Echozone
Thanking the Arevalo Police and Iloilo Doctors Hospital
It was only last week when I felt the need to publicly thank the men and women of the Iloilo City Police Office, counterparts in the Philippine Army and the many others who made Dinagyang celebration safer.
Today yet another public "thank you," a bigger one, to the entire Arevalo Police Office under Senior Inspector Federico Silvestre Jr., Police Precint 6 commander and two other civilians. Same gratitude to members of the medical staff of the Iloilo Doctors Hospital and my cousin-priest, Fr. Ronald De Leon.
What would have been an ordinary day-off last Friday turned really devastating with the passing of a dearly beloved uncle, Juanito Elanga-Esmilla. His last minutes were aided by total strangers starting off with the cops of Arevalo and bystanders in the area – Villa Public Market /Plaza – where he had a heart attack.
Despite the selfless actions put together by everybody – from the quick response of the Arevalo police in rushing my uncle to the hospital, to the Emergency Room responders of the Iloilo Doctors Hospital, to the very patient (mostly to me) ICU staff, and fervent prayers, it was time for our Tito Johnny to go.
And so in the midst of the family's grief, we say THANK YOU to them all. It did not take long for Nang Norma, my brother's family cook to yell for help and help did came along. Someone from the crowd of onlookers took that extra step to go where he most felt help can be asked and someone in the desk of the Arevalo Police Office gave out the orders. Within minutes, more strangers helped, I was told, while two other male civilians went with the police and brought my uncle to the hospital. In a way, it helped the family's grief that people cared, total strangers cared.
But then again, it was his time to go and be in better hands.
Which made me touch-base anew with my mortality and the great difficulty of coping with anything as tragic as losing someone, anyone. More so like my uncle who in the truest sense of the word was a good person. Good person, bad person, death comes anyway.
We grieve for various reasons and, wrongly, for the most part too yet I found my refuge in my bedside companion, "Prayers for the Busy Person" book. Life is what we make it, I am reminded. Too short for those who made something out of that life and too long for the others who just simply does not know how to live.
For my uncle, I felt it was too short, a month short at least because my cousin, his youngest son is due to graduate with honors next month. But then my answer came in the same book almost immediately – it is not for us to question death just as it never was for us to question why we were given life.
Life is what we make it be it for cops like those from Arevalo who chose to help when my uncle needed help. Or those bystanders who chose to do the same. The nursing aides, nursing trainees, resident physicians, hospital office staff and entire Iloilo Doctors Hospital family. Total strangers who chose to care in an otherwise uncaring world.
To them all this public THANK YOU. May this start yet more caring for all. Now more than ever, I find reason to stop and see if help can be offered. Life is what we make it. Do not make yours "too long."