Okay Lang (Just Okay

Cliff with his cousins Kheriza and Jetta

I feel old this week.
 Not because my age is old, or that my bones feel old, I just feel old like I am weary.  Like I have seen too much, learned too much, watched too much.
One of my closest friends here, Cliff, came up to me the other night and told me his mom had breast cancer.
"What?" I said,  "Cliff, oh no.  I am so sorry."
And then four days later, she died.
And so as soon as we found out we got a bus to Goa-oa (pronounced Gawa), where the family lives.  She had only been dead for a few hours and as soon as Cliff saw us he burst into tears.
He sat with us, silent sometimes, making jokes, talking about his mom, talking about what happened.
"It was like there was this beautiful picture she wanted," Cliff said, referring to his mother's life.  "She wanted it to be beautiful, but it's like someone just came and set it all on fire."
Cliff's Auntie and Uncle came in and just started weeping and weeping.  We walked into the room to see Chita (his mom) before she was taken to be embalmed.  She looked just asleep, only very still--so still.

So for the next week or so, we'll go to his house in the evenings and sit with him and laugh and cry and have a service for his mother, cause that was her wish.  And Cliff will be ok, I think, but I just wish I could do something to help--but what is there to do?  I'll just be his friend and we'll still draw funny pictures for each other and laugh about the time we boiled pandan leaves just to see what they smelled like and maybe go to the beach, and share books and whatever it is that all the other friends in the world do.  It will be Okay-lang

let me fix that for you.

Today was a fun but long day; Heather's birthday, so Dr. and Mrs.  Mitz took us out to eat in Laoag and then we cooked in the afternoon and made a big lasagna meal, cake, the works.
It was delicious, but we were so tired and full afterwards that Katelyn, Cliff, Heather, Emily, and I went down to the beach and plopped ourselves there.  I wanted to take pictures of the moon reflecting off the ocean (having finally figured out that I can change the shutter speed on the my camera) and everyone else was bored anyway, so off we went to the beach.
It was beautiful at the beach; but my camera didn't work very well so finally I told Cliff, "Let's do cartwheels in the sand!"  So we did.  You know how sometimes you feel like you could just run and run, you have so much energy?  That's how I felt, like I could go on flipping cartwheels forever.

Later we all laid down and looked at the stars.  Orion is my favorite constellation; I always feel a certain peace when I look up at it--like it's the one thing that is constant, the thing I know I can count on, the thing that won't change.  While we were lying there, looking up at the silhouetted palm trees and bright moon, I suddenly got this pang of missing, or a sense how much I was going to miss this place when I leave.  It's an emotion that comes and goes very quickly, because sometimes I can't wait to get out of here and sometimes I can't stand the thought of leaving.  What do you do, when you want to be two places at once?

Earlier this week I was working in the clinic with Tita Mildred, who is a nurse and one of my favorite people I have met here.  I had just come from doing an EKG with Mrs. Mitz, and was all excited cause it was really cool and was fun to do.
"Maybe I want to be a cardiologist!"  I told Mildred excitedly.
"Why maybe?"  She asked in her clipped accent.  "Not maybe.  You WILL.  Then you can fix my heart.  You will take it out, and fix it, and put it back together, and then put it back in."
I laughed.  I don't think Mildred has any heart problems.  The only thing she's been worrying about lately is how dark her face is getting (which doesn't make any sense, because she is supposed to have dark skin.  She's Filipino, for crying out loud) because her 4-year-old granddaughter told her that her face looked ugly, so now she's slathering on SPF 50 every day and always looks a little bit ghostly from having so much sunscreen on. But, I promised her that I would fix her heart even so.

Anyway.  It got me thinking about hearts and putting them back together and how important the whole deal is.  Somehow my heart has gotten entwined in this place, sometimes tightly enough that it hurts to think about leaving, or to think about staying.  I'm not really sure.  There's so much more I WISH I could do here, I just don't want to let a moment get away.