An Unexpected Dream

I had a dream about dad one night and I told mom about it the following morning with excitement although I was close to tears. For several months after dad’s death, I wanted to dream about him but I would always wake up frustrated so it came to a point that I stopped expecting. Then suddenly, one night, when I was not expecting it, the dream came…

Dad came home and entered the gate wearing his favorite blue polo and fatigue shorts. He rode a tricycle. It seemed that there were concerned people who brought him home because he was thanking them. We were all shocked at the sight. Then he came up to us and said, “I did not die. I just got lost when I tried to go home from the hospital on my own. Aside from that, I met an accident so I could not look for the right way back home.” He sat down and showed to us his foot. We saw a wound that had not healed completely. “Yes, it is true!” Mom exclaimed. She, then, attended to him like she had always done before. She was crying in joy while I was looking on still shocked…

Then I woke up. It was just a dream. For a while, I was thinking, “What if it is true?” I wanted it to be true. “What if Dad is somewhere wanting to go home?” For a moment I thought of exhuming his remains to make sure that it was really him. However, I saw him inside the casket, it was him, sadly. Yes, dad had gone home but not here with us but to his heavenly Father. I will see him there in the heavenly mansions sooner or later…

Photo from:
www.inhabitots.com/.../

Cool Dad

I survived GBS but I needed to undergo physical therapy. It was the key to recovery. However, I must admit that although I was doing my exercises, I was not very diligent. Maybe, I was discouraged. How could you exercise your legs that you could not move! Therapy was an ordeal for me. More than the physical hurt, it was hurting me more psychologically.

Dad would think of ways to encourage me. He would make his attack from the bright side of life. He would buy and wear new pairs of pants and shoes to make me envious. It was his way of making me think of the things I could enjoy if I regained strength and in order to regain strength, I must exercise. In contrast with Mom, who would focus on the things that I would miss if I would not walk again.

In fact, Dad had bought me a couple of pairs of shoes in spite of my physical condition. It was his way of saying, he was not losing hope…

Photo courtesy of:
www.samuel-windsor.co.uk/

A Dad Who Never Quits

I got sick at the age of 14. I acquired Landry Guillain Barre Syndrome (Acute Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy), a rare disease that causes progressive muscle weakness and paralysis. Whew! It was a very complicated disease. It left me paralyzed for over twenty years now.

I remember, several hours after they brought me to the hospital, I began to feel difficulty in breathing. The nurse placed the green-colored tube connected to the oxygen tank on my nostrils but to my shock, it gave no relief! It was as if, there was no oxygen at all passing through it. My mother who was sitting at my bedside leaned toward me and whispered to my ears, "Magdasal ka anak para gumaling ka agad..." (Pray, that you may get well…) Then we sang the "Our Father" but even before we could finish the song, I passed out. I did not know how long it was. When I regained consciousness, I could hardly open my eyes. I just felt a crowd of people in white all around my bed. One was forcing a metallic instrument into my mouth to open it wide and then inserted a long plastic tube down into my throat.

Later on, my parents told me that I stopped breathing. I was gasping for air and was gnashing my teeth. The medical people attending to me were almost ready to give up. The nurses had already escorted my family out of the room except for Dad. He intentionally stuck his thumb between my teeth, enduring the pain of my bite, just to keep my mouth open in a desperate attempt to make sure that I would not lose air. It was then that the doctors and nurses went back to resuscitate me. Mom asked Dad to show me his right thumb, it was all black and blue and inflamed.

When I was dying, Dad was at my bedside. He never left me and I recovered. When Dad was dying, I was not there at his bedside. He did not recover and I did not hear his final words. If I could only describe how painful it was for me… It was like a wound that would never heal…