Tag Archives: Christmas

Signature Baby Clothes

24 December 2011

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“And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.” Luke 2:12

Are you fascinated by signs or clues, just like Sherlock Holmes? Well, the shepherds were given a “sign,” to know that they found the right baby to visit that first Christmas night. I suppose there might be a number of babies born that night.

Finding a baby in a stable and lying in a manger was strange enough I would say, but there was more than to it. The baby was wrapped not in a diaper or a blanket, but in a swaddling clothes. Have you ever wonder why the swaddling clothes was a sign? What is a swaddling clothes anyway?

A swaddling clothes is a long and narrow bands of cloth that is used in wrapping a body in the olden times. Then, where did Mary and Joseph got this “signature” cloth, you may ask, to wrap their baby? No, not in a shopping mall or store, for I don’t believe they had time for that, though I think  there were a lot of merchandise and bargains in Jericho, which was on the way. And definitely that type of cloth is not something lying around in a stable, or something that they just stumbled upon on the road in their long trip to Bethlehem.

The ancient Middle Eastern culture have a tradition that when they travel that will last for many days to months, men will take with them, a long, thin, gauze-like cloth, and wrap it many times around their waist. This would be one of the bottom layers of their clothing, and this would not be like Calvin Klein or Hanes . This cloth is reserved for death, if in case this will happen while they are traveling. If someone died during the journey, their friends and family would use this cloth and wrap their body from head to toe, just like a mummy, so they could complete their journey.

Since Mary and Joseph’s journey from their hometown of Nazareth, to Joseph’s ancestral town of Bethlehem, was a couple of days travel (80 miles in distance one way), it was most likely that Joseph was wearing his “death” cloth according to their custom. Do you see where this is going?

Though it cannot be proven with certainty as it was not recorded directly in the scriptures, but it was very likely that baby Jesus was wrapped in Joseph’s “death” cloth! That would make one of the wise men’s gift even more appropriate. Myrrh, was the spice used to embalm the dead. It was basically a deodorant for the dead.

Do you see the theme here? Jesus was a baby born to die. He came to this world to die for you and for me.

As we celebrate this Christmas, may we for a moment, pause for the real meaning of this occasion. It’s not about shopping (though that was what commercial institutions want you to believe), nor about our kid’s or our own Christmas wish list. It is not about Christmas trees, nor sitting on someone’s lap, nor filling our stockings with goodies, nor the gifts under the tree.

But yes, this season is about “the gift.” The gift was not wrapped with bows and ribbons, but with “death” cloth. The gift was not under the tree, but rather, He was hanged and died on a tree.

May you have a blessed Christmas.

The Christmas Homecoming

17 December 2011

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He arrived with much fanfare. Clad in a brightly orange suit, with two escorts on each side. He made a jingling sound with every small step he made. People turned around and looked as he walked and passed through the hospital corridors, for it was an unusual sight to see.  But he did not mind their glaring stares. He came for a special purpose, and that’s what matters. He came to see his father.

His father laid in our ICU. He suffered an acute and severe bleed to his head. The bleeding was so extensive that he required a neurosurgical procedure to evacuate the large collection of blood inside his skull, and placed a shunt in his brain to relieve the high pressure, in an effort to save his life.

However despite of all the intervention, his condition did not improve. In fact, it even got worse. After the surgery, he had more bleeding and swelling to his brain. And no further surgery could fix or decompress the pressure that was squashing his brain. There were no “miracle” medicines that can be infused on him that would make him better. No further medical intervention left that could be done to save him. His condition was unsurvivable. Sooner or later, all the life-sustaining machines  hooked on him would be deemed worthless as he would be pronounced brain-dead.

Due to the grim development of events, the patient’s family were all in agreement to discontinue all life support. Though they had one request before that happens. They pleaded for the patient’s son to come before he dies. A son who had not seen his father for a long time.

In the past 10 years that I have been an ICU physician, I have signed for diverse medical and non-medical requests – a disability form for a patient who was critically ill, a leave of absence for a relative who’s loved one was in our ICU, a letter to the military requesting for a deployed soldier overseas to be permitted to come home to be with his mother in her last days, or a letter to the US consulate for a patient’s mother in a foreign country requesting for a visa to see her son, who was in near-death.

This time I signed a request for a detainee to be released briefly from prison, to visit his dying father.

And so he came.

The brightly colored clothes was not because it was the holiday season, but it was the standard issued jumpsuit from the prison. The jingling sounds as he walked, was not from trinkets or bells to announce some holiday cheer, but rather from the chink of the chains that binds his ankles. He brought no gifts as he came empty-handed, except for the handcuffs. There were guards that flanked him as he made his way through, and people watched and stared, but it was not a parade.

