A Soul's Gratitude.

There is a passing ought for us to take by ourselves, during these times we are tested from almost everything reasonable thrown at us. But a travel is never always as lonesome as it will ever be; there’ll come a time that we have to share it, either with a note or with a person.

8 months ago, I was given an opportunity to become what I was schooled for, some may call for it a noble cause to serve or maybe just another world out chance to gain something purposeful of a windless trek. The task I was given to was no laughing matter as it involves lives but this parting eulogy is no part or perhaps few of it is of this job I got but wildly because this is a letter to somebody dear to me.

So to start with me, personality wise I am shy and you may not by a second believe it, to a point that I don’t actually converse with people not as interesting as I am (talk about vanity) more so, I don’t talk too much until I actually know the person and we both were strangers until you took me as your own friend. On my wildest of random mood swings have I thought that we’d actually be good acquaintances, which later on memories play best that I was in good company?

Likable, jolly, versatile and wittedly a dame (I am such a kiss-ass). On our first day, I was scared like I always have especially when we get to be floated on yet another station. A few adjustments, people, attitude and the workplace but you were accommodating not just like it was your job or tasked to do so, affably, you always have been.

And everything from that was history.

5 months to be exact since the very day you became my senior up to the last few days of my stay. I gained so much, an observer as I am, from my surroundings and most especially from you though at times regretfully I do forget some of it and had our behinds screwed and feel worse about it yet I had a lot to list down besides countless laughing hours and simple cold cream cones.

Smile. That’s one of the greatest stuff I have ever learned, not that I don’t know something about it but you were one of the few people dear to me to ever become a good example of it. Busy, drenched, exhausted and crudely famished yet you never tire yourself a smile even at the slightest chance it is forced but ones smile has a beauty of its own and you seem to have that bubbly kind that remains. I wish more people could share with me that appreciation.

Eat no matter what. Preferably this is the most important thing considering the basic needs that we all should be getting, so from this time on I’ll make sure I’ll have buddy snacks and finger foods with me.

Independence. Yes, you are my senior and you need to look after me, supervise me, and help me and all that even to some degree just take my job… There’d be times, no, most of it I become so guilty when I just panic and my stuff gets ended up falling on you. I can feel the weight of your responsibility and I don’t want to become a burden but you were there cool and ever so flamboyant to whatever you do, if this needs comparison and you may think I am over doing complimenting you but neigh I don’t. Amidst the clutter of my work I learned to be more confident of the job given to me by the end of the day you will just remain as my senior and everything else is in my hands, you taught me a working ethic that a starter employee needs… Reciprocated Dependence (look up on Google, this phrase does not exist), a gained independence through supervision relative to being a wingman, I may fly behind you but I can also shoot the enemy whenever I see one.

By this time, it is no hidden fact to me that I may bore you with this VERY short letter; don’t go bratty on me (kidding around). This letter is neither close to being enough nor more of what I can truly say of how grateful I am to have as my senior.

So to end this not-too-many-words-can-ever-describe-how-thankful-i-am novelette, I say, Thank you… for smiling even we all feel grouchy, for remaining calm and sweet even with a  raised voice, for making us eat even if we are too busy like we could care if some doctor just passed by and saw us guffawing hungrily for dear life, for grumping around and at times I get hurt, for chilling around even I screw up, for behaving inanimately like a kid exempting your age, for being bubbly during happy mood swings, and for being YOU… because of that I found a friend, a laughing buddy, a teacher, and somehow a sister (not the really close ones, but you were).

If may we part this sweet landscape of friendship, that what leads on is a good memory from which I have learned in this travel, at times,  it is not the job or the results that gives us the reason to work our way of living but the reason that we keep going is the band of good people we met and will be meeting along the way.

If goodbyes meant to ruin the heart to sobs, why am I smiling every time I recall a memory of our wonderful times!?

