It Feels Like Family Again, but Where Is Mom?
“When you look at your life, the greatest happinesses are family happinesses. ”― Joyce Brothers.
“Bad news. I tested positive.”
It didn’t sink in right away. What? I had to ask my sister twice?
“I am Covid positive, mild asymptomatic. They are transferring me to a quarantine facility.”
It was a message from my sister, who flew from the US to get her youngest daughter trapped in the Philippines since the pandemic.
The distance between her and her daughter is 10,000 miles. The distance between her and my Mom seems an eternity.
My sister is here for two reasons: First, to get her youngest daughter, whom she hasn’t seen for three years, and to visit the grave of my Mom, who passed away on February 2, 2021.
Our story isn’t new. I have seen it a thousand times on social media. Not a day passes when I don’t read that someone I know died or someone posts about knowing someone who died.
Like many, it feels I have said “sincerest condolences” more than “happy birthday,
and only in February did we lose our Mom, not from the virus that has separated families, but because it was her time.
After my Mom died, I have reconciled with my sister. It has been three years since I last saw her and three years since I last spoke to her.
Even to my other sisters, I have become a stranger, and in those same years, I am not even talking to my Dad.
I am not proud of who I was during those times. Instead, I was sad, angry, and lost.
But even during those times, I continued to be with my Mom during her dialysis treatments. For almost seven years, it was a journey that I almost failed in the end. But still, Mom made sure that I learn from it. She made sure that all of us know how much she loves us.
In the last 21 days of her life, she was at home. She wasn’t supposed to last that many days when she decided to stop her dialysis, which I honored, which we all honored. And in those 21 days that she was dying, she was reentering our lives as our Mom.
As the Mom, I used to know, the strong one, the one always in control, and the one we can lean on in times of trouble.
And the one who isn’t sick and dying.
My sister was supposed to fly into Manila days before her birthday. Instead, twice she has to cancel her flight. She was already in the airport only to be told she can’t enter Taiwan, her connecting flight to Manila.
All because we live in a different time, a time full of uncertainty and death.
At one point, she had to stay overnight in LA after her canceled flight, and she had to fly back to Florida until she gets to a plane — 10,000 miles apart, from her home, her daughter, and her Mom.
She arrives when the COVID cases in Manila are rising, the city is again on lockdown. On the day she arrived, she has to be quarantined in a hotel for ten days. And she only had 25 days to do three things while in Manila.
Get her daughter.
Pay her respects to our Mom.
Visit our Dad.
By this time, my relationship with my siblings has healed. I have become a brother to them again.
We had our chatroom to keep her company during the ten days she needed to be in her hotel room.
I don’t know how that feels, she is no longer 10,000 away from her daughter, but she can’t hug her, kiss her, and even see her.
It must be heartbreaking for a mother.
We counted the days with her. Each day means we are closer to planning a reunion, even when moving around the city is restricted.
We are planning a simple get-together, a lunch, a welcome, and a farewell party rolled into one. And, unfortunately, we can only meet once, at most twice, before she flies back to the US with her daughter.
And on the seventh day, the bad news.
“I tested positive.” My sister told us in the chatroom.
I was worried. We all are. But my sister, as tough as our Mom, said she was OK.
“Another 10 days of quarantine — Besides the government is paying, welcome to free meals. She jokingly left in the chatbox.”
It will take another 12 hours to hear from her again. She is now in a quarantine hotel, where while the government is paying, half of the passengers of her flight are now in quarantine. Nobody knows if this is the outbreak of the Delta variant.
It isn’t even on the news.
That Sunday, a day before, when Manila goes on an even stricter lockdown, we decided to see each other and have lunch with My Dad. We even managed to bring his 3-year-old great-grandson, whom he hasn’t seen for months. With whom he has shown great love and affection, just the way our Mom did in her final days.
We talked to my sister in her new hotel, where she described the poor conditions and the mold that has infested her room. As a Covid positive person, on that day, she has no name. She is nothing but a number, a statistic to the alarming new cases. She was among the 8,141 reported cases that day.
