From
Here to Tihamaland: last days with my mom…
(First
posted at ranaocouncil.com)
I dreamed that I
was back in Zahran Janoub. In the dream, I was having a lively conversation
with one of my ER nurses, but the environment was unfamiliar. I felt that I was outside the confines of the hospital, which is not possible. Since it was my first night home, I ignored the dream as a mere extension of my imagination, a
memory flashback. I was done with Saudi Arabia for good…
I had the front of
my house renovated and turned the garage into an outpatient clinic. Adjusting to private practice was not easy because I had always been an employed Physician.
I have always treated patients for free when I was home. Not only did I feel
uncomfortable asking them to pay, I didn’t even know how much to charge my
patients for the variety of medical services that I rendered. The clinic’s
income wasn’t enough, and some of my patients were unable to pay. They were poor
Muslim migrants who escaped the war in Mindanao.
There were times I had to dig into my own pocket to pay for the taxi for those seriously
ill needing hospital care. Some came back to me asking if I could bill their
children out of the hospital. Others took medicines from my pharmacy, promising to return the money, but some never came back.
On June 12, 2000, I got a call early in the evening from my sister-in-law. My eldest
brother Khalid (living in Manila)
had a heart attack. I rushed to the hospital, but he was dead by the time I got
there. When our father died at a very early age, Khalid sort of assumed the
responsibility of being the head of the family. He was like a father to us, adopting even his name when we entered school. His wife told me how, in the
morning, he asked her to bring him to their favorite restaurant. While having breakfast, he was telling his wife how he was having a vision right there and
there.
“I think we are
going to have an important family gathering,” he told her. “I see all of my
relatives, but it's strange that my dead uncles are there too.”
At 5:00 in the morning on the 13th of June, I flew with his corpse to Cagayan de Oro City Airport, where his sons, my brothers, and immediate relatives were waiting.
With education so
expensive, the separation money I got from the Ministry of Health was fast
running out.
I tried building a
practice in Marawi City, my hometown in the South of the Philippines, but similarly, I was not earning enough to support my family. Another elder brother, the same brother who financed my education, volunteered to renovate the ground floor of his three-story building that houses his Madrasa School. If my practice succeeded even partly—I mean just enough to keep my children in college—I would have stayed in Marawi
City for good.
However, my coming home to Marawi after my unintentional departure from Saudi Arabia may
have been destined for my mother.
Strangely, a few months before I left Saudi Arabia, I had visions of my mother being sick,
and I was there taking care of her. I saw the vision in my moments of solitude,
sometimes while I was driving. I realized my mother was not getting younger, but
she had always been a symbol of health. Barely a month after I opened the
clinic, she had a stroke. I was in Manila
to purchase essential supplies. I have to rush back to Marawi City.
She was completely paralyzed, unable to speak, and after two days, she was even
unable to move a finger. As if we built the clinic for her, my elder brother,
his wife and I took care of her 24/7. Close relatives hung around to help, but
after 3 weeks, only immediate family members remained.
I slept on the
floor every night by her side, and although she was in a coma, I am sure she knew
I was there. I administered her medicines, fed her through a feeding tube, and every morning, we bathed her and dressed her bed sores. I would sit by her side
alone and talk to her in silence. Sometimes I would say, “Mother, why do you
have to get sick at a time when I am poor,” and I would giggle silently. I used
to send her money while I was in Saudi Arabia, but she never seemed to need anything in her later years of living with my brothers. She built a house
with the money I sent her during my first few years in Saudi Arabia.
She rented it out so she could have a monthly allowance of her own. She would
sometimes ask what will she do with the money we gave her and I used to
say…give it away. My needy relatives usually approached her in their time of
need. With my little earnings from the clinic, I would beat my brothers into buying her meds and other supplies that she needed. I would hold and caress her
hands and say, “Sorry, Mom, you have to be like this when I am broke,” However, I knew that holding her hands was probably better than all the money in the world for her and me. I had been away most of the past 32 years. Sleeping on the floor
while she lay on the bed was my most significant moment with my mother, except
maybe in those early years when I sat by her side well after midnight. I used
to watch her finish the last few square feet (in spite of the sputtering
kerosene lamp) of the floor mat (reeds/jutte) that she used to weave. During
market days, I would walk around vending the mat I carry on my head. Except for
rare occasions, I would come home with the price money of the mat I sold. The
moment I will never forget of my mom, however, was when she broke into tears the day I told her I was going to Manila
for college. The memory never ceases to bring tears to my eyes, so here we are, 32 years later, holding and caressing her cold, unmoving hands.
During one of those calls from my cousins, they offered to try my luck in Kuwait. They
often called to inquire about their aunt, my mom. They sent some money as well
for her. They volunteered to send me a visa and pay for all of my expenses
including a roundtrip ticket. Three months after my mom slipped into a coma and
after my elder brother concurred, we concluded that the clinic was not working.
Just when we thought my mother was unaware of what was happening, she stirred
and uttered some noise the day I said goodbye again. “I have family to take
care of, Mom,” I said and left. It was the worst day of my life. My mother was
lying there, more dead than alive. I closed the clinic with a heavy heart, but Kuwait
offered a glimmer of hope.
My family was very
excited when I arrived in Manila.
I told them I had closed the Marawi City clinic and was not going
back. I am, in fact, going to Kuwait.
I immediately worked on my papers. Five days later, I received a call from my
brother. Mother passed away. Since the dead are buried immediately in Islam, I saw no need to come home. That would take me at least a day. I have always
preferred to keep the last memory of my mother while still alive although
barely on the day I said my last goodbye.