He was led into the ICU room where his father laid. Her mother who was at the bedside, cryingly welcomed him with open arms. It was an embrace of acceptance to their “wayward” son. Like a homecoming of a prodigal son, if you will. Yes, it was a sort of homecoming alright. A very sad homecoming indeed.

As the son stood silently beside the bed of his comatose and dying father, the tears began to flow from him. Prison, I supposed, did not harden him enough to be devoid of all emotions. If only his father can see his tears, but it was too late. Whatever demons he had in the past, and I don’t care to know, he was still human after all. Just like you and me.

Was the tears for his father, who he knew he failed, and who he would never see again? Or was the tears for himself, as he had caused his family such heartache and disgrace? Was it tears of painful loss and farewell? Or was it tears of remorse and repentance? Or maybe it was a combination of all of those reasons. Whatever it was, only he alone knows.

There will be no singing of Christmas carols, I guess, in his dark and lonely cell tonight.

Season’s Tinsel and Glitter

13 December 2011

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When I was growing up in Manila, we did put up some decorations during Christmas. The ornaments were not much – a colorful parol that we hand-made (oftentimes as a school project) hanging outside the window, and a small Belen in the living room, but that was enough to spruce up the holiday mood. We don’t have a Christmas tree, not even a scraggly fake one, though sometimes we had “kumukuti-kutipap” lights. And I don’t mean lights being on and off due to the frequent power outages that we had then.

Now that I moved out of the country, it also became a tradition in our home here in Iowa to decorate for Christmas. This, I believe, decreases the pangs of homesickness for us, while in turn, creates wonderful memories for our children. We even have a real live Christmas tree inside our home that we get from a tree farm each year. And we don’t need to add fake snow, we have lots of the real one. Yes, too much (*sigh*) of the real one .

Here are some of our Christmas decor this year:

parol made of capiz (from the Philippines)

“Behold, the star which they had seen in the East went before them.” Matthew 2:9

"PEACE" hanging in our fireplace mantel

“Peace on earth, goodwill toward men.”

wreaths adorning the stairs

star lights on the window

“O star of wonder, star of night, star with royal beauty bright.” (We Three Kings of Orient Are)

soft glow on the porch

dangling luminescence on a clear night

“It came upon a midnight clear.”

trimmings on our tree

silver bells, silver bells.....I mean......balls?

“O Christmas tree! O Christmas tree!”

JOY

“Joy to the world, the Lord is come.”

crystal Nativity

It is easy to get lost in all the tinsel and glitter of the holidays. But let us not forget the real reason for the season.

the real reason

“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.” Isaiah 9:6

My Christmas Calling

26 December 2010

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Christmas morning. Freshly fallen snow was on the ground. It was a White Christmas after all. Bah, humbug!

I forced myself to get up from bed. My throat was so sore, it felt like somebody stuck a fork in my throat and scraped it raw. My body aches like I just ran a marathon. I caught a Christmas bug, you know. No, not the “joyful feeling” of the holidays. A real bug.

I don’t want to go to work, emotionally and physically. But I had to. I am on-call for Christmas, and our patients in the hospital, especially in the ICU, needs my care. (But who will care for me?) On days like this, I just have to suck it in, take a couple (or make it a handful!) of Tylenol and will myself to go.

I left home with the kids still sleeping and the gifts under the tree unopened. Maybe I would be able to come home early and we can open the gifts.

In the hospital I greeted people with perfunctory “Merry Christmas,” though I was not feeling the “merry” part, and in fact was in a Scrooge-mood. It was a busy day: 32 total hospitalized patients I rounded upon, 2 hospitals I went to, 19 ICU patients, 12 ventilator-dependent, 2 carbon monoxide poisoning that needed hyperbaric oxygen treatment, 1 chest tube insertion, 1 endotracheal intubation, 1 arterial catheter placement, 2 central venous catheter placement……. and a partridge in a pear tree.

As I dealt with the very critical patients and talked with their family, I knew that I was not the bearer of good tidings and joy, but rather of grim news most of the times. As the families broke into tears and comes to term to the gravity of the condition of their loved ones, I thought that these people are experiencing far worse Christmas than I am. At least I am going home tonight. My patients will not. Some of them will not come home, ever. And for these families, Christmas will never be the same.

Slowly my “Grinchy” attitude peeled off and was replaced with a sympathetic spirit. I then realized my purpose for this holiday, and that is to give my compassionate care for these unfortunate people, in this supposed to be joyful occasion.

The last patient I admitted to the ICU came late afternoon. He was 32 years old. When he was 7, he received a life-giving gift, when he became a recipient of a heart transplant. His donor heart had kept him alive for all these 25 years. However, for the past few years, his existence was less than joyful. Complications after complications have developed, and one by one his organs started failing, including his borrowed heart.

