Little heaven

I went to the PCMC (Philippine Children’s Medical Center) because my brother had a scheduled checkup. It was a Tuesday morning in June. My dad told me to come with them in case there would be time for him to still go to work, and I could keep my mom company. After all, I have no Tuesday classes.

It’s a children’s hospital, so all the patients there were little kids. I remember that when I visited our pulmonologist/pediatrician there when I was younger, I saw a number of kids who were severely sick. And by that I mean cancer patients.

So on that Tuesday I followed my mom straight to the doctor’s clinic. As we waited our turn I observed a little boy dancing very happily, and for a moment all I thought was how giddy he was while he was moving around. That is, despite the fact that he had only little patches of hair left on his head. He was, without a doubt, a cancer patient. He had bandages on his hand, his right eye was a little droopy, and there were bruises on his arms. After a while, he stopped dancing and touched his forehead to his mom’s. They both smiled, he hugged her, and then sat by her side. He started playing with his PSP, his mom’s arms around his waist.

I thought about talking with him and asking him questions. But I’m not really good at initiating conversations with strangers. And then I realized that asking him about his illness would just make things sad. This kid was completely ecstatic that day, despite the fact that he was there to see the doctor, to undergo therapy or some other thing he had to endure just to be cured, or, maybe, just to prevent his condition from getting worse.

I’ll never know. But there is something I’m quite sure of: The little boy was very sick, and yet he didn’t seem like someone who was dwelling on this illness that was attacking his body. He was not letting it define who he was or how he saw his life. He is young, and even though he may have only a little time left, he was choosing to look at the brighter side of his situation. He was choosing to be happy.

Sometimes this is all we have to do. To look at the brighter side of the situation. To choose to be happy. Sometimes we are too shallow and too selfish to feel like our life is at its worst. We tend to think that with all the problems coming our way, the universe is conspiring to punish us. But what about those people who are suffering more than we are? Are their lives a living hell? I don’t think so. Looking at that little boy, I felt like his smile was a little heaven for his parents.

When we think we’re at our lowest, we need to remember that there will always be people behind us, people who will be there to support us in fighting our battles. And sometimes, when we feel like letting go, they will fight the battle, not for us, but with us. We are never alone.

This is something we should never forget. In every obstacle we come across in our lives, we can always find our little heaven.

Erica Pauline Sta. Cruz, 19, is a fourth year engineering student at the University of Santo Tomas. (“Yes, engineering,” she says. “It’s not really what you would expect from someone who writes like this.”)