Healing Hands

Hands 

Particularly at a time of anxiety waiting for the result of my MRI (normal result, BTW, I was told a couple of days ago), I thought about my Dad whom I fondly remember on this Father's Day.

Sometimes Daddy is the only medicine that works... - Anonymous

I don't remember Mum giving us bubble gum-flavored chewable tablets for colds and fever.

I have a cold. It's snot funny.

She did put Vicks in each nostril and on our back, a washcloth dipped in water on our forehead, and pampered us with a cup of warm arroz caldo and the biggest slice of watermelon for dessert. We were also allowed to read the komiks in bed for as long as we wanted to.

But the best thing she did to soothe our childhood aches and pains? 

She always said, Wait for Dadee. He'd know what to do to make you well again.

We knew that he knew.

As soon as I'd hear him coming in from work, I'd put down my comic book, close my eyes and lay as still as I could. I might even pretend a cough or two.

From the doorway, I could hear Mum giving him a report. I'd open an eye and see him hesitating for only a moment, then giving a slow nod. He would shake his head, then give a slight smile.

Looking me over the steeple of his fingers, he'd ask with the utmost concern in his voice. Sinong may sakit? Who's sick? 

As he sat by my bedside, he'd ask calmly. Dito ba? Is this where the fever is?

As I nodded, he'd cock his head to one side, as if he were making a very important decision about something. Then he'd bend down and gently massage my forehead with both hands. He would start from the center and ease down his hands on the sides and out my temples.

He would repeat the movement, asking each time in a soothing voice if I could feel the fever going down and out of me. I'd nod and he'd repeat the words quietly, Is it going away?

Lifting my face to the ceiling as if it were a sky full of stars, I'd look at him with a broad grin and say, Dadee, it is.

With that answer, he'd look at me, one eyebrow slightly raised. I could see crinkles at the corner of his eyes that let me know that everything would be alright.

Laughing with an easy chuckle, he'd summon me, Go to sleep already. 

There was probably no logic to all this, but did I care?

That night, drops of healing balm touched me. 

I knew it as sure as the sun would rise in the east.

Dadee was the only medicine that worked.