PGH, The Return

Passing through the quiet corridors of the Philippine General Hospital reminds me of my brief stay there.

Still, there are a handful of visitors too poor to return to a relatives' house somewhere around the Metro would put up a carton box or a linen cloth in one of its hallowed grounds while waiting for their beloved patients to recover, or perhaps enter the grace of God.

The narrow stairs leading to the ICU remains somber and lonely. Hidden to most passersby at the ground floor, its steps have witnessed my sadness while I was passing through them, it absorbs my desire of having everything simply end - that our stay there would just be a horrible nightmare and that we would wake up one morning resuming the life we left before, before we recieved a call that fateful afternoon from his sister informing us that dad had a stroke.

Opening the doors of CICU, the familiar smell of alcohol, disinfectants and the bleeping sound of the life-support machines pierces through my mind. It wakes up the painful memories that I've been trying too hard to simply forget. It opens up a vision when my dad lies there, in coma and dying... waiting for his turn to leave for the great beyond.

Looking at the unconscious patients, I see my father in all of them - vulnerable, afraid, and possibly helpless at their state. It awakes the memories of my father's stay there. It awakes my perpetual fear of having a loved one seeing in that forsaken room.

Heavier than the first blow of being there several weeks before,
I left the whole compound wishing...

that this painful memory would simply leave me in peace.