one tough old guerilla
my dad chuckles to me today from his hospital bed:
"ne, I might live a long time."
this is not his first brush with death. and he believes that he has had so many brushes with death that he must have some special power to survive. and i believe he does.
we rushed him to ER Sunday morning. thought he had had a stroke. he had slurred speech, weakness on his left side. stubborn old man insisted on going to work in the asparagus field and packing shed. his workers insisted that the japanese american farmer, my dad's homie for 40 yrs, take him to the hospital. farmer calls me panicked sunday morning, telling me to please convince my dad to leave work and let them take him to ER. after 40 years in the fields, they think of him like family, they tell me. i drop everything and jesse and i rush home.
in the ER in stockton, cat scan finds a subdural hematoma, a blood clot under the skull, creating pressure on the brain. my 80 yr old dad is restless, complaining, yet his medical school background surprises the young neurologist when he comes up with his own diagnosis: subdural hematoma. bleeding under the skull as a result of his tripping over his newspapers last week and bumping his skull against a table near the bed. he grabs my hand and tells me tearfully that he wants to go home. then, he naps, and in his sleep, he is mumbling, AMBUSH!!! he dreams about the war so much now. cries. yells at me to give him his clothes so he could get up and walk around. we wait four hours, anxiously, for the ambulance to take him to sacramento. damn health care system. before surgery, he takes off his World War II Veteran ring and gives it to me.
24 hours later, post-surgery in kaiser sacramento (stockton has no neurosurgeon), he is joking, laughing, and crying. crying because today was march 21st, 2005, and sixty years ago today the japanese surrendered on the island of panay and my dad is remembering it today like it was march 21st, 1945. the doctors test him, asking him what year is it, and if he knows what month it is.
shit, he says. that question is easy. of course he knows what date it is. he counters, do THEY know the significance of march 21st, 1945? he tells anyone who will listen to him today: me, jesse, the nurses, my stepmom, my visiting godsister and family. he talks of having body lice and wearing nothing but sinamay clothes, raggedy, with a belt, marching in the parade when the japanese surrendered. got emotional and bitter remembering how he and his company ate lugaw while they watched the rich commanding officer, son of a congressman, the same one my dad had carried on his back when he had been shot, eating spam and rice and eggs while the rest of the guerrillas in his company were starving.
i prayed last night that this surgery wouldn't change my dad, that he would be the same storytelling, tough, smart old gangsta veterano. and he is.
he is thinking about all of this, about his company being ambushed. today he told us of our uncle who walked one cow 250 miles from iloilo to our hometown of numancia just so the town could have a fiesta. he told us of finding himself in one day in the terrifying situation of having to either jump in a river and escape (to be surely shot and killed), or march alongside japanese soldiers holding a small bag with the only things he owned, among them one blanket. he marched, quietly, silently praying they wouldn't guess he was a guerrilla, hoping they thought he was just another villager walking alongside the road. he told of the day that panay surrendered, how one of his townmates entered our family hut and asked him: huy, manong, are you going to surrender today? and my dad nodded that he would soon, but then silently slipped away into the jungle to meet his guerrilla company.
he tells us all of this to prove a point: that there were many times he could have died, but didn't. and today was just another time that the higher powers have saved his life. and now he has to get home soon, so he can claim the last of his war pay before GMA's govt collapses and the money for the veterans of WWII goes with it.
he chuckles telling us of his great-great grandmother, my lolo ambo's lola, who lived to be 125. the old folks say she lived so long she grew a whole new set of teeth. this story brightens him considerably after all the war stories. he must have inherited her hardiness.
that's when he chuckled and said,
ne, i might live a long time.
and then we all just laughed together.
****
and then this morning, i checked his memory with the internet. he was right. of course, march 21 had to be their parade and the japanese surrender. panay had already been liberated by its own guerillas by the american landing march 18, 1945. my dad's memory is encyclopedic.
http://www.dotpcvc.gov.ph/Events/Leyte%20Gulf%20Landings/key%20dates.html
March 18
LIBERATION OF PANAY AND ROMBLON
The invasion of Panay was a walkover. The guerilla leader, Colonel Macario Peralta, had long since taken control of most of the island. As the men of the Eight Army's 4oth Division came ashore on March 18, they were met not by the Japanese but by Colonel Peralta and an honor guard of guerillas lined up smartly on the beach. As the 185th Infantry Regiment of the 40th Division expanded its beachhead, the remnants of Japanese troops escaped into the mountains of the interior.
