To my daughter on her 24th birthday
By Julie Parian
I NEVER WANTED you in my life. I wanted to die when I learned I was going to have you. How could I put up with the shame? With the failure? You would be the crest the family has to wear and bear. A stamp on my chest to forever signify I am the guava in a basket of nectarines. To have you, I would be scarred forever but I just couldn’t do away with you. I was more scared of being tagged a quitter than a soulless girl who would end up in purgatory.
Tell me, just how could I have you when you were so unwanted? When I could barely function, at all? When there was not even an ounce of affection growing inside me that would color my world and fill my heart with gladness by your presence? Back then, I was just a mere girl so possessed by these magical beliefs that the world was there for me to taste and conquer. There, on top of grandma’s towering tamarind tree where my eyes feasted on the pastoral landscape, chirping mayas, gay bamboo leaves; I told the winds that embraced my childhood that my life would be full of adventures, places to visit, things to learn, projects to do and complete, and behaviors to experiment. I was almost there. The you came and life stood still.
Medically, I was spruced up to be physiologically strong and less deranged to welcome you into my life. No other options but to have you. What I like most with your doctors was the involvement of the family as part of the whole process and their respect for my bane personality. Though, they were close to putting a cork on your mother’s head. I was in complete bed rest, everything had to be done in bed. Can you imagine that? The angels of mercy were so patient in monitoring us, though it pained to know these nightingales would fly to another shore to nest and feed others. They could not be caged for their freedom, flight and fancy meant more. Family helped me, as always, through the shame of doing all activities in bed . It was the height of human humiliation! I must find humor while awaiting your arrival or totally lose my mind. There were times when doctors made rounds and they couldn’t see me outright in bed for I built a tent using hospital bed sheets, dextrose stand and hid inside. Any doctor who had a vinyl sense of humor and lacked medical suave would have quickly made a diagnosis of insanity. Giving birth to you was unbearable. Twice the birth pains any mother has to go through and more. The pangs of despair kept burrowing in my marrows. And there was no instant freedom from pain. Not drugs, not running away and not even death. Death was my bedside companion during that month-long hospital stay while awaiting your arrival. He was the gentleman in black-tattered clothes who was reaching out for my hands. He was very familiar as he was lurking and gawking like a shadowy vulture, all the time, waiting for the right moment I would take his invitation to take the ride to the black forest of the night. There, to lodge in the cave of Machpellah.
Oh, death could be so proud.
COME TO LIFE
I should have been on higher grounds when you came into my life but I just couldn’t. I was neither here nor there. I was okay at times and not on other times. Or you might be someone else’s daughter with my name written on her chest. Why couldn’t I be like the rest who had gone through their epiphanies; where they shout for joy, sing praises and lift their voices? There must really be something wrong with me. Why couldn’t I see the rainbow brites? I curled my hair, straightened them, cut strands, name it and I had done it on my hair. Still, I couldn’t accept you. Sometimes, as I told my cardiologist, I wondered whether you were a blessing or a curse. And I got a bashing, let me wrangle your neck look; and don’t give me that answer. After all everybody had done for us, your mother could be very unkind. You were so new to me. I just didn’t know how to manage you that I usually ended up in the doctor’s clinic. Remember you have two wonderful doctors, Dr. Roberto Anastacio and Dr. Avenilo Aventura. Mentioning their names is a tribute to their patience, medical technology, science and healing with personalize approaches. And that’s what makes doctors healers, distinguishing them from mere practitioners.
Survival was the ultimate consideration but living was the extreme factor.
You were and still are a fitting necessity to keep on living and loving.
And you have been a medical newness and asset that sprang forth boldness in Pinoy mechanical heart valves implantation. I beg your pardon for you received an overly anxious, hysterical, dramatic, and insane kind of mothering, unfortunately. You were not the envy of most. In your eyes, perhaps, you couldn’t fathom the kind of mother you were given to, when you gave life to her, as you beat for her heart.
Sometimes, I wish you were born to Anne Frank. She was bright, witty, funny, heroine and immortal. I love her and you should too. It would be a dictum, a major command to read her diary as well as Jose Rizal, Andres Bonifacio, Gabriela Silang, Huseng Batute, Marcelo H. del Pilar, Rene Villanueva, Rio Alma, Conrado de Quiros, Dr. Honey Carandang then you can jump to Yevtushenko, Tolkien, Emily Dikcinson, J.K. Rowling and find Annabel Lee. Through Anne Frank you would learn how to survive in times when humor has lost its charms and spells for death are always around. You must seek the face of truth, clarity, goodness; the happiness of revivals and meanings. And if ever you find wisdom in between then it would be a bingo!
