..how do you love your job?..

I helped him out of the bed because of urinary incontinence. It's nearly an hour since the last time I changed his beddings. He sat on the chair, watching me putting the soiled linens in a yellow plastic bag. He looked at me with face contorted for probable reasons in his mind: 1)how someone can tolerate such a nostril-stimulating-odor 2) why overly concern of already "soiled" linens, and 3) how the heck a 48kg chick manage to do that all alone. But none of these put an end to his seemingly amused face. He got up from where he was sitting, sat on the bed and looked at me..."how do you love your job?"


Let me give you the different faces of a nurse..

For parents who left their children..
(an excerpt from my 1st Anniversary article)

The best time of the month for us singles is Pay Day. That's needless to elaborate. Time to give ourselves some little pampering, feeding your vanity if ever you have one. We all our own set of obligations to the people that we love. Silently as I am enjoying that "highlight" of the month, there are other people who have there own set of sacrifices. Ate Ellen, our hippy and bubbly mother-figure, is one of them. As for the record, she hasn't been home for the last five years. Hasn't attended five birthdays of her two sons, haven't been there in their five Christmas and summers. The sick days of her Josh when she's so busy attending our sick patients or the times Aidan got high grades and mom is not around to give him a pat on the back or that cheerful mommy-hug. The countless times she wished her sons were also eating in Jollibee whenever she step foot on the food store. Whenever she would say how she missed her boys but is helpless anyway. Because the reality of life strikes hard. I cannot fathom where she is getting the strength to endure the long years of not being there as a mom; as a wife. Where she is getting the patience to wait for the sun to rise and the moon to set to call it another day. Hoping that it would turn faster to weeks, then to months and months to years until finally she will utter the words "I'm home".


For children who left their parents.

For years,  Ate Tin hasn't seen her mother who is on a battle of fighting lung cancer. Because her needs take over more than her utmost desire to go home. To take good care of her just like the way she is doing hands-on with our patients.
But this is life.
We live between the tension of two opposites.
I remember one afternoon when we are reviving a patient. It was one afternoon she received a call that has no turning point. The same time we are resuscitating our patient, is the same time her mother succumbed to her final breathe.
Life's irony at its best!

So how do you love your job?

It's because we are the first to see a newborn's eyes open, and the last to see a dying's eyes close.
It's because a shout of a doctor can be forgotten by a simple "thank you" from our patient.
It's because I was able to send a kid to school..(more to go).
It's because I've come to realize how rich I am simply by looking at my 10 complete fingers and toes, thanks Anatomy!
It's because setting foot on a non-familiar road led me to know that long distance relationship is still possible (pag Skype jud ta gah) ;))
It's because I believe I was made for this..for you, as my patient.
It's because I learned how to serve God by serving others.
It's because I do not see it as a job, but a profession.
It's because I cannot see myself being not a nurse.

How do I love my job?
.. I do not really know.  Probably because loving doesn't entail explanations. It demands actions. Service doesn't require too much words, but too much love you put into service. And that is where we are good at, that's why I cannot explain. That's why I can only show. And that's why you asked. Because you noticed.

I would like to honor all of you who are in various situations. Be it for someone who was left behind, who left a love one, who dared to go out of their comfort zones and fearlessly facing the reality of life., Let's take a moment to remember our colleagues who've been victims of deadly virus but kept their feet grounded in the name of SERVICE, who never left their post to the last breathe, never gave up being a light to the afflicted, even if it took their own lives. To give credits to all of you who are denying what is due for yourself for the sake of your family and the people who put their trust in you. To boost your courage that the true warrior is someone who possess weaknesses in the face of becoming a better person but chooses not to dwell on them but on his strengths to become the best. I would like to commend your strengths, your determination and perseverance, your sacrifices and endurance wherever it is coming from.

At the end of the day, two things will happen..

It's either you touched a life.

Or they touched yours.

Hail to the people with ugly hands but with beautiful hearts!

..if only life is as simple as watching sunset..

It was about sunset and there he was sitting beside me. I'm a bit conscious probably because it's been a whole afternoon and I smell, errr, nevermind. Or probably because I never get near too close with him all the time we were together. Or probably because I fear that he might hear my heart's lub-dub. Or simply because his presence is enough to caused me goosebumps. He never held my hands, but I wished he did. He never looked at me in the eyes, but I wished he did. Because those dark eyes are my all-time favorite.  The glance that says so much more than what he is capable of saying. The stares that swept you off your feet.

