284 days with General Aguinaldo

Abstract

"THE general is dead!"

These words shocked the Veterans Memorial Hospital that early morning. While the news spread like wildfire, the past days came into focus nine and a half months in Ward 14 where I worked as a night duty nursing attendant and private midwife to the general.

It was April 1961, the year I moved from the General’s Kawit residence to the Veterans Memorial Hospital. It was also the time when I learned that even generals could cry. My pending application at the VMH had been approved and was preparing to leave Quezon City when our lolo (we use to call him that) protested. I put an arm around him and told him not to worry at I would visit him from time to time. He seemed hurt; he reminded me of the surprise gift he would give me upon his recovery. Nothing I said could convince him that he was not being abandoned.

"Your lola and I want you to be a good girl" he sobbed.

I left the Aguinaldos with a heavy heart. There were things to remember about my stay with the Aguinaldos and one 0f them was March 22. That day lolo told me was the day he was born--

"... It was Good Friday, and my mother began having labor pains. The next day, father devised means by which mother would not suffer much; and this was through the sound 0f a bamboo gun. I came into the world with the salute of a gun..."