Small Miracles
I like relating to quotes and I would like to share this to everyone– from someone not known to be religious, Albert Einsten said:
"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. "
Not sure if everyone knows this yet, but on the last week of May, my dad met an accident. He fell of the aluminum ladder while trying to get to the roof of our house. He went down face first.
What was most horrible for us family is that no one among us was there are home (Pampanga) with him. Only the workers and our neighbors were able to help him. We feel, that when all this started happening, God was on our side.
This is what they told us: When he fell off, our workers thought right away that he shouldn’t be moved too quickly. They were all thinking so clearly that they were able to look for someone to drive them to the hospital. No one from the workers knew how to drive. Then, everybody helped lift tatay off the floor (the height from ceiling to floor was estimated about 8-10 ft) and they brought him to the hospital. My mama wasn’t home as well, but they didn’t want her to panic so they tried contacting me and my sister, Wenna.
I was at the office when I felt my phone vibrate. I even ignored it because I was trying to finish some end of the week reports. When I finally looked at it, I saw an unknown number - immediately opened the text, it was a text from one of our neighbors saying: "Nahulog tatay mo, ikaw muna tinext namin. Tawagan mo kami."
My heart fell to the floor. I was so scared but had the courage to call that number. It was Ate Lourdes’ number. She told me all about what happened and she said they were on their way to the hospital. I instantly thought about going home right then and there. I asked them where they took him, and they told me they had no idea. What I did then was I asked for the number of person who drove them to the hospital so that I can call him instead. This has never happened to our family so I was surprised that I was thinking straight.
So while waiting for our neighbor’s text, I called up Wenna and then I started crying and panicking. I felt so weak. She already heard the news and was already on her way to the hospital. I told her that I was going home too and I’ll meet her there.
I finally got hold of the driver’s number and called him up. He gave me the details and I found out that my tatay was in the ICU and he may need an operation on the head. I was trying hard to hold back the fear and the tears.
I called up Pol and cried to him and told him what was happening. He calmed me down and told me to go home and go to the hospital. After around 20 minutes, I left the office.
Tatay was in the ICU for around 4 days. It was the scariest thing. We stayed at the hospital despite that fact that we can’t even see him. Visiting hours was only limited to 3 hours, and when that time comes, the whole family took turns in seeing tatay.
I tell you, God was working all this time because I am a big crybaby .. but when I was there, talking to tatay and making him comfortable, I felt so calm and grateful that he’s still here and I’m able to talk to him (he never blacked out, btw, when he fell). Mama had a hard time talking to him because she was just speechless and overwhelmed, but thank God we were all there to talk to him and show him how much we are praying hard for his recovery.
It was really scary because there came a point while he was in the ICU that, the neurosurgeon said, they may have to cut him open on the head because of his fractures. He had several fractures on the right side of the skull that the cranial liquid was already seeping through these fractures. He was talking about titanium plates and plastic surgery. The doc even said that it will only take a miracle for the liquid to stop. He gave us 24 hours to decide wether to operate or not. We were just speechless while he was talking about this, and I, speechless and just praying that he just be taken out of the ICU so we know that he’s out of danger.
We prayed so hard. We never prayed so hard in our entire lives. People we know and people we hardly know were there to give us comfort and prayers. We never realized that a lot of people cared for the family.
We were praying for a miracle.
During these times, Wenna, me and mama we’re the "bantay" for the night. We talked a lot, we can’t even sleep because there were only chairs in the waiting area. We talked about how God can give real meaning to prayer because he will make us realize how helpless we can be at times. And that he’s our only hope.
The day came when we had to decide. The doctor passed us by and went into the ICU. After around 10 minutes, he called us and with a small smile on his face, he said: "It’s a miracle! The leaking stopped!"
We were speechless and almost cried in front of him. We called everyone and texted everyone, thanking them for the prayers. We were so thankful and grateful that he will finally be okay. God followed through. God saw that we had faith. God saw how much we trusted in Him.
We stayed for week more in the hospital — he left the ICU a day after that good news. His face was still swollen, but again, we were just happy that he’s out of danger. He healed so fast that you can see his bruises slowly disappearing.
He’s now here at home and stronger. He still has bruises on his face, but can you believe he’s now walking around and eating with us in the dining room? We are blessed! He’s blessed!
And so today, even if we were not able to go to mass as one family, all my prayers were all about thanking God for Tatay’s recovery. I am grateful that we’ll be celebrating Father’s day here at our house.
I gave tatay a stuffed sunflower for Father’s Day. We bought him a cake that said:
"Happy Father’s Day tatay — you are our miracle!"
That way he can put it in his room and see that to this day, he’s still with us, his family, and very healthy and able.
Happy Father’s Day, Tatay!! Love you!!!