The spirit of living gives you the head, heart and hands of life, in short its literature. What for is living if your pockets are empty? Yes, science is vital; very for your survival. Grow and fill your pockets too with time, shells, stones, and the earth. Do not forget to look at the sky. In the west; stars hide under the clouds of coldness. Our sky is a sky where stars shine all night long. I could go on and on with life’s lessons but to dictate them would be a steal. It should be an experience that is yours and yours alone. For nobody could cry your tears even smile your smile. Your heart is yours not theirs!
CHILD OF PROMISE
I did not choose or pray for your birthday. It was fixed by heaven.
Only the Almighty has the power to bring you to life! Even the doctors were wary about your coming but they took their chances, too. The surgery was filled with uncertainties. It was the ultimate life-saving act. When it was time for you to be born, all I could muster was a voiceless prayer “Thy Will Be Done”. But there was I again; with side request, to please make it easy for my family if it would not be successful. One could not reap the whirlwind without sowing the winds. You were born on Dec. 10, 1984, on the day that was declared internationally as Human Rights Day. A day when the world recognizes a person’s right to life, liberty, justice and happiness.
You have a right to be born, though artificially made or mechanically sculptured. You have your human rights, too! Stupid of your mother not to realize soonest for the horseman’s invitations was nearly accommodated. What a lovely day to be born! My belief on The Almighty, angels, and spirit guardians has been completely sealed on my forehead and hearts. Your delivery fell on a happy season. A season filled not just with “puto bumbong”, poinsettias, revelries, carols and good tidings but more of second chances, rebirth, salvation and hope. There’s a great need to look into your birthday as mere medical miracle. To look at it as an extension of life is faulty. For you are more, you are not child of flesh. You are child of promise!
You are Bjork-Shiley mechanical valve with serial number 728458. That is your name and you are inanimate. You cannot be seen by scrutinizing eyes unlike artificial limbs, hands and false teeth. You made your presence known by clicking so loud but now that you are getting older, you are slowly moving and fading. It scares the acres on me to know you are weakening but heartens to know that you are getting older, you are slowly moving and fading; but heartens to know that you have aged with me without extraction, removal and re-implantation. I am both happy and sad. Last July 8, 2008, I went to California to attend my 30th year college reunion in San Francisco and delivered my cardiac catheterization data to the Donald Shiley Heart Valve Foundation at the University of San Diego. I wanted to meet and say thank you to Mr. Donald Shiley but he was not around when we came to his office. Nevertheless, we were received warmly in the office and the data accepted. You have to understand, it is important to know who made you. I cannot let you continually beat into my heart unknowing of your creator lest I fade away, suddenly. Saying thank you and meaning gratitude are in perfect order.
You are my twenty-four year old daughter; a daughter who beats life into my heart and sails along with me as we struggle to be part of this beautiful, lost world. You are not the daughter of misfortunes as you courageously pump life undaunted by the medical turbulences that saw us
through– pneumonia, cardiac arrest, minor stroke, those little influenza and now cardiomyopathy. I have completed the scale of heart disease and yet you stay by my side, all the time. Because of you, I have been given extensions after extensions of life. We are surrounded; absolutely no reason for pity or unhappiness. Our family, untiringly, gives us a very comfortable life; the kind that is free from dissolution, disaffirmation. Twenty-four years of putting up with us! That is completely awesome! If only the world can know the kind of mother you are born to, the world wouldn’t dilly-dally sending us to another planet. We are never lacking for care. Our family is our saving grace. They are luck. They are love. I just feel sorry that it took me this long to finally accept as you accepted me. The time spent on frivolous, wanton display of disaffection and platonic existence was vainly wasted and lost to nothingness. I wanted to bang my head on the wall.
You are life for me. Without you I wouldn’t have the chance to see real tulips and interpret the West. Because of you, I have seen more rainbows, plenty of sunrises, and the wonders of sunsets. Now, I understand everything, why I got sick, why you, why this time, why me. All questions revealed and answered. You reminded me of who I was and who I should not be.
Because of you, I have known the truth. How am I going to celebrate your declaration of independence? Your birthday? When we went home after your birth I gave roses to those who helped us during those difficult days.
Through your journey to adolescence there’s just much too much to feel grateful for that I intend to celebrate your birthday by giving flowers to everyone. Flowers to everyone.
Tags: christmas