I called the Kuwait embassy two weeks later to inquire about my visa. The employee at the embassy was disinterested
until I told her that I was a guest of the Philippine ambassador to Kuwait. With
the change in the tone of her voice, I could almost see her stirred into action. I was politely told that my visa needs no stamping at the embassy. The paper I
received from Kuwait
is my copy of the visa that will be stamped at the Airport. The ambassador then
was a close friend of my cousins, whom I later found out was a member of the Ranao Council Inc., a civic professional organization I co-founded
many years back (ranaocouncil.com). He volunteered to facilitate my visa.
Before I left for Kuwait, I wrote a letter to the Minister of Health of Saudi Arabia.
Three weeks after I arrived in Kuwait,
my wife called me to say that she received the reply. I could return to Saudi Arabia. I
flew back to Manila.
Three days later, my cousin called. One of the hospitals in Kuwait called for
my interview, but I was already home in Manila. Although I didn’t find a job in Kuwait, I
indeed did have a good time. My cousins brought me (either with the ambassador
or the general consul) to the best places in town. They would leave me at the
shopping mall along the Gulf
Sea and pass the
afternoon sun sitting on benches along the sea. I would walk along the dock by
the “Shark Mall” and watch big and small yachts come and go, maneuvering at the
narrow entrance to the yacht port. In the late afternoon, I would walk along
the ramp built towards the sea for strollers and watch water jet skiers do
acrobatics. It was a breather in the midst of my crisis. Sometimes, I would
walk to the fish port and watch fishing boats come and go at the dock while
vendors bid for their catch. In the early morning on Fridays, we would jog along the seashore. I had plenty of time to reminisce and search for answers.
When my wife called and said a letter from the Ministry of Health of Saudi Arabia arrived, I
thought my prayers were answered. I was wrong.
A last-minute twist at the Saudi Recruiting Office (SRO)…again, for some strange reason, denied
my return to the Ministry of Health of Saudi Arabia. I was back to zero.
Four years on…I
was broke. Most painful of all, I was psychologically losing my sense of dignity.
To keep two of my children enrolled in college, I borrowed money from relatives and friends in the USA. My wife sold most of her jewelry. I sold my car and other properties as well.
I began to accept my fate.
Strangely, every time I give up all hopes of ever returning to Saudi Arabia, I dream of being back in Zahran Janoub and seeing people I knew in the dream. In one dream, I crossed a bridge over the ocean to Zahran Janoub, where old friends were cheerfully waiting. Stranger still, Zahran Janoub is not a place on my list of choices, nor
am I trying to go back to the town. It is completely out of my mind.
I focused my
attention on running the clinic when another very peculiar thing happened.
After 16 years, my wife got pregnant. Months earlier, my children were teasing
their mom and me. They missed having a baby around the house. They said Nader is no longer a baby, but I laughed it off. “Your mom and I are too old for
that now,” I replied with a giggle. While I did the pregnancy test, my wife was
busy with something else, not expecting that it would turn out the way it did. My
children were so thrilled; their excitement eclipsed ours. They picked up the
phone…fished out the mobiles from their handbags, and started dialing their
friends. They even sent text messages to my relatives in Marawi City.
On the day my wife
delivered, my sister-in-law texted back suggesting that we call her “NISHREEN,” and we did, meaning a little flower. She knew that all of our names begin with the letter “N.” The joy was indescribable, and in spite of our financial difficulties, we were all thrilled beyond
words. Nishreen is not only our angel of
joy…she is our angel of luck.
I
scanned the daily classified ads and visited recruiting agencies. A recruiter for King Khalid Hospital in Najran was very surprised when he learned that I had been in Zahran Janoub for 20 years. King Khalid Hospital was one of our referral centers, where I used to bring some of our seriously ill patients. He assured me, but after two weeks, I called the agency. They recruited only female staff…another strange twist.
“Several
people called,” my wife said as I walked through the door. “They were asking
for your mobile number.”
I just arrived for
an errand from the mall.
“Who
are they?” I asked, “Did they tell you why?”
“Old
friends, and they didn’t say why,” she replied simply. She gave me the names of
old acquaintances from Saudi
Arabia who had likewise long left the
kingdom. I wondered why.
Less
than an hour later, my mobile phone rang. The call was from Sayed Manna,
manager/owner of the only private clinic in Dhahran Janoub. The clinic is owned by the Manna brothers, but Sayed is the manager. After an exchange of pleasantries, he asked, “I heard that you want to come back. Is it true?”
I
was barely listening as he read the conditions of my contract and how much
salary he would give me. I just kept on saying yes and okay, and then he said, “Write
this number and call him right now. There is a visa for you.” My wife was
stunned when I told her who called and why.
I
called the number. It’s Al Jazira recruiting agency. On the other end of the line was Sayed Qahtani, the Saudi owner of the agency, married to a Filipina. Yes, there is a visa for me. He told me to come on Monday since the following day
is a weekend.
When I left, Nishreen was 9 months old.
Here
I come, Riyadh…I
murmured in silence. The overnight stay at the Riyadh Airport
was too familiar to be discomforting. Actually, I missed it. The flight to Abha
had not changed either; it was five in the wee hours of the morning. I had mixed feelings coming back. I don’t know how to respond to people’s queries about where I have been or why I have returned. I tried to sleep during the one hour and fifteen-minute flight, but apprehensions kept my adrenaline high.
As
the jetliner approached the southwest frontiers of Saudi Arabia…the sun was rising.
From the scattered clouds towards the rising sun, a soft golden glow radiates
from its rims. It’s a new day…
