In control
SATURDAYS are busy days for me and my wife nowadays. It is wonderfully spent as a date as I imagine it, than dwell on the thought that she is in control.
But she is really. She holds the purse and is in better command of our schedule and activities.
For example, one Saturday last February, she told me that we go to the EENT Clinic at the foot of Session Road 9 A.M. I never knew there was such a clinic there. So we went and had my ears examined by the specialist. After my check- up, we proceeded to the Pines City Doctor’s Hospital for my daily rehab. It took about two hours to do that, and we were out past 12 noon.
During lunch, out of the house, I think about eating at the usual restaurants. But my wife knows better. She said that there is a Calajo restaurant at Session Road, so we went there instead. She ordered the food that was “great and healthy for me.” It is just the same going to the “healthy” restaurants where she orders those vegetable viands and a little rice for me.
From the restaurant, we went to the Benguet Laboratories for my consultations with Dr. Margaret Acmor Apolinar, who talks to me through my wife these days. She consults both of us, first because of my difficulty of hearing. Second, it is quite convenient that my wife also listens to her instructions about food and schedules for me to drink my medicines. When it comes to medicines, I do not know if I am an Armenian or a Calvinist. I debate their use in my mind, to the point that I just lose faith, either to what the doctor says and God forbid, the devil may care.
Dr. Margaret is a private practitioner, a friend to my wife especially, who elected to extend her professional services, gratis. It is a great help and sacrifice on her part, otherwise I could not possibly hold on to this battle long. I reckoned the fight for me could be over in days, weeks or a month. It can take long, before I get better. Say, I had the will but the body fails.
Later that day at the Benguet Laboratories, I wondered why women dominate the day’s affairs and events for me. From the house to almost anything outside of the home, women are everywhere taking control. It is as if, there is a war somewhere and all the men and boys went there, the women have practically taken over the home front.
After the medical consultations, my daughter joined us. She will take me home while my wife went to the market. I wish, she will not buy more vegetables which are healthy for me to eat.
Throughout history, except among the Amazons and that is mythology, I understand that women were not as active as they are today in the affairs of state and leadership in society but as home keepers and wives. Being such their decisions and thoughts are yet subject to their husbands.
The times have changed. The upheaval of World War ll was a key factor in changing the mindset of the world on tapping the highest potentials of women in almost any profession that used to be the domain of men. In Great Britain and the United States, women took over the task of food and war production, i.e., building ships, plains, tanks and munitions when almost all able men took to the war fronts in Europe, Russia, Middle East and Asia. It was a curious knowledge for me to see documentaries of the Second World War showing women operating welding machines and carrying jacks to lift heavy equipment. In the factories, housewives and keepers were ultimately engaged to help in the work when nursery rooms were setup beside the workplace and assembly lines of motor vehicles, tanks, and ammunition. The women demonstrated their adeptness in simultaneously blending child and family care with work.
Deep in thought, we left the Benguet Laboratories with my daughter, hiking towards Session Road. I forgot I could not walk and stand long on my feet. It is rush hour, and we should have used the portal at SM for people with disabilities. Now we have to wait, and it was already too long. We have not boarded one taxi yet. Damn, the vertigo and stroke have changed the world for me. Still, I hope it is for better, not for worse.
As my feet got sore waiting, I thought about
Pr i n te d a n d d i s t r i b u te d by P ressReader