Love, in the vernacular.

Over Christmas dinner, my brother told stories of his job at a public hospital. He spoke of returning patients from Fudan, China, who have sought popular new methods of cancer treatment in that country but are now back home still sick and more desperate than ever. Of poor people suffering from kidney malfunctions being denied certain treatments just because the government doesn’t have enough funds. Of having to tell a senior citizen mother that her son, who was a perfectly-functioning adult in his 30s just last week, actually has a borderless brain tumor that will not stop growing and would inevitably lead to his death in a few months. It seems blatantly cruel, the arbitrariness of it — no bad habit or specific genetic characteristic to blame, just a random death sentence of nature. Of having to watch that mother face a wall and try with all her might not to cry in front of her son.

This year, I saw more doctors and spent more time in hospitals that I’d ever had in my life. Needless to say, it wasn’t fun. But you also realize that there are people who spend massive chunks of their lives in there. There’s a whole community/sub-culture of the sick. A whole slew of people whose lives, routines, and traditions are centered on their illnesses. Special occasions are spent with relatives gathered in a sterile hospital room, a good day means being able to walk along a hospital corridor without losing one’s breath, and the goal in life is normalcy instead of excess. I’m only talking about the sick in the urban areas, those who have savings to exhaust for treatment. I can’t even begin to imagine how it is for those who live in the far-rural areas of the Philippines. 

It’s easy to think of Health is Wealth as just another quote posted at your doctor’s clinic but damn, the aspects of life that an illness can steal from you. And the fact that we’re substantially healthy, that we are free to pursue what we want without any physical constraint is enough to be drunk with gratitude every single day. So let’s celebrate the fact that we have all these possibilities simply because we’re healthy. This can all change, of course. An accident, a sudden diagnosis can realistically alter everything. I was particularly scared when we began counting yesterday how many people in my father’s side of the family have died due to one form of tumor. Who’s to say, it may or may not be an element of our lives in the future. But as for now, we are free. And I am so, so thankful for that. We owe it upon ourselves to make the most of this health, this freedom. Merry Christmas.