Safe Spaces

By the Gate

Numerous ghost stories often originate from hospitals—a place where it was normal for people to die. Not "okay," just normal. And as someone working in the medical field, I have always reminded myself to prepare for the death of the patient I am taking care of and be wary of getting attached. But I'm human, and I do get close to a few of my patients. When they pass away, I cry for them in secret.

However, it was Lolo Arturo whom I cried for the most.

Lolo Arturo was a tall old man in his early eighties, and he was widely popular among us nurses, even those who were not assigned to him, as he would always brag about the scar on his cheek. He said it was a souvenir from a near-death experience—a strike from a criminal—when he was in his younger years.

He would always comment how I look like her daughters, who never called and visited him once they got a house of their own. He shared that, maybe, it was how he and his wife raised them. I appreciated how he reflected on this, that their authoritarian approach might have been the reason they were now unsympathetic toward him. In his own words: "I was like an army-general to my soldiers or an owner to my pets than a father to my own children. Instead of flowers and gifts for special celebrations, I held a stick or a belt, pushing them to do better. We really wanted the best for them, but now I realized how selfish we were. That, in fact, we wanted the best for ourselves. Now look—they loathed me. But maybe I could accept that rather than them hating themselves."

I remember him laughing, followed by a question I could not answer: "Will I go to hell for my past sins?"

As an agnostic, I did not know what to reply, so I shrugged and continued with my task. It was then that he asked me if he could treat me as his own daughter—something that was already too late for him to do to his daughters—to "lighten" his sins.

I said yes, thinking that it was a random spur of the moment. To connect with him, I shared my own experience: "I grew up with no parents, so my aunts and uncles took turns in taking care of me until I could stand on my own. They died in an accident when I was a baby." I remember smiling after telling him what happened, followed with "So yeah, sure. I think that would be nice."

What I thought was a simple exchange became more real and personal. The next day, he sent me a cake, a gift for "missing all my birthdays." We would also chat more often, and he even hired me as his private duty nurse. He also started calling me anak, or "child" in English, and my colleagues even thought that Lolo Arturo was making a move on me.

It came to a point that I had to live in his house to ensure his comfort while at home. This job was the most memorable because it felt as if I were not working at all. He treated me like his actual child, and I treated him like how I would treat my father if he were sick. There, I also met the love of my life, Jonathan, who was his long-time physical therapist.

But things got worse for Lolo Arturo, and he died due to respiratory failure. I grieved for him, even asked for a one-week leave from the hospital where I was working. What surprised me the most, however, was how he named me as his only beneficiary in his last will and testament. Now all his properties were mine.

It was a fast turn of events, I know, and I didn't expect it. A part of me was grateful that I was destined to take care of Lolo Arturo, hence this "luck." Now I have no problems paying my own rent, and the amount of money he left was enough to pay the property tax for the next few years until I died. However, there's also this part of me that didn't want this because now I missed the feeling of being loved by a parent.

Five months after his death, all his properties are now successfully transferred in my name, including the house we've been together in. I transferred as soon as the papers were finalized, cleaned the whole house, watered the plants, and promised the air as if I were talking to him that I would take care of his house.