cancer, tooth, & my grandfather

Yesterday, I was hanging some sheets on the clothesline when I saw a couple of orange lilies peeping through a blanket of dry pine needles and pineapple leaves.  I went and picked three of them giving me six glorious orangeness.   I found a little vase for them and put them on my dining table, admiring them as I did my chores.  I was gonna leave the orange beauties on my dining table but I changed my mind.  I took the vase with the flowers with me when we left the house and they're now sitting on top of my kitchen worktable.  The petals looked perfect and they seemed to be telling me that this is just another quite and peaceful day--no mind-boggling puzzles to solve, no heartbreaking situations to face.  I was quite wrong because today, I felt so useless... at least to my grandfather. 

When we went up our village last Friday, my younger brother told me that my sick grandfather wanted me to go to him and pull a tooth that has been giving him trouble for quite some time.  He's ill with gum cancer and all he knew is that I was once a nurse and so I must be able to do something for him.  So this morning, when we passed by my uncle's house where my grandfather was, I dropped by to see him because my brother insisted that I go and tell him myself that I cannot do what he asked.

I found my grandfather lying on his bed with his eyes closed.  I was gonna run away and go back to the truck where my husband was waiting for me, but then he said something, so I took a seat.  He told me he has three teeth that he'd like pulled.  He seemed to have said a lot of things but since he barely can open his mouth anymore, I was only able to make sense of a little bit.  He said I don't have to use an instrument like dentists use, as long as I am able to pull the troublesome teeth.  I told him I can't do it even if I have the right instruments to use.  I never pulled a tooth in my life except  my own when I was in first grade.

I did not want to go see my grandfather at all because I really don't like seeing him looking like the way he does.  His face is all swollen and contorted and you can see how painful it is for him.  He used to be a very strong man but now he is lying there crippled and can't even bathe or feed himself.  And I don't like feeling so helpless and unable to do anything for him at all.  It was even harder to tell him that I cannot help him with his teeth and see the disappointment contort his already deformed face.  I prayed for him.  I even sang for him at other times.  But at that moment, I could not really bear to sit there and stare at him as he struggles to talk and make me understand what he wanted to say. So after only a couple of minutes, I mumbled something about talking to his children about taking him to a dentist, or maybe bringing a dentist to him to pull his teeth, and took my leave.

While in the truck, I remembered back when my grandfather was still walking normally, living  his simple life, chewing his usual bettlenut.  That was before he fell from a 30ft tree that has fractured his thigh bone and hip bones and left him an invalid.  I was in college then, and every time I go to their house during vacations, he always makes sure to give me some money by selling his coffee beans or baskets and other crafts that he makes from cane/rattan.  But now, I could not help him, and I don't even want to look at him.  Then my eyes dropped on the flowers sitting on my lap.  I saw orange flowers, almost withered, in spite of the water on the vase.  The petals bowed down to the cruel and uncooperative wind as the truck rolled down the bumpy and dusty road of Mapayao.  Their color, no longer that of rich sunrise orange, but of a darker sunset, rusty hue --just a shadow of the beauty that they were when I picked them yesterday morning. My grandfather, robbed of his strength and dignity by an unfortunate accident, made even worse by a traitorous illness.  I can see that his joy and spirit is slowly ebbing away with each painful and lonely day that passes.  I looked at him and he seemed to be the same grandfather who used to bring me edible frogs that he had caught with a homemade arrow in the Dalpang River in Nansiakan over three decades ago-- a picture of strength and simple life.  I don't know how he manages to bottle up and hide the pain.  I will never know how much he'd like to just rise up from his bed, gird his belt with a bolo hanging on his side, and go trudging up the Colabao forests to tend to his coffee plants.  I can never comprehend what agony he suffers everyday; what torture to have nothing to look forward to in the morning but more pain and more sorrow.  Maybe I really don't want to know. Maybe I will never have the heart to really understand. Because tomorrow, all I hope to see, when I look at my table again, is the loveliness of a beautiful lily in all its orange glory.

Dear Lord, please 'keep the heart' of my grandfather for him...

(Maybe, what I can do is go and read him my translation of  the book of Job.... just a thought that came to mind while thinking if I should or should not publish this ramblings.)