He walked me out of that green grass where we sat watching the river. If only life is as simple as watching sunset, I can stalk him watching sunset forever. I kissed him goodbye on the cheek, and again, wished that it was somewhere else. So he'll have all the firsts'. 

Seeing him standing far as the jeepney moves away, and turning my back around brought a pinch of pain that a Cadburry chocolate failed to soothed. Perhaps, it's true that in life, there's a one true love snapshot. 

Moved by the beauty of sunset on my way home, far from that river where he and I visited once many many years ago one summer afternoon, where love simply lost its ability to be spelled and define, memory brought me there again.

No matter how picturesque a sunset is, it's impossible to own it. He is too beautiful to be own that in the process of showing his light for me, he had forgotten how to show that light for himself. I don't want to destroy that light.

I've learned that in life, you have to learn to open your palms. To set something free. To know that if you're not capable to give what he deserves, be generous to allow the person to receive what he deserves..from someone else. It's awful that way. But nothing in life is easy. Nothing in love is easy. 

There's so much in young love I can go back to. Sunset, usually reminds me of it.

..a world without filters..

My Mom's love letter.

I remember the first time I was on stage, reciting my when-I-grow-up-I-want-to-be speech. She was at the back seat of the many proud parents. I was wearing a mint green dress, with white ribbon pinned on my apple-cut hair. I used to bring my bottle milk on kinder class, and she would tolerate me..or else, I'll cry hanging on her legs. Our white-painted wall becomes a graffiti whenever I'm holding a pencil, sketching stick people, writing alphabets, and most of the time, my name that used to be spelled out as Rolene Kim. I remember being wise in an early age for I usually break my crayons into two so she'll be forced to buy me a new one, hoping this time, it would go beyond the primary colors. I think, that was the beginning of my underground painting and writing career.

One day, I went home feeling so proud after being the top highest pointer in the exam. So she prepared sardines and rice topped with margarine for breakfast. Commercials make mothers more creative, I bet. I cannot leave home without her putting handkerchief on my uniform, and my P3.00 baon in my pocket.

I feel like having the longest hair in the class whenever she would walk me to school. 

The older I get, the more I've come to realize how much of ourselves we owe to our mothers. That one day, that little girl she used to walk to school now walks with her in dress for a date, conversing with  her about life's harsh truths and bittersweets. I can now be her "handkerchief" in her graceful years.

Thank you mom for showing me the world of colorful crayons, of walls where I can freely write my thoughts, for the encouraging words when I feel like being not my best because I am always one for you, for listening to me since the day I recited my "All Things Bright and Beautiful", for walking with me holding hands, for hugging me even on humid nights. 

I know what it is to be in a world of pretensions, because you showed me a world without filters.

Happy Mother's Day!

..never get tired of being grateful..

(c) Straight Talk

I've been looking at my clean screen for quite a while. Clean in such a way I can't jump-start an article. My unforgiving duty schedules and the unceasing call of responsibilities robbed my time of something I always love to do: tell a story. And yet, solemn moments drag me back to the corner where I can be halfway between the world of solitude, privacy, peace-and how come these words became so expensive in this technology-driven world.

I lined up in the ATM machine this evening. While waiting for my turn, I've been in a pensive mode I remember one morning I went to the bathroom and realized that I haven't been to the grocery lately. That moment when you needed to put water in the shampoo container and shake it to increase the amount of lather. I'm still lucky I need not to do that in my toothpaste tube. I smile at my own lunacy.
Looking around, I have my own apprehensions. So does everyone else. What if it's already your turn and the ATM machine runs out of money? I survived that "what if".

I don't know how to write this in a more succinct way. Probably because gratefulness has no better way to contain than to let it flow. I know tough times, I know what it is to have nothing, I know how it feels to be empty. By far, I know too, that God has never been an ATM machine that runs out of supply.  He always, always, always provides. That is a redundancy we ought to memorize.

We are all blessed in how God has chosen to bless us. Some of you may have been given a faithful partner, a trusted confidante, a patient mentor, an understanding co-worker, a cheerful friend.
It may not all come in a package we want it to be, but God knows that is what you needed to show you His way.

Never get tired of being grateful. TGIF!