All I Ask...

For all the hardships that my dad has endured since his childhood, bilib ako sa kanya. He has never really lived a life without worries. Even now that he no longer has to think of having to provide for his family, the million dollar question in his head is how to relieve me and my husband of our duties of taking care of him. Sadly, that kind of thinking has led to more health-related problems for him, the latest being the two wounds on his left foot.

When I returned to Manila on August 1st of last year, I had already psyched myself that he'd look thinner than his then latest picture (uploaded on Facebook by my cousin, Ate Theng in July of 2010, I think). I had to bite my lip and make my weary eyes look pale in comparison to his exhausted cataract-filled eyes when he met me at the airport.

On the way to Binalot for breakfast before heading to our Mandaluyong house, my mind was filled with longing for my husband in the US and solutions to the problems that faced me in the Philippines. I thought, I just had to accompany dad in his check-ups and dialysis sessions, have his cataract on his right eye operated on so he could see again and fix whatever had to be fixed at our house while waiting for the approval of my spouse petition. I was hell bent on focusing only on the solutions. Until I saw dad's right index finger.

It was the first bomb that fate dropped on me upon my arrival. In the middle of waiting for servings of unlimited Sinigang soup, my gaze locked on dad's finger. It looked... burnt, its fingernail deformed. I was so shocked that I stopped caring that I was crying in public.

As if the image of dad's finger were not enough, what had started to appear to me as a prick-like wound the shape of a 25-centavo coin on his right big toe became bigger and bigger. His former vascular surgeon at the National Kidney and Transplant Institute (NKTI) was someone who I had thought as very smart for treating the wound conservatively, i.e. "conservative" in the sense that whatever could be saved should be saved (no amputations... system followed in the US). I also had thought of him as very charitable and generous for stopping us from paying his professional fee each time I took dad to him due to an otherwise "alarming" development of the wound.

No. Nothing has stopped since my arrival.

Correction  -  nothing has stopped (for dad).

Dad (left) was Senator Mar Roxas's PR Consultant

My grandparents were not rich. Their children, in the spirit of Pinoy soap operas, needed to live separately in order to survive. Relatives treated them like maids and houseboys. They had to scrimp and save, sometimes surviving solely on dinners of coconuts that had fallen from trees during stormy nights in a house with a leaky roof. Dad, for his part, refused to let poverty get in the way of his education. He worked and studied at the same time. With all the help he had never failed to extend to his loved ones, it seemed as if he never ran out of sources of income.

Always a daddy's girl

Time came when it materialized that all his efforts were really not enough. So many things were and are continuously taken from him. It was and still is so painful to watch.

Mommy & I with our "bug"

I was not yet in the lives of my parents when he had to sell the first house he had acquired. It was in San Pedro, Laguna. Because mom kept having a miscarriage due to travel to and from work, dad willingly sold the property just so they could have a child of their own.

I think I was 14 when dad had to let go of the Kia sedan he had converted into a taxi. Maintenance was too costly for us and we never really needed two cars (our other car was a bug).

When I turned 15, he was diagnosed with diabetes. No more sweets for him. And he has a sweet tooth.

Dad (left), mom (to my right) and I with mom's relatives
during my college graduation in April of 2005
(a year before mom died).

After college graduation, our printing press's financial state was no longer in the pink of health. Just so we could start anew, dad had to sell his cutting/cutter machine. I was a witness to the numerous months when dad and mom had to pay in installments for that machine that they bought from Germany through a third party.

Our bug rotting in the garage of our house in Santa Rosa, Laguna and with no money to have it repaired, dad also had to let that go. It was the first ever property of value that he had bought.

Our family picture taken by dad's colleague Nick Sagmit of Manila Bulletin
in front of our Santa Rosa, Laguna house (December 25, 1994).

And then there's our house which had been in a state of disrepair for many years. I guess by now you wouldn't be surprised if I said that we also had to let it go just as how we had to let go of mom when she died.

Dad, a year and five months before being diagnosed
with renal failure with my cousins and I during
the Cardenas Family Reunion in January of 2007

Fast-forward to 2010, a few weeks before my wedding, we had to leave the first property I have ever acquired through dad's financial help. This condominium unit was in Taguig proper  -  way too far from hospitals in case of an emergency such as what had almost resulted to a disaster in 2009. We were fortunate that my aunt arrived on time to pick dad up and rush him to the nearest hospital via C5 (Medical City). I know it pained him to see another property go. I know that part of him blamed himself for what we had to do.

In April or May of same year, I was in the US when he was rushed to the hospital due to bleeding. It was after midnight, I think, when Sergs and I received a call from him. He was already asking us to take care of each other...

Where we used to live in Taguig (DMCI's Rainbow Ridge 2)

Dad survived... only to be hospitalized, two more times I think for water in his lungs and another one that I can't remember.

After his cataract surgery in August, he had to, once again, stay at the hospital for one week in September due to another accumulation of fluid in his lungs. In October, he had a mini-stroke. In November, he had to have a declotting/declogging procedure performed on his Gore-tex graft on his left arm. It was also during the same month's confinement that he had an acute psychotic breakdown due to major depresssion. His psychiatrist told me that dad has been having a hard time dealing with his losses, my leaving (and separation from him) for my life in the US included. Yes. Hindi na niya kaya ang mga nangyayari sa kanya.

Dad with his siblings on his birthday (August 6, 2008),
a month before he had his first dialysis session

Though, with the help of relatives and our very loyal househelp, Belen, we've successfully managed to keep dad away from hospitalizations for a few months now, this week and the week before that were no different. Yesterday, we had our fourth appointment with dad's new vascular surgeon to have his feet's wounds treated and operated on. Dad was crying, groaning and grunting in pain. All I could do was hold his hand and repeatedly assure him that it would be okay.

In my moments of contemplation, I ask God why dad's fate is such. Daddy, my sweet dad, like I said above, has never lived a life without worry. It was  -  and still is  -  one of my ultimate dreams: that he lives a life without having to worry about anything. But God has other plans. One of the nine-day readings of the Blessed John Paul II Novena spoke of sufferings: why people need and have to suffer.

My human-level understanding leaves me with the thought that people suffer for a purpose. And it's not necessarily just because they have brought such upon themselves (which I'm sometimes guilty of repeatedly informing dad in fits of frustration  -  so sorry dad ). According to the John Paul II reading, it's to make other people realize what they've done and need to do. I immediately thought of my half sisters... Can they learn from this lesson? Will they even realize that there's a lesson that needs to be learned? A lesson that they may or may not learn "on time"...

And there's me... God's teaching me to swallow a very bitter pill. I know it's not out of spite. His schooling  -  my classes and courses on budgeting, taking care of loved ones, independence, acceptance, faith, understanding and love  -  have not come to their conclusion yet. I wonder which ones I'll pass with flying colors. I wonder which ones I'll pass... "on time"...

I know and understand that all these are in conjunction with how Christ suffered on the cross so mankind will realize salvation... But then my human emotions have to ask... why does it have to be so hard? Why does it have to be so hard for my dad? Why does he have to suffer so my siblings and I can learn a lesson?

Lord, Diyos ko.... all I continuously ask is for dad to no longer suffer any further... And I know You know I do not mean anything that lessens my own burdens. Please give my father a chance to fully realize a life, however brief, without any worry.............That's all I ask.... before the time is up.