His dance in 3-act
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
He wasn’t so old few weeks ago but the man captive in the bed looked like a stranger to me yet very familiar.
He was a part of my life, an important and ineradicable piece of me, now somehow washed ashore on another planet.
Watching him dozing in the antiseptic smelling room, I imagined that he would awaken, look quickly at me, spring out of the bed and asked for Greks… his beloved Greks.
Just like weeks ago…
He would play, run behind Greks, vibrant, laughing and strong…
I looked at his sleeping face, unbelieving that the old strength was not there, only a face of an empty man.
He stirred and opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling without comprehension. He tried to raise his arms but he can’t. Strings of cloth were tied to both arms and legs and into the bed railings.
I saw the puzzled look in his eyes, and I knew he was searching his memory for where in the world he is. He tried to form the words but machines gagged him.
“Greks not here, but he’s waiting for you… at home”.
The proud man I knew all my life melted out at the mention of the precious boy’s name. His eyes turned into a slit like a baby who cried for the first time.
I blinked back the tears but they came rolling down my cheeks anyway. I don’t exactly remembered how I get out of the ICU and into the busy streets of Davao City, I just did.
In my younger days, turning back on him just like that could mean plenty of whacks; I’ll be standing while eating.
He was a military man and we, the four of us were trained the military ways. For years I spent in school and university, with my friends in between stunts we could think of, I didn’t noticed the military man shed off his military mind and become a religious one. I failed to see his effort of reaching out to his first-born child. I am physically in his house but I maintained my invisibility to everyone.
Where I stood, people were going about their business. The sun was shining. Everything seemed normal. Don’t they know that Greg was strapped in the hospital bed with machines keeping him alive, right leg amputated?
It was like weeks ago but seems like light years. He came home happy from their Boracay trip to celebrate 25th year of being married to the same woman – Bing, my mother.
On May 01, 2004, a month after he entered Davao Doctors Hospital and almost 3 weeks inside the ICU, Greg checked out on us. He died of diabetes due to complications.
Like a dance in three-act.
The hospital. The wake. The graveyard.
Faces coming out from nowhere. They shake our hands and they were going. I was watching the scene.
When all the people were gone, our life was ours again. Picking up pieces as one family except that the household god was in some place waiting for us.
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