The Patient

15. SYZYGY

   Some part of him wanted to prove to everyone in that town that he is not just the boy whose father deserted his family. He knew people expected him to fail , for his grief and his anger to overwhelm him, but he didn't  let it. He had clawed his way to success
in life, despite obstacles.
   Arriving at the pier of another island after a very long  sea travel , Ramero never questioned his family's  decision to travel and immigrate to the  strange new place. He had missed his old playmates and friends and many things they had left behind. But he soon forgot about them as he made new friends and acquaintances .
They left their old wooden and brick house to resettle in a cozy nipa hut, but he was allowed to play in his grandparents  Adobe house, which is just a stones throw away from their nipa house. His mother gave birth to his baby sister a few months after they resettled in his grandfather's  birthplace. This took place amidst his father's  constant drunkenness and little or none at all contribution to their family income. He knew that his grandfather's  regular addition to their food budget was the only reason they were not going  hungry at all.
   His long suffering mother never uttered a word against his father but always readily gave in to his impulsive yet elusive efforts to build a better future for his family. Then they woke up one day to his sudden disappearance.
   Even in his youth, Ramero knew his grandparents were the key to his hopes and dreams to a successful future. Such that he persuaded his grandpa Pirong to let him study in Manila right after graduation from high school. His grandparents thus accompanied him to a newly bought condo unit in Manila , leaving his mother and sister as caretaker of their ancestral house and farm business.
They enrolled him in the nearest college from their condo, where five years later he graduated from the course of Medical Technology.
   It was in this college where he met Corazon, whom he knew from first sight would be his future wife.
  They were classmates in all subjects during their first two years in college. He made sure of this by copying her schedule and rearranging his, dropping subjects not the same as his previously enrolled ones, and enrolling in those where she was. And learning all he can about her.
   What he had forgotten of his childhood life experiences before his long sea voyage , he soon remembered little by little, via their conversations, and even found out that they had been play mates.
   When he mentioned this to his grandparents, they appeared to be shocked , and refused to acknowledge his memories, just saying that was so long ago, and denied anymore knowledge of her family.
   Still  Ramero and Corazon became best friends and he pursued his courtship of her all through their college years. He waited for her major subjects to finish when his were through earlier, and ate together in the school canteen, and studied together in the library in the evenings.
   Corazon was staying in her family's  residence in a nearby city in Metro Manila, but this did not deter Ramero to call on her place every weekend, on the pretense of  studying together or making research projects.
   When she earned her BS Pharmacy while he achieved his BS Medical Technology, he knew he still had to work a few years to augment his educational fund in order to enroll in Medicine course. After passing the licensure exams for Medtech, he took the MCAT or Medical College Admission Test. All these he did while working in the base hospital of their school.
   And then came the day when they learned of his grandfather's  long held secret illness. His grandmother had been nagging his Lolo Pirong to see a doctor for his pallor and listlessness for months, but ignored for more important business that he was running out of time to finish, as his grandpa put it. It turned out that his grandpa was really running out of time  , trying to finally  settle his legacy to his soon to  be bereaved family. When Ramero's grandfather died of cancer, he was holding his hand. The extreme melancholy feeling that came over him was partly relieved by the thought that his grandpa's pain was  over now. His sadness was because his anchor was gone, and he felt the emptiness of his grandpa's  discarnate body , like everything that made him , him was  gone.
  His own father never even surfaced to pay last respects to his grandfather.
  But in all this, Corazon was there for him. She was there to console him in his bereavement. She already knew before then all his sentiments regarding his family, and she acknowledged her own family circumstances. She told him how her father had no time for their family and how her mother was incapacitated by Dementia...
   Thus when she extended this message to him, he was so gratefully touched...
" Some fights are not worth your time. Choose what you fight for wisely- leave the small fights for small fighters, stop fighting those who gossiped about you, stop fighting for attention, stop fighting to meet people's expectation of you, stop fighting for your rights with inconsiderate people, stop fighting to please everyone, stop fighting g to prove them wrong about you,
Leave such fights to those who have nothing else to fight,
Start fighting for your vision, your dream, your ideas, your destiny.
The day you gave up on small fights will be the day you start being successful and so much more content! "

   When Corazon left Manila to work in their own family's hospital in their province their communication still
continued and they met frequently, as they attended seminars and conferences pertaining to their professions. They always gravitated to each other when in dire need of emotional support.
   To each other they had promised to always be there.  " We are a  team, you and me, I am on your side to support you and to build you up when you fall down. I am here to encourage you and to cheer you up, to be your best friend and to love you till I die. "  They swore to each other. It's  as if they were two planets with God as their sun, aligned in a cosmic dance in a perfect
SYZYGY.

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