Daughter of the Sea

She wakes before the sun, eyes quickly adjusting to the cool darkness that will slowly fill with the quiet, early movements of the island. She rises and heads downstairs to take the buckets for collecting the neighbors’ leftovers; pigs’ feed that will sell for a little extra, and proceeds to quickly make her rounds on the empty streets of the town. She likes the early mornings and the quiet. This island is home, playground, work place and school but in these hours, it was peace.

Culion, a remote island in the Philippines, is where my mom grew up. Life was hard there where, up until about fifteen years ago, electricity only ran in the early evening and trips to the nearest small city took two hours by boat. My mom and her parents rarely stopped working, but she spent most of her days in the warm, tropical waters where summers were eternal. She was a fisherman’s daughter and proud of it: her eyes light up with laughter when she talks about her little seaside life filled with adventures of swimming between islands and among sea turtles or of freeing little sharks caught in fishing nets. My mom loves the sea. She loved her parents so completely, too, casting my grandmother and grandfather as the pious, compassionate lady of faith and the heroic sea-warrior in her stories respectively. They were a trio and they shared in all her hopes, dreams and fears. They were content and peaceful and to hear her talk of it all would make us forget that she and my grandparents had very little in the way of material means.

Returning home shortly, she goes to meet her mother behind the house to gather the mended fishing nets; her father already beginning to push the small boat away from the shore for the morning catch. She places the nets in the boat and helps her father push it past the last few inches of sand before the sea’s languid pull takes over. They board the boat together and the morning’s work begins.

As a child, my mom dreamt of becoming a doctor and when she said this to anyone in town, they would only smile sadly or laugh, telling my grandparents how lovely her dreams were but that nothing more would become of them. To study medicine cost a fortune and my pescador grandfather, slowly growing sick, would never be able to afford it.

So, mom worked harder. She never took no for an answer (she still doesn’t) and like the time she jumped straight into the water during an unannounced swimming tryout, she prevailed. My grandparents taught her to go after her dreams and not fear failure and so, already a star-swimmer and local athlete, she studied hard and graduated top of her class in high school. Not long after, a scholarship foundation helped her fund her studies in a medical school in Manila and through joyful tears, my aging grandparents finally bid their only daughter goodbye as she sought to fulfil the once-impossible hopes of their seaside town.

The girl now lives in the big city. The hours are long and the days aren’t easy but she’s happy. Being far from home has been hard but tomorrow, she graduates in medical technology and her mother is here for the ceremonies. They joke around and an unintentional nudge on her mother’s chest causes the older lady to wince. A short trip to the hospital confirms she has breast cancer.

Mom is no stranger to pain and loss. She may be the terror of her hospital now, with her stern demeanour and no-nonsense work ethic, but her heart remains that of the young woman who had shouldered and survived professional difficulties and the loss of her parents alone.

Results of my grandmother’s biopsy immediately lead her to a mastectomy and on asking her physician how long she had left, an indefinite ‘I don’t know. I am not God; she may live long yet’ was the best she and my mom could hope for. To make matters worse, mom was forced to halt further medical studies because the foundation supporting her decided it was not fair to fund just one student at the cost of supporting at least three.

Returned home, she resigned herself to working in a local health clinic and would have happily continued to do so if not for an unexpected opportunity to study in a newly-opened medical school in Manila. Though taking her entrance exam last minute, she managed to get admitted to the university on full scholarship as a member of the pioneer batch. Once again, she bid her parents goodbye; this time with a heavier heart for leaving her mother while terminally ill.

Two years into med proper, news of grandma’s declining condition takes mom back home again and only grandma’s utterances of a dream about her graduation as a doctor urges mom to continue studying. That summer, grandma took a final turn for the worse and on her last lucid moments, she told mom, ‘I am happy to go, God told me: you will have a good future’.

After grandma’s death, Mom lost all motivation to study but my grandfather would not have it. He reminded her that to be a doctor was as much her mother’s dream as hers and soon enough, mom was back in med school.

A few years later, right before she was to take her board exams, my grandfather dies. Mom had no one left then and she was more than ready to give up but she finds out from an uncle just how proud my grandfather was of her becoming a doctor. He had wanted to go to Manila for her board exams; wanted to support her, and had thrown a huge party in their town when she finally graduated from med proper. Despite her desolation, mom took the exam and, against all odds and with little preparation, she passed.

The first-time mom dreams of grandpa afterwards, she asks him: ‘What are you doing?’

‘Nothing, just go ahead. I am just watching you’, he says.

‘Can’t you come back?’

‘No, just go ahead. I am watching you.’

The young woman is now in her sixties. She lives in a house in the city with her husband, three dogs and two of three daughters: a production design student, a lawyer and an opera singer studying in Canada. Her life is split by staying home, attending patients at the local general hospital and holding clinics in depressed areas. Occasionally, she travels abroad and still brings home stuffed toys for her daughters when she does. She goes to church every Sunday and sends disadvantaged youths to school when she can. She dreams of one day retiring to her old home in the sun and the sea.

My mom is a doctor and has worked in the local public hospital of my city for nearly thirty years. They fear her there, sometimes, because of how assertive she is (heaven knows she is the same at home and I know that fear too) but she does not mind because it gets the people the service they need. She works long hours every day, a testament to her love of vocation that now teaches me to love mine. My mom lives to heal and to serve; that was and will always be her dream.

My mom is the strongest and most generous soul that I know. Working at a public hospital means she always has less resources to treat the people least able to afford treatment but never once has she expressed a desire to work elsewhere. Growing up, we always had distant cousins and old family friends asking for help to send their own children to school and she rarely says no. Maybe it’s because she knows what it’s like to have dreams and yet have little to make them happen. One of those kids now works in the hospital with her and has a beautiful family of her own.

Mom loves every day of her life which helps me believe that dreams do come true and that what we do can mean so much more than fulfilling what we want. She’s a living reminder that while where we come from and what we go through does not define us, it makes us stronger people, hopefully ever-grateful for and generous with what we presently have.

She is working now at the front lines, fighting COVID-19 in Manila. This is not the first time she has helped in the fight against a deadly virus as she was a doctor in Hong Kong when SARS broke out. My sisters and I were small, then, and in the event that mom died, we would never have been able to see her but she wasn’t afraid. Today, she’s nervous. They do not have the necessary resources to test or treat patients and sometimes even to protect themselves but she is in the hospital day in and day out. I know she can’t and will not stop. I am afraid for her and for my family but I have also never admired her more. My mom is a superhero. My mom is a warrior. She has fought throughout her life. She fights for life.