Today he was brought to the Emergency Department almost dead. After transferring him to our ICU, placing him on a mechanical ventilator, placing tubes and catheters in his body, and flooding his system with medicines, his condition did not really improve much. After I spoke with her mother in the ICU waiting room, she quietly, but boldly stated, in between sobs, that she was ready to let go of her boy who have suffered enough. She indicated that she just wanted him to go gently into the night. Somehow, the ‘miracle’ heart will be resting this Christmas night.

Did the miracle ended? I don’t think so. For the miracle of love persists. Love that is shown here by letting go, which in some occasion, is more selfless than holding on.

There is another  7-year old boy who is waiting for his gift. That boy is my son waiting at home. He may be anxious to open his gifts, but then again, he may be anxious just to see me come home.

Gift of Life 2: A Christmas Miracle

21 December 2010

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(A continuation of the story: Gift of Life)

Mary opened her eyes and the bright lights flooded her vision. She squinted and saw people donned in white attending to her. Is this heaven? No, this was the ICU room where she was in, before she slipped into coma.

She felt her tummy. It was much smaller now. She thought, did she delivered her baby already? When? Where? How?

She later learned that she was out in a coma for about a week, and she had an emergency caesarean section while she was comatose. She strained her eyes to see the picture posted in her room’s wall. It was a picture of her newborn baby boy! A weak smile graced her gaunt face. She and her baby survived after all. Both of them have received the gift of life.

Few more days later, Mary was stable enough to get out of the ICU, and be transferred to the maternity ward, where she will finally meet her miracle baby boy.

On this Christmas night, a silent night, a mother and her child will sleep in heavenly peace.

Mother and child

(image from here)

I’m Dreaming of a Warm Christmas

19 December 2010

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The following article was published in Manila Standard Today on Dec. 11, 2010, in their Diaspora section.

I wake up; our bedroom was freezing. I rise and crank up the heater so I can at least feel my toes. I clear the frost in my windowpane to take a look outside. It has been snowing all night and the snow has not relented, blanketing everything, surrounding us in white. The snow in the ground was getting deeper, so I decide it is time to shovel and clear up our driveway before we get buried inside.

As I put my thermals, sweater, parka, hat, muffler, snow boots, and gloves on, I hear Bing Crosby on the radio singing: “I’m dreaming of a White Christmas, just like the ones I use to know.” My mind wanders.

I first heard “White Christmas” many, many years ago while growing up in the streets of Manila. I had no idea what a white Christmas was then, but it did not stop me from singing that song. I like the part “to hear sleigh bells in the snow” even though I had no clue what sleigh bells were. Now I understand why the Philippines can only dream of a white Christmas — unless our planet Earth go into another ice age.

White Christmas (image from hubpages.com)

The first time I experienced snow was quite memorable. I was so excited to see snow coming down from the sky that I ran out of the apartment with barely a jacket on. I like the way it felt and tickled my face and tongue as it gently falls. I scooped up a handful from the ground with my bare hands and made a snowball. Not too long after, though, I started shivering and my hands turned to white and then blue from the biting cold. I had to run back inside for shelter. But it was a beautiful sight to see when all the ground is white, glistening under the moonlight, and reflecting the Christmas lights. That was the first time I felt like living inside a Christmas card.

Not too long thereafter, I experienced my first blizzard. It did not stop snowing for a couple of days until the snow was almost three feet deep. It buried our town. I was stranded in my workplace for 2 days. My wife and I were so ill-equipped for snow at that time. We had no snow boots yet, so we tied plastic bags to cover our rubber shoes when we went out and walked in the nearly waist-deep snow. Then we used a broom and a dustpan to excavate our car which was virtually submerged in snow. It was a good thing that after some time of digging with a dust pan, a good neighbor saw us and lent us a real snow shovel.Still, it took us more than an hour to get our car free.

Now, after years of living in an “icebox” and dealing with bone-chilling cold winter, I am sick of clearing and shoveling snow. I am also tired of driving, or should I say slipping and sliding, through snow, sleet, and ice. Now I feel I should drive a sleigh (only with sleigh bells of course) pulled by reindeers when the road is covered with snow. I even got stuck in the snow once and needed my car pushed and towed. And in days like these, a white Christmas is the farthest thing I’m dreaming of.

What I am dreaming of? I am dreaming of a WARM Christmas! Just like the ones I use to know.

colorful parols

I am dreaming of a place where I can hear the distant church bells ring in the early morning calling for the “simbang gabi”,  where I can smell the freshly cooked puto bungbong and bibingka being prepared at the corner street, where I can see the bright and colorful “parols” and their “kumukutikutitap” lights, where I can hear the street children sing “Ang pasko ay sumapit” while beating their  makeshift drums made of tin can and clanging their  bottle crowns (“tansan”), where I can taste the arroz caldo, kare-kare, and relyenong bangus prepared in our home, where I can share with the joy and laughter of my childhood friends, where I can feel the warm embrace of lolo, lola, tito, tita, kuya, ate, tatay and nanay, where I can…….

