On her birthday, her grandmother held her child lovingly and everyone praised her affection, but just 3 days later, the whole family cried when they learned the story behind it…
That day was Basti’s 2nd birthday in Quezon City. The whole family gathered together, laughing and talking, the handaan table was filled with spaghetti, fried chicken, and a bright red cake. Lola Nida (grandmother) was always by her grandchild’s side, holding and kissing her, her eyes shining with happiness. Everyone exclaimed:
“Lola loves Apo so much, it’s so touching to see!”

“With Lola taking care of him like this, Mara (the baby’s mother) has nothing to worry about anymore.”

Hearing that, Mara and Paolo also felt warm in their hearts. It was lucky that the baby had such a devoted grandmother.

However, just 3 days later, the whole family was devastated when they received the bad news. That afternoon, neighbor Aling Mercy called in panic:

“Umuwi kayo agad! Come back now! Si Basti… si Lola… oh my god, I can’t believe it…”

The couple rushed home. The scene before their eyes left them both speechless: Basti was taken to the ER of St. Luke’s Medical Center – Quezon City, his face purple, his breathing weak. Lola Nida was sitting on the floor, muttering incoherent sentences.

When the doctor announced the cause, the whole family was struck by lightning. It turned out that for a long time, Lola Nida had always been…
obsessed with “having to have a grandson to continue the family line.” Although she loved him on the outside, deep in her heart, she had a perverse thought, thinking that the boy was her “own”. In a moment of losing control, she did something no one dared to think of — almost putting her own grandson’s life in danger.

The whole family burst into tears, their limbs limp. Mara fell to her knees, screaming:
“How could you do this to your own flesh and blood…?”

In the hospital hallway, relatives fell silent. Some tried to comfort Paolo, others cried and prayed the Rosary. Lola Nida still held Basti’s shirt tightly, her eyes lifeless, her mouth whispering: “Apo ko ’yan… sa akin ’yan…” . Only when they heard the baby’s wheezing in the emergency room did they understand: an old-fashioned belief disguised as love had come close to tragedy — and the price they had almost paid was the child’s life.

“Or Ko ‘Yan”

The corridor outside the ER smelled faintly of antiseptic and old prayers. Paolo’s hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Mara pressed her palms together until the knuckles blanched, whispering, “Mama Mary, please. Please.” Behind the swinging doors, machines breathed for their little boy, each beep carving a canyon through their chests.

Dr. Javier stepped out with a clipboard and a face carefully arranged between candor and mercy. “He’s stable,” he began. Mara’s knees trembled. Paolo caught her by the elbow.

“But listen,” the doctor went on, voice even. “Your son had respiratory depression. We found traces of an adult-dose cough mixture in his system. Someone also rubbed a strong mentholated oil on his nose and upper lip—too close to the nostrils. Combined, it restricted his breathing. That’s why his face turned cyanotic.”

Mara bit down on her lip so hard she tasted metal. Paolo stared, unblinking. “Sino’ng… sino’ng gumawa nito?” he asked, as if the question could still change the answer.

In the waiting area, on a plastic chair, sat the ghost of a woman in a faded duster. Lola Nida’s gray hair had unraveled from its bun, her palms clutching Basti’s tiny shirt against her chest like a relic. Her eyes were a thousand-yard stare. Every few seconds her mouth moved. “Apo ko ’yan… sa akin ’yan… para ’di siya kunin…”

Mara stepped toward her, then slammed to a halt inches away. Grief and fury blurred into one dangerous color. “Ma,” she said, no softness left, “what did you give my child?”

Lola’s eyes flickered, sharpened. A mother wolf waking. “You don’t understand him anymore,” she shot back, voice husky. “He was crying again. I just wanted to take a moment to keep quiet… For asthma, for smoking. He’s for me.” Her fingers tightened on the shirt. “I’ll take care of it. I am.”

Mara’s hand flew to her mouth. Paolo froze. The world went very, very quiet.

A woman with a lanyard stepped forward, breaking the spell. “I’m Ms. Dela Cruz from DSWD,” she said gently. “We’ll need to talk—lahat po kayo. But first let’s focus on the baby. Ma’am, Sir, the hospital will monitor your son overnight. If he continues improving, we’ll move him out of ER to a room.”

Mara nodded numbly. Paolo managed: “What happens now?”

“We make a safety plan,” Ms. Dela Cruz replied. “No unsupervised access to the child. We’ll assess your… mother, Sir. She may be unwell. We’ll guide you.”

Across the hall, a cluster of relatives stood in a rough ring—Tita Leni holding a rosary, Lolo Ato staring at the tiles, cousins whispering and not looking at Lola. Aling Mercy had arrived too, rubbing her arms, shaken by being the first to find them earlier that afternoon.

In the numb hours that followed, memories sputtered on and off like bad electricity.

The birthday. Three days ago. Paper plates, laughter. Basti with spaghetti sauce on his lip like a tiny general. Lola hovering, spooning food, wiping, kissing. “Tignan niyo naman, grabe magmahal si Nida,” someone had cooed. Mara had smiled—even felt grateful when Lola asked to “keep a lock of hair for good luck,” tying it in red thread and tucking it into a small pouch. Pamahiin, okay lang, Mara had thought then. She didn’t see the way Lola’s fingers trembled or how she snuck a glance at the boy’s neck as if measuring an invisible crown.