I wish you the best and I would surely miss that giggly bubbly voice and laugh of yours my ever dear mentor, co-worker and will always be… A Friend.

To You, From Me.

A Reflect: The Question & Your Answer.

What do we owe this society to make us realize what we truly are??

What does it entail to give purpose to those deserving of our service?

What makes us to do more than we should!?

A month or so ago, I was given the privilege to hear a particular speech from a graduate, I know I have heard lots of speeches after my own commencement exercises and am not new to it but this speech struck a point somehow on me. Come about this valedictorian presenting his fellow classmates, proud and chin high with what they have achieved for the past 8 years. Yes, I am acknowledging this 23 or so MD’s. He was thanking everyone else for being an important part and the very reasons they have reached this feat so far, the professors with all the teaching they learned from them, the patients they have had to meet, friends reaching out so hard to make them realize they still are human beings and of course each of their family’s to which he cited a sincere apology for missing almost everything since medical school started. I s’pose you’d think I’d be crying but no, honestly I can relate to that. My 4 years of nursing may never be comparable to medical school but apologies may truly be fair to our family as they were the very foundation to which we stood, forgotten and sometimes an outlet of school stress and paper works that we all have yet to finish… They were above all the background of this ever working painting. Doing away from that, there was also one thing he was able to mention, though I can no longer memorize his exact words and to which I blame myself for being so lazy not to have this written that night. He said something on how he’d promised to do his duties and responsibility as a doctor to give his services to those who are unfortunate to gain status in the society… the poor. We all have heard that same noble stand many health care wannabes have said, “I want to be a nurse/doctor/what-so-ever health care volunteer to be of service to my country” – ish, I know this doesn’t imply that many of us never dreamt of being a doctor or a nurse and I don’t bring sarcasm and/or insult to those with this kind of principle. What I mean was how he said it.  In this lifetime, everything works with money; the world spins from price tags and cost. Everything almost even anyone has something to sell and have reason to be bought.

He quoted a story on 2 different patients coming in the emergency room;

“The doors open, a man demanding admission to the hospital for he is sick, behind him is trail of maids at a panic as they trolley him with commands of what he wants and probably almost everything he deemed he needs. The room suddenly zoomed with a bustle of orders and requests; he after all can pay for whatever he asks. Then the door swung open yet again, pale and drenched in his own sweat came lugged in a wheel chair, a man who look like he was fighting for his life even then he got sick, behind him is woman a weary look upon her face, a child by her hand and on the other damp of her husband’s feverish sweat to which she wipes on him as he shivers uncontrollably”

He stares at us, but the question he was to say was never meant for us or perhaps a part of it for our own understanding and he goes,

“Who would you serve first!?”

A question he made sure many of us health care professionals can smartly reply to, we have 4 years of schooling for that, we have been taught of morality, ethics to be observed and most of all we are our patients line for advocacy. Everyone was silent. Including his own audience… I was silent ‘coz I know the answer for his query but I speak none of it not even his colleagues who in that room were not just MD’s and what he said don’t only happen in the medical world, it’s everywhere.

The question hang on space until he rectify the rhetoric and imposed a solution of words saying more pleasing gratifications to which he owes his time. And he let on a simple reminder of which can partly answer the rhetoric,

“May we never forget the vows we took as professionals…?”

Then as I may say it, what defines us? What makes us?

If so you can answer the question!? What would it be!? Will you be able to scream with all the air you’ve got and made it known to all!??

I guess, we all know the answer.

A Buoy’s Dilemma.

Far and lost in between, aimlessly a flotilla somewhere in the middle of the ocean, stained in time and torn by season, how yonder that breaks its heart to see itself slowly at ruin. What makes of it but a thing made of man that which can never be known of nay purpose but what it serves best. Lonesome as it meddles with waves, wishful when it shall be taken back from where it was born. What makes of it?! What more can it give!?? Merely a thing to sail around above waters a specter of life underneath it grows.