The blast of the Arctic air snapped me back to the reality of the present, as I open the door to go outside. Yes, I am cold, and very, very far away from the warm place I always known as home.

I was so homesick, feeling sorry for myself.  Then a thought occurs: being far away from home is the very essence of the first Christmas — when Jesus left the comfort of His heavenly home and came to this lowly planet and spent His first night here on earth, in a humble and cold stable.

On this holiday season, wherever you are, home or far away from home, I wish you a merry and blessed Christmas.

Gift of Life

15 December 2010

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Everybody said that her pregnancy was ill-conceived and ill-advised. But who are we to judge her?

Mary (not her real name) lies in our ICU. Her 21-year-old body looks frail and debilitated, her skin is pale and sallow, and her breathing is irregular and shallow. Attached to her sick body are a number of tubes, catheters and monitors. The regular bleep and tracings in the monitor screen above her bed tells me that she is still alive, although she looks otherwise.

Mary was born with cystic fibrosis. This is an  inherited disease caused by a defective gene that causes thick mucus plugging of small tubes and ducts, mostly affecting the lungs and the digestive system. Patients suffer with frequent lung infections, digestive problems, and usually succumb with respiratory failure or liver failure. The disease is fatal that many patients will die in their childhood and adolescence. However, in the past few decades, with the improvement of care, patients who made it through adulthood has an average lifespan of 35 years.

Mary’s childhood was anything but normal. She was in the hospital or doctor’s office so often more than she was in school. She was on medications constantly. She had known more doctors than childhood friends. She experienced more than her share of suffering and disease. But she had beaten the odds. Now, that she made it through 21 summers tells me that she is a fierce survivor.

But now, this pregnancy. Her family doesn’t want her to have this. Her doctors told her that her body may not be able to tolerate the additional stress of pregnancy and that it will be very high risk to continue. But she made up her mind that she will keep this child whatever the cost.

Due to developing problems and complications, she was admitted to the hospital’s maternity ward on her 32nd weeks of conception, where she was expected to stay for the rest of the pregnancy. However, after a few days in the hospital her condition worsened. Her liver function deteriorated and she went into fulminant hepatic failure. Mary slipped into coma. She was then transferred to our ICU.

Because her baby may get compromised further, we had no choice but to deliver the baby, even if it was barely 33 weeks old. Mary underwent an emergency caesarean section.

Now, 3 days after her baby’s delivery, Mary still remains in our ICU. She continues to be comatosed. As I stand beside her bed to examine her, I see the pictures of her newborn baby posted on the wall of her room.  Being a parent, I cannot help but feel a twinge of sadness. Will she ever know that she brought forth a beautiful baby, premature, but otherwise healthy boy? Will she ever hear the yearning cry of her dear child? Will she ever see the sweet smile of her son? Will she ever hold her baby in her arms, the life that she fought for so dearly to bring to this world, even if it meant going against medical advice?

I just hope that someday this precious boy would be grateful and proud to the mother, he may never know. And may he appreciate and realize the challenges, the difficulty, the sacrifices her mother went into, to give him the gift of life. Yes, even in exchange of her life.

But wait. This is Christmas season. Time of miracles. Maybe there will be one here tonight.

Home Vacation

9 December 2010

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I will be working this Christmas. However, I cannot really complain too much, as the last time I was on-call on Christmas day was more than 5 years ago. It’s bound to happen.

Before I turned green and become a Grinch, I decided to take a holiday off a couple of weeks early than the real Holiday season. We did not go anywhere in particular for my week’s vacation though. Instead I just cooled my heels at home, hang out with my kids all day (they are home-schooled), and be a full day teacher and child care for a few days. Moreover,  I spent a couple of late nights watching movies at home with my wife, after the kids are tucked-in in their beds.

I also did some things around the house that needs fixing. But before you admire my handyman’s skills, what I meant fixing, was replacing a couple of lightbulbs. I helped with some Christmas decorating in our home too, which includes bringing the Christmas tree home from the farm, and hanging lights in our roof (yes roof!) using my newly bought (I got myself for Christmas) versatile and “complicated” ladder that turns into 4 different positions (you can fall from this ladder more than 4 different ways too!). And shopping? I left that to my wife, while I watched the kids.

I would say that overall, my week off was one of the more relaxed vacation that I had for a while, not to mention less expensive too. This just proved that we don’t need to go anywhere “special” for vacation for it to be enjoyable. What matters is whom we spend it with.