My Hands Care for Yours, But Not My Own Children
My hands smell like antiseptic and hospital soap.
They are steady when I clean a wound. Gentle when I hold an elderly patient who is afraid. Careful when I check an IV line at 3am. These hands know how to read a monitor, how to spot when a heartbeat is not right.
But these hands have not touched my own children in three years.
My name is Liza. I am from Iloilo. I have a Bachelor of Science in Nursing. Back home, I was a professional. Here in Singapore, I am still a nurse, but some days it feels like I am just a uniform.
My salary is $2,400 a month.
Before I came here, I paid around SGD $3,500 to a recruitment agency in Manila. Training, papers, placement. I borrowed money. When I arrived, I was already in debt.
Every month, I send about $1,200 home.
On Sundays, I go to Lucky Plaza. I walk through the crowd, the noise, the Tagalog everywhere. For a few hours, it feels like home. I buy chocolates, shampoo, sometimes a pair of shoes. I pack them carefully into a balikbayan box. I tuck each item into the corners, filling the empty spaces like I am trying to fill the space I left behind.
Last year, my son started Grade 1.
I watched it through a video call.
“Mama, kailan ka uuwi?”
I smiled and said, “Soon.”
At work, a patient’s daughter snapped her fingers and asked me to wipe a spill on the floor. I had just come from checking a patient’s heart rhythm, adjusting medication that could affect his breathing.
I stood there for a second.
Then I nodded and cleaned it.
They call me “Staff.” Not my name. Not “Nurse Liza.” Just Staff. Like I am part of the equipment.
Sometimes, an elderly patient, a Lao Ma, holds my hand and says, “Good girl.” For a moment, I let myself feel it. Then the bell rings, and I move again.
After 12 hours on my feet, my back aching from lifting patients, I call home. The screen freezes. The voices break. My children laugh, pixel by pixel.
They are growing in a way I cannot touch.
I am caring for someone else’s mother here.
While my own children live in photos I download on my phone.
I tell myself this is worth it. That the house I am building in Iloilo will make sense of all this.
I imagine the door, the small kitchen, my children running inside.
Then the thought fades.
And I am back in the ward.
I wonder,
how many milestones a mother can miss
before the life she is building
no longer has a place for her in it.
PS This is a work of fiction inspired by real experiences. It reflects the shared realities of many individuals, but does not represent any specific person.
