03.16.07
Duh-dub Duh-dub
Pfft… pfft… pfft… (and more pffts) psssssss… duh dub, duh dub duh dub (several more duh dubs), pssss… then lo and behold! The systolic and the diastolic.
To erase all assumptions that I am also into nursing unanimous with the entire country; I say no, it’s not going to happen. Nevertheless, I’ve learnt to use the sphygmomanometer - after a few disasters of inverting the stethoscope and other things including the systolic and the diastolic.
(Toinkz! Mgka high-blood tuloy yung patient).
It was only a couple of months ago when my 92 year old grandma still sent for me while I was in the middle of practicing Bach’s Italian Concerto or some difficult passage of a piece and would ask me to check on her blood pressure. Most of the time I accomplished it with a willing heart, but I’m not going to be a hypocrite and omit the times when I felt nettled when she did that and called me in her shrill voice.
She passed away on January 17. I was holding her when it happened. She had her back pressed to my chest and I felt the very familiar duh-dub inside her. Suddenly the duh-dubs seemed to erupt into two abrupt throbs… and she was gone. On January 1, three hours after the new year loomed, she had an attack and the whole family thought her life would end there, but God’s will and her strong and fighting spirit gave her seventeen days more. Seventeen days more yet we knew her time was fast approaching. Seventeen days more and each of us in the family learnt and realized so much. Strange as it seems, but the most consoling part of her death was my being there when it happened, because I didn’t have to wonder or ask how she went, and she didn’t have to wonder or ask where I was.
I’m brought about to write this because Lola’s younger sister called for me yesterday and asked if I could also check her blood pressure… and I remembered Lola… and I missed her so much as I tearfully listened to her sister’s throbbing… Duh-dub, duh-dub, duh-dub…
Bitter-sweet and transcendental, the pulse of life.
