TOO OLD

“Do I have to spell your IQ out for you? It is inversely comparative to that patient’s temperature!” She snapped at the shocked nurse, slamming the chart on the station counter.

I got a fleeting glimpse of her face before she stormed out of the station: it was sincerely enraged. I paused from my writing, perplexed. Rissa, the staff nurse was looking very upset. She was a graduating student nurse when I started my residency training. Not very dedicated to her ward responsibilities in her student days, she bungles the simplest of tasks now that she is a full-pledge R.N.. But that was not what really bothered me. It was Elise, my co-resident.

“What’s coming over Dr. Alfonso? She’s not herself lately. She used to be very nice and considerate.” E.G., the head nurse wondered. “That doesn’t mean I’m taking your side, Rissa. You should pay more attention to details like that. I’ve been getting a lot of complaints regarding your performance.” she told the crestfallen girl. “what do you think, Alex? Is Elise going through a difficult time?” she asked me, her smooth forehead furrowed in genuine concern.

“I don’t know, E.G., I haven’t had a serious talk with her for quite awhile. We’re both very busy.” E.G. is one of those sympathetic confidantes you can pour your heart out to. But I was not willing to talk about Elise with so many people around.

“Elise is behaving oddly. She doesn’t talk and smile that much anymore. Well, she could be sarcastic and honestly indignant sometimes but she always takes them back with a smile or a vignette. That’s why she’s my favorite doctor, until you came.” Trust E.G. to flatter my tortured spirit.


“Aw, E.G., I bet you say that to every gorgeous resident you meet.” I teased.

The head nurse merely shot me an indulgent smile. If you’re looking for some pampering, E.G. is the one to rely on. At first glance, you would be taken in by her outstanding presence. Gradually, one will discover that it goes beyond the skin. She is not only very efficient but compassionate and nurturing. Male doctors who inadvertently hit on her would belatedly learn E.G. is a force to be reckoned with. She does not suffer fools.

“Perhaps Dr. Alfonso had a fight with her boyfriend?” another nurse suggested.

“Could be.”

I listened to the nurses’ speculations on Elise’s puzzling behavior. Her outburst at the station was out of proportion to the degree of the nurse’s error. It was not like her, too. She’s known to be very kind and cool-headed among residents. I came only second to her as the most favorite among nurses (by heresy). Every year, the nursing service has this awards night for its staff including residents. R.N.s would cast their votes on preferred nominees for a particular category.

Elise got her Most Favorite Resident award two years in a row. Not that they gave me a Second Most Favorite Resident award. I was informed Elise beat me by three votes. It was most fortunate that I lost the nomination or I’d have nurses forming a picket line demanding a re-count of the ballot. I’m such a parous canine nobody would have believed I’d won it. Worst, they would think I was rich enough to bribe the awards committee.

Elise and I are close. We chat, eat out, watch a movie whenever we can spare some time together. Generous, good-natured and insightful, she is always mindful about other people’s feelings. From the janitors to the hospital administrators, Elise’s approach is virtually the same: she treats everyone with respect.

She’s good at her job, too. When she was still on her first year, she got better than most of her co-residents that consultants readily relied on her judgment rather than on some of her seniors. That aroused controversy but even the smarting ones could not hold it out without shaming themselves. She has this manner of promoting herself as an advocate rather than a competitor that to begrudge her is a mortal sin. The most peculiar thing is- she is every bit sincere about it. Like me, she believes that dog meat is not worth the calories. It does not taste half as good. Nevertheless, she does not hesitate to assume the parous canine form when the need arises.

Elise’s foul mood and fits of uncharacteristic outbursts were surprising everyone. She had transformed so suddenly and so drastically that those who noticed were baffled. I just noted these changes in passing and comments from other people who were likewise concerned. Since we don’t work in the same department, I promised myself to look into the matter as soon as possible. It was days later when I found the right moment. She was at the records section, completing chart deficiencies.

I sat across her.

“Hey, are you okay?” I asked her.

She looked up and nodded. She focused back on her chart again without saying anything. This was so unlike her. She’d have struck up an animated conversation with me in no time.

“You don’t seem to be in your best mood these days. PMS?” I tried again.

She shook her head and went on scribbling her signature on v.o.’s and t.o.’s.

“Perhaps you’d like to heave some of it out of your chest and put some over my deficient ones.” I half-kidded.

She stopped and smiled a little but still with head bent. She continued on with her task.

“Seriously, Elise, is everything okay? You want to talk about it?”

“I’m fine, Alex. Don’t worry about it.” She murmured without looking at me.

“Elise, I know there’s something bothering you. You’re not at your peak lately. And it’s not only me who noticed.”