"ne, I might live a long time."
this is not his first brush with death. and he believes that he has had so many brushes with death that he must have some special power to survive. and i believe he does.
we rushed him to ER Sunday morning. thought he had had a stroke. he had slurred speech, weakness on his left side. stubborn old man insisted on going to work in the asparagus field and packing shed. his workers insisted that the japanese american farmer, my dad's homie for 40 yrs, take him to the hospital. farmer calls me panicked sunday morning, telling me to please convince my dad to leave work and let them take him to ER. after 40 years in the fields, they think of him like family, they tell me. i drop everything and jesse and i rush home.
in the ER in stockton, cat scan finds a subdural hematoma, a blood clot under the skull, creating pressure on the brain. my 80 yr old dad is restless, complaining, yet his medical school background surprises the young neurologist when he comes up with his own diagnosis: subdural hematoma. bleeding under the skull as a result of his tripping over his newspapers last week and bumping his skull against a table near the bed. he grabs my hand and tells me tearfully that he wants to go home. then, he naps, and in his sleep, he is mumbling, AMBUSH!!! he dreams about the war so much now. cries. yells at me to give him his clothes so he could get up and walk around. we wait four hours, anxiously, for the ambulance to take him to sacramento. damn health care system. before surgery, he takes off his World War II Veteran ring and gives it to me.
24 hours later, post-surgery in kaiser sacramento (stockton has no neurosurgeon), he is joking, laughing, and crying. crying because today was march 21st, 2005, and sixty years ago today the japanese surrendered on the island of panay and my dad is remembering it today like it was march 21st, 1945. the doctors test him, asking him what year is it, and if he knows what month it is.
shit, he says. that question is easy. of course he knows what date it is. he counters, do THEY know the significance of march 21st, 1945? he tells anyone who will listen to him today: me, jesse, the nurses, my stepmom, my visiting godsister and family. he talks of having body lice and wearing nothing but sinamay clothes, raggedy, with a belt, marching in the parade when the japanese surrendered. got emotional and bitter remembering how he and his company ate lugaw while they watched the rich commanding officer, son of a congressman, the same one my dad had carried on his back when he had been shot, eating spam and rice and eggs while the rest of the guerrillas in his company were starving.
i prayed last night that this surgery wouldn't change my dad, that he would be the same storytelling, tough, smart old gangsta veterano. and he is.
he is thinking about all of this, about his company being ambushed. today he told us of our uncle who walked one cow 250 miles from iloilo to our hometown of numancia just so the town could have a fiesta. he told us of finding himself in one day in the terrifying situation of having to either jump in a river and escape (to be surely shot and killed), or march alongside japanese soldiers holding a small bag with the only things he owned, among them one blanket. he marched, quietly, silently praying they wouldn't guess he was a guerrilla, hoping they thought he was just another villager walking alongside the road. he told of the day that panay surrendered, how one of his townmates entered our family hut and asked him: huy, manong, are you going to surrender today? and my dad nodded that he would soon, but then silently slipped away into the jungle to meet his guerrilla company.
he tells us all of this to prove a point: that there were many times he could have died, but didn't. and today was just another time that the higher powers have saved his life. and now he has to get home soon, so he can claim the last of his war pay before GMA's govt collapses and the money for the veterans of WWII goes with it.
he chuckles telling us of his great-great grandmother, my lolo ambo's lola, who lived to be 125. the old folks say she lived so long she grew a whole new set of teeth. this story brightens him considerably after all the war stories. he must have inherited her hardiness.
that's when he chuckled and said,
ne, i might live a long time.
and then we all just laughed together.
****
and then this morning, i checked his memory with the internet. he was right. of course, march 21 had to be their parade and the japanese surrender. panay had already been liberated by its own guerillas by the american landing march 18, 1945. my dad's memory is encyclopedic.
http://www.dotpcvc.gov.ph/Events/Leyte%20Gulf%20Landings/key%20dates.html
March 18
LIBERATION OF PANAY AND ROMBLON
The invasion of Panay was a walkover. The guerilla leader, Colonel Macario Peralta, had long since taken control of most of the island. As the men of the Eight Army's 4oth Division came ashore on March 18, they were met not by the Japanese but by Colonel Peralta and an honor guard of guerillas lined up smartly on the beach. As the 185th Infantry Regiment of the 40th Division expanded its beachhead, the remnants of Japanese troops escaped into the mountains of the interior.