loving gaze

Our Lady of Lourdes  Franc e HOLY THURSDAY On Holy Thursday, feeling very weary in this battle, I reached the point of near surrender. Unfortunately, this point of surrender was not to the will of God, but rather to declaring myself as ready to give up. It's hard to describe the actual happening within. I have gone through many crises in the past, including some extremely difficult ones. But I have always been a survivor. In the midst of suffering, I would have sufficient inner strength to forge on. Usually, spiritual armour would just be by my side. Plus will, faith, and a conviction that with help and support, all would be well. I am now 60 years old, so it has been decades that these various armour have served me well. Until last month. On Holy Thursday, my spirit felt drained. I knew in my heart I wanted to and felt ready to go. I honestly and sincerely knew that in the past years, our forgiving God would continue to love me if ever I said, "Lord, I have already lived a li...

  On the first night that I was in the hospital, I immediately felt a strong draft coming from the air condition. The wind was blowing straight at my arms and made me feel cold. I already had a phobia and fear of getting chilled, and began to feel bothered by this draft. After struggling with the situation for some time, I thought of asking the nurse on duty to cover the aircon's blinds with cardboard. The nurse very accommodatingly went straight to the task. She did a great job of securing the cardboard cover over the blinds with the use of medical tape!  The following day, Holy Wednesday, I was told that they would put me on remdesvir treatment. The drug was out of stock in many hospitals around the city due to the high number of covid cases everywhere, but fortunately this hospital had supply. What a relief! At least treatment could start very soon. Because it had to be administered intravenously, the IV line had to be installed.  The nurses seemed to sweat a lot and s...

  The song "Love Story" starts with the line, "Where do I begin, to tell the story of how great a love can be?"  I would like to now begin by borrowing that opening line and say, "Where do I begin,  to tell the story of.... what a journey this COVID can be?"  So much has happened since my last entry here on March 23. I feel as if I traveled around the world and back. It has been a long journey - of descent into the darkness of illness, to the gradual ascent back into a new chance at life. Though it has been more than a month since I returned home from a 9-day stay at the hospital, I have not yet sat down to write about the whole experience. But I shall gradually attempt to do so now. Fever and pain actually started last March 21. By that time, I was already at least four days into self-isolation, which started on the eve of March 17. I felt generally fine on those four days even as my husband and one of our children exhibited covid symptoms and were also i...