and strive to be well disrupts my life as well.
I have lost count of the hours spent anxiously outside an operating room, outside the ICU, in an emergency room and in the hospital room because I was fighting for his life too. It has drained me physically, financially and emotionally but I still chose to fight.
But God works in mysterious ways--- there are things that perhaps He allows to happen for reasons you do not understand in your time, but in His time.
My husband fought down to his last day. And we fought with him and with him through the hands of emergency doctors and nurses who pumped, intubated and injected him with medicines to wake him up. But life stopped. Time stopped. Like a clock that suddenly conked out, it all just ended there.
Then I think-- could I have done better as a wife? Should I have sort of chained him to the house so he cannot smoke outside? Should I have eagle-watched him and forsaken my other duties as wife and mother? Well, I think, maybe yes. But what would the ending look like? Will I gain back the lost Rhoneil that I loved in my youth? Will I gain back the happy-go-lucky father of my children who was always planning out a trip to the resto or the outdoors, even when we could not afford it?
We were actually planning for a kidney transplant and part of the requirement was that all his other vital organs should be functioning well. That is why the cardio had to check on his already thrice 'angioplastied' heart to pronounce him strong enough. But then the rest is history-- we had his mitral valve repaired and it seems like he never recovered from that because he must be one of the worst patients I know -- only following doctor's orders for a while and reverting to his old ways.
Papa is like that too. He does what he thinks is best for him. Like Rhoneil, he has lived his life on his own terms. Those who love him may not be able to understand and take the ride, but when you come to think of it, they lived their lives the best way they know how. In a sense, they are happy to do the things they do. And at the end of the day, we just need to accept them, as He has accepted and embraced all of us sinners when He died on the cross.
I still grieve for my husband, maybe like no one in the family can, but I look up to Him who loves me and feel a certain kind of calmness.
Will this calmness be stirred yet again soon? Maybe yes. But I know that I should just turn to Him and say, "Please stay with me" and I will make it through.
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