The afternoon of the ER. The neighbor’s voice still rang in Mara’s skull: “Umuwi kayo agad!” Aling Mercy had found Lola humming an old lullaby while Basti lay limp on the banig. A strong scent of menthol filled the room. A sticky cup, half-empty, sat on the table. “Para di na siya iiyak,” Lola had murmured. “Para sa akin siya.”

Back in the hospital, the clock’s hands crawled across their faces. Sometime past midnight, Dr. Javier returned. “Your son is breathing on his own,” he said. “We’ll transfer him to a room. Your pediatrician will discuss toxicity limits, but it looks like he’ll make a full recovery.

The words collapsed something inside Mara. Tears came, hot and relentless—of relief and rage and the realization of how thin a line separates a life from a loss. Paolo pulled her into his chest and they cried without sound, just air and tremors.

When they finally entered the room where Basti lay sleeping, a soft oxygen cannula at his nose, monitors blinking like timid fireflies, Mara leaned over and whispered, “Anak, Mama’s here.” Paolo trailed his finger over their boy’s wrist where a tiny hospital band circled it, the softest manacle he’d ever wanted to protect.

Outside, Ms. Dela Cruz spoke quietly with the family. “Has there been any change in behavior with your mother—confusion, mood swings, fixation?” she asked Paolo.

Lolo Ato cleared his throat. “Ever since my father passed away last year… Nina was different. At one point he didn’t know me. He woke up in the middle of the night in his grandson’s room, dressed in his arms, crying. That said… “You are mine.” He looked at his hands. “I’m embarrassed… I thought it was just sadness.”

“We’ll schedule a psychiatric evaluation,” the social worker said. “What happened today… is risky. But we’ll also remember this is a family. Healing will include boundaries—and help.”

Tita Leni’s rosary clicked faster. “Boundaries? The baby almost died!” she snapped, then caught herself. “Pasensya na. Natatakot lang ako.”

“We’re all afraid,” Ms. Dela Cruz said. “But fear can turn cruel. Keep hold of each other.”

When morning pried open the blinds, Mara hadn’t slept. The nurse adjusted Basti’s IV and left, smiling. Paolo had drifted in a chair, head tipped back. Mara watched the rise and fall of Basti’s chest—small tug-of-war between the air and everything that wanted to take it.

A soft knock. Ms. Dela Cruz again, this time with a slim woman in spectacles. “This is Dr. Santos,” she introduced. “Psychiatry.”

“May I speak with your mother?” Dr. Santos asked. Mara’s jaw tensed. Paolo nodded. Together they stepped out into the corridor.

They found Lola in a small consultation room, hair combed now, a blanket over her shoulders. She looked older than yesterday, like night had squeezed ten years through her bones. Dr. Santos slid into the chair across from her.

“Nida,” she said softly, “I’m here to listen. Can you tell me what you remember from yesterday?”

A long silence, then: “She was crying. They told me to leave so Mara could rest. But she was crying. What if we cry? That’s my grandson. I am Paolo’s mother. I’m the one who knows better.” Her eyes filmed over. “I just covered up the smell—it’s like a cold smear, it’s easier to breathe. Then… In other words, medicine. The Squirrels. “They don’t want to fight in front of him.” Her lips trembled. “For… for me.”

“Bakit po ‘para sa inyo’?” Dr. Santos asked gently.

Lola stared past them, at something only she could see. “I haven’t had a son in a long time,” she whispered. “My first child has already arrived… Less than a month. They said I looked bad. My old friend told me that if I had a baby, I wouldn’t let it go. I’ll be hooked. I will bind it to my name. Perhaps he should stay—” Her voice cracked. “Don’t take it all from me.” Don’t.”

The room breathed as one. Paolo closed his eyes. Mara felt something twist: a thread of pity through a sheet of fury. Loss recognizes loss, even when it wears a mask.

“Maraming pamahiin ang minana natin,” Dr. Santos said, calm as rain. “Pero minsan, nakakasugat na sila. I’m concerned you’re experiencing complicated grief—possibly a psychotic depression or early dementia, with delusional attachment to your grandson. Hindi ito kasalanan—pero kailangan ng lunas. There are treatments. But starting today, you cannot be alone with the child. We’ll work on supervised visits—kung papayag ang mga magulang.”

Lola’s mouth opened, then closed. Her eyes skittered to Mara. For a heartbeat the worlds of the two women touched—new mother and old mother, each carrying histories the other would never fully understand.

“Mom,” Paolo said, his voice breaking, “we love you. But it was a little…” He couldn’t say it. “You’ve got to get some treatment.”

Lola swallowed. “If I were to get treatment… Can you give me an hour? Just hold on. I don’t… I’m not going to take him. Just hold on.” The last two words crumbled.

It should have been easy to say no. To throw back every sleepless night and every panic and every “para sa akin siya” like stones. But Mara looked through the glass at her son, at the tilt of his face that sometimes reminded her of Paolo and sometimes—she hated to admit it—of Lola when she laughed out loud at a corny teleserye.

“We’ll see,” Mara said finally, each word like dragging a net through thorns. “If you follow the plan. If you take your meds. If the doctor says okay. Supervised. With me there.”

In that moment, something unclenched in Lola’s jaw—barely. A start. A splinter of a door.

By afternoon, Basti was transferred to a private room. A crucifix hung askew on the wall. Relatives filed in two at a time to press love and apologies into the air. The nurse taught Mara how to clean his lips with a damp swab, how to watch the tiny green lights. Paolo stood at the window and fielded calls from cousins who suddenly had opinions about tradition and modernity and motherhood and madness.

As the sun slid toward Quezon City’s muddled skyline, Ms. Dela Cruz returned with papers. “This is the safety agreement,” she said. “You and your husband sign here. There’s also a consent form for your mother’s evaluation and treatment.”

Mara signed. Paolo signed. Outside, church bells from a nearby chapel chimed the hour. “We’ll also do a home visit,” the social worker added. “Sometimes there are clues in the environment that tell the story.” Her eyes were kind. “Okay po ba tomorrow?”

“Okay,” Paolo replied.

That evening, under pale fluorescent light, Mara did something she hadn’t done since the day Basti was born: she allowed herself to sleep, forehead on the edge of the bed, fingers on her son’s ankle. She dreamed of ribbons snapping and a boy running into the open.

At the same hour, in their quiet house, Lolo Ato shuffled into the master bedroom with a box Ms. Dela Cruz had asked them to set aside. It was small and wooden, the varnish worn, the lid secured with a strip of old sinamay. He hesitated, then opened it.

Inside lay a pair of baby booties yellowed by time; a lock of hair tied with red thread; a rosary with one broken decade; and beneath these, folded very carefully, a brittle birth record from 1978 for an infant boy: Basilio Nicanor Alonzo. Lolo’s breath snagged. “Baste,” he whispered into the empty room—a nickname he’d never heard his wife say.

Tucked under the record was a paper even more fragile: a counseling note from a church years ago, the handwriting tight and looping. “Sister Nida believes she is cursed not to keep a son. Advised penitensiya. She insists next boy in the family will be hers to raise so the line doesn’t end.”

The fan spun its lazy circles overhead. Outside, a tricycle rattled by. Lolo pinched the bridge of his nose and wept—quietly, the way old men do when grief is a private animal they’ve fed for decades.

The next morning, when Ms. Dela Cruz and Dr. Santos arrived at the house for the visit, Mara and Paolo were there too, Basti cradled in Paolo’s arms, tiny fingers flexing against his father’s shirt. Lola sat on the sofa, combed and silent.

Ms. Dela Cruz set the wooden box gently on the table. “We found this,” she said. “We thought… baka makatulong.”

Lola’s eyes fell on the booties. Her hand rose, hovered, and pulled back. “Basilio,” she said in a voice that didn’t belong to the room but to a night in 1978. “Baste.”

“Nay,” Paolo whispered, the syllable releasing decades. “Bakit hindi niyo sinabi?”

“No one wants to listen,” she replied, staring at nothing. “They said, ‘Shut up. If you don’t let go, it will hurt even more. So I sewed it up in my chest. But it turns out that the disease doesn’t sleep—it just moves. I thought that if I held on tightly to you, I wouldn’t be able to lose you. It’s wrong.”

The silence that followed held more than words could.

Dr. Santos leaned forward. “Nida, we can work with this. We’ll honor Basilio’s memory. We’ll find rituals that heal—hindi nakakasakit. And we’ll help you build a new bond with your grandson that isn’t born from fear.” She looked to Mara and Paolo. “If you agree.”

Mara’s throat ached. She looked at Paolo. He nodded, eyes bright, jaw set.

“We agree,” Mara said. “But on our terms. No more red threads. No more ‘para sa akin siya.’ You will never say that again.” She held Lola’s gaze without flinching. “He is ours. And we are yours—if you choose to be well.”

For a long breath, Lola didn’t move. Then, very slowly, she nodded. “Tutulungan niyo ba akong… bitawan?” she asked, the last word tearing.

“That’s the hardest part,” Ms. Dela Cruz said softly. “But yes. You’re welcome.”

Later, with a nurse present and Dr. Santos seated in the doorway, Lola asked if she could speak to Basti. Mara stood at the bedside, one hand on her son’s belly. Paolo stood on the other side, ready.

Lola reached out, stopped short of the child’s cheek, and settled for the knit of his sock. “Magaling ka na, Apo,” she whispered through tears that made her look like the young mother she once was. “Hindi kita kukunin. Hahawakan lang kita sa dasal. Doon, hindi ka nasasakal.”

Basti’s lashes fluttered; his mouth made a small, unconscious O; his chest rose and fell. In that soft, ordinary movement, the whole room exhaled—grief, blame, superstition, and the first, hard breath of a different kind of love.

On the way out, Aling Mercy caught Mara by the arm in the yard. “‘Nak,” she said, “I was there when Nida lost her first baby. He didn’t take it. No one ever asked him how he was doing.” She squeