“TO BECOME A NURSE IS NOT LIKE MAKING A DANCEABLE TRAGEDY BUT

RATHER A NURSE WHO TURN A TRAGEDY INTO A DANCEABLE SOUND”

Growing up in solitude, I looked at life just like how I was taught to look on
both ways when crossing the road. A little uptight and wary, bracing my own self for
any predicaments or consolation to conceive something that could consciously fill in
the gaps between lines and spaces of my undefined life; that I could paint it in
abstract, if only I was born a painter.

If I would name myself using anatomy or biology, I am Lacuna – a small

depression, a manifestation of emptiness, and a groove ready to receive a fastball
easily hit by a child playing a baseball. That was what I believed. I grew up with my
grandparents, where I was not denounce and was taken care in total sublime and
absolute devotion. Losing one of them was a divergent kind of chronicle. My
grandfather said that someday our family would be like a bird close to touch the sky
and that I will be his doctor, but it seems like it was a kind of a joke to play and act
like doctors a few minutes before he died. My grandfather died when I was 11 –
supposed to be the age where you wander in wonderland of your little mind believing
that there is gold to where the rainbow stands – a myth and a lie they told you. I was
there watching, trying to hold on to a specific end of his bed in the hospital room
where real doctors were trying to put every single means of hope in reviving him. But
the truth is, life begins when it hits something in the part of your backbone and you
still need to straighten your spine because not even a life machine could bring him
back.

Life did go on only trying not to let abhorrence grasp my innocence.

I could only imagine being the nurse or the doctor that time, what are the
instances of not or telling my patient he’ll die that day? Or would I tell him? And what
would I tell the child holding on, without wishing that the cosmos will let the stars
shine her way not knowing that today she’ll live differently and let her believe that the
time to mourn is substantial. Would I still become a nurse or a doctor after all?

The thing was, I did not live differently but how I looked at life was. When he
died I tried not to cry and be grateful for his life. Mourning is a part of healing and I
mourn to duly treat what was meant to heal. And the cosmos made me dreamt of
resiliency – where amongst the war of bloods and cuts I was the stitch and there I
was stitching my life perfectly together. And if I ever was the doctor of my
grandfather in that moment, I would not try to steal his life in abundance if it means
losing him in vain, I would gladly try to revive him just to let him forgive me for not
holding his hands a little longer. But I would rather choose to be the nurse to treat
him with an utmost care and love, just like how my childhood days were. After all, I
grow up trying to understand life because it just felt that life was taken away from me
and the only thing that’s left with me was his last words for me. And if only there is a
phone call in heaven I would call him and tell him that, 10 years from now he’ll watch
me in a room of healing and life – where I am the healer of life, that nothing is
lovelier than eating rice mixed with hot coffee in rainy seasons and that becoming a
mom at a young age do not hold omens of the future.

Abhorrence didn’t grasp my innocence that much, but as a child, it vividly

showed me how hard life was for carrying hatred and pain at the same time. I
wandered off to far, I tried tracking back my soul in the absence of searching, and I
longed for the things that didn’t even matter. I became pregnant at the age of 18.
And there’s one thing I realized in life: you’ll never understand life until it grows inside
of you. But these circumstances hungers me more to hound and strive for the best –
to become a nurse in the future – to instill care and love to the world even if the world
didn’t made you feel it since then.

And being a student nurse, I will remember every song that leads me to where
I am right at this moment and just like how it is, I will be a nurse and a sound who will
be remembered for putting on the fire of life and will keep this fire burning that people
will be dancing on fire not afraid of burning. I will let them see how faith and hope
collides and create a miracle much more in the middle of chaos; where hope is
standing tall and brave and faith is being fearless and dedicated. And it will be a
great manifestation of what I have been through, that tragedies are not an indication
of failing. Instead, it will mold you to be braver and bolder that you can and will serve
and lead the country and its people sooner or later.

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