She remained in high spirits and asked if I can bring some stuff. Some fruits and slippers. We made a list of what she may need — a nebulizer, oximeter, and thermometer. At the same time, we know she would be safe, as she is fully vaccinated. Still, we know that virus can turn its ugly head. Too many times have we heard, a person who tested positive a few days ago now had to be intubated or, worse, rushed to a hospital where their family will never see them again.
To us, it was a time of uncertainty. My sister may be asymptomatic today but can be sick tomorrow.
I brought her the stuff, and all was good until I talked to her the following day.
She sounded different, almost defeated. She refuses a video chat. She said she was tired. And all she wants is to sleep in the bathtub.
It was all I needed to hear. I know it is brain fog, and I am not sure if it is because she is positive or the molds in her room is making her sick.
She was rambling. She told me the room was full of molds, to which she is known to be allergic. She said she would die here.
When I ask what I can do for her, and if she wants, I can go to her hotel now. She refuses. She said she needs to rest. She is different, she isn’t my sister, and I had to act fast before losing my sister.
I had to call her eldest daughter in the US, who is a new mom herself. My sister didn’t want me to tell her daughters, but I felt I should act fast. So even if I had to take her out of the hotel myself, I will.
My niece acted fast. Of which I am very proud of how she remained on top of the situation. Even when she is 10,000 miles away, she arranged the transfer of her Mom to a new quarantine facility.
We had to do very little. We all had to trust my niece. Like my Mom, she is one tough woman, and on that day, she delivered.
She saved her Mom.
Just before midnight, my sister is in her new hotel — a better quarantine facility. And soon after, she finally had a decent sleep after almost 48 hours of being awake.
While she remains Covid positive, we are all optimistic that she will pull through. All we had to do as a family is to keep her company. To make sure she has someone to talk to at any time she is awake. I got this advice from my friends who did the same thing for their siblings who tested positive.
We didn’t hide anything from my 82-year-old Dad. In the seven days that follow in her new quarantine hotel, all my Dad asked of me is to take good care of my sister.
On the last 48 hours of her quarantine, we began to make plans. The city is on complete lockdown. Travel isn’t allowed except for those who have papers to show. There are military checkpoints, and even the cemeteries are closed.
I prayed to God and asked Mom to help us. This isn’t the first time I have asked Mom for help. To me, she has regained her superpowers after she died. And at times, when I find no answer, by miracle, a solution comes without fail.
My Mom showed me in my dream what needs to be done. That when my sister is discharged, she needs to visit her grave. They need to have that moment, not of closure, but remembrance. To honor her, and my Mom would like that to happen, not a day tomorrow.
And I know that is my Mom talking when I shared the “plan.”
On the day she was discharged, everything was smooth. She was allowed to travel. She gets past checkpoints without any hassle, to be let in by the cemetery guards even when it was closed for visitors.
She finally saw Mom again.
The following day, I met her for the first time in three years, and while I talked to her online, it is different. We kissed and hugged because it is the right thing to do. We never know when we meet again. That is the reality of our times.
She finally saw Dad, and we decided to go for another lunch the following Sunday, a day before she and my niece leave for the US.
It is time to be a family again, and on that Sunday, we had lunch. All my siblings, except for my sister in South Africa, are present. We had a photo together.
Above us was our Mom’s smiling portrait,
She never left us. She is here, and all we need to ask is when we need her help, and she will make all things right.
“When you need me, but do not want me, then I must stay. When you want me, but no longer need me, then I have to go.” — Nanny McPhee
Her entry to the afterlife is her way to return to as the Mom we knew her to be before she got sick. And when I finally reunite with her, I know she will be happy that I have become a brother to my sisters and a loving son to my Dad.
My other stories you may want to read:
- Space — Coffee, Dad?
- Work — Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
- Death — My Laptop Is Dead, and How Do I Say Goodbye?