She raised her head to look at me and sighed. “Yeah, I’m a little stressed but I’ll get over it. Thanks for your concern.”

“Perhaps it would help to talk about it? No details if it’s too personal.” I assured her.

“Trust is never an issue between us, Alex, you know that. But this is not worth wasting your time over. It’s too shallow and nonsensical.”

“Try me.”

She breathed another sigh. “I’ll tell you about it some other time. It’s not the right place and I have to finish these charts.”

“How about later? I’m off after this and if you’re free we can go somewhere quiet where we can talk. How about that?”

I finally got around to convince her. She wanted to have a walk on the beach. We drove over to the bayside and strolled along the shoreline.

“Alex, I’m losing it.” She confessed. “I am consumed with this intense anger, I can’t make sense out of anything anymore.”

“Why? What happened?” I asked.

“It happened to a lot of people but I don’t know if they felt as devastated and betrayed as I am. Perhaps I’m making a big deal out of it.” She shook her head.

“If it affected you so greatly then it must be something serious and not to be taken lightly.” I told her.

“I’m twenty-eight years old and I ought to stop feeling childish but I can’t help it.” She cast me a distressed glance.

“what made you think so?” I asked her.

“Because only children are entitled to this kind of resentment that goes out of proportion and affect their whole lives. If this happened to an adult, she would not wallow in extreme despair. She’d be mature enough to tackle this sensibly.”

“There’s no rule on limiting one’s feelings to a certain age. We are entitled to feel hurt, anger, sadness anytime we want.” I said.

“But mine is different. I’m too old and too smart for this but I feel so dumb because I can’t stop it.” she suddenly burst into tears. “I’m really overdoing this!” she stopped, hands on her hips, tilting her face up into the dusky sky as though it would help her tears retreat back into her lacrimal sac.

“It’s okay, Elise.” I assured her.

After awhile, she bent her head down and begun walking again. I fell in step.

“You know why I moved into the doctors’ apartment? Because I don’t want to go home.” Her voice wavered.

‘Why so?”

“Because I don’t have one anymore.” She was crying again.

“I’m sorry.” Was all I could say.

“You know what screwed me up so bad? Was that my father could do it with my mother’s sister whom he used to despise so much because she is a slut. That was his term ‘slut’. And now he’s tailing after the slut like an animal on pheromones.”

A father who decided to be unfaithful in his sixties with the woman he used to loathe so openly. It was eating her up all this time. Elise’s mother had been chronically ill for several years which consequently compromised the marital relationship. Elise understood her father had his needs to cater to but to slake it with her aunt!

“If he weren’t so scornful and critical about other people who committed adultery, I’d be more forgiving. He used to rant about them like a madman. You should see him in his self-righteous days. He would insult my aunt and call her a nympho. He was like obsessed with the idea. I used to defend my aunt and we would have fights because of her. Everyone in the family treated her like crap including her children. Except me. I treated her like a human being because I believed only God had the right to judge everyone. But I don’t feel that way anymore. For all my father’s big talk, he’s eating his own vomit now . It makes me so sick! I hate him so much, I can never forgive him!” Elise shook her head angrily.

I did not know what to say.

“I’m overwrought, right? I shouldn’t feel so upset. But I am and I hate myself!”

“It’s perfectly all right to feel angry.”

“But I’m not a kid anymore. I should be more mature, more in control but I’m not! This has been bugging me for some time, I can’t stop thinking how he betrayed my mother, his family.” She sobbed again.

Elise insisted she had no right to feel so devastated; she was no longer a child. She said broken families happened to a lot of people. They recovered and moved on with their lives. She felt she was not handling it very well and did not think she could move on fast enough. It is affecting her relationships, her work, and her life.

“This is not just about adultery. This is about losing my last stronghold: my family. I had always believed in the security of my family. I used to bask in pleasant feelings of how lucky I was that my parents have reached this stage in their marriage. I was wrong. Perhaps I’d been too complacent.” She sobbed so wrenchingly, a tear slid down my cheek.

There was intensely compelling about a woman you have always known to be so strong, so self-contained, crumbling before your eyes. She was weeping like a little girl, I could not get over it.

Later that night, I mulled over Elise and others like her who drew their inner strength from people they trust and love. With a single act of treachery, what is perceived as a fortified whole could collapse into a heap of unidentifiable shards. Whether these shards could be whole again, it is not certain. Or if time would allow it, that remains to be seen.

I wondered how many people out there are breaking their hearts a million times over, reliving a loved one’s betrayal. I was thinking how old should one be before she/he stops being childish and start handling pain sensibly. 15? 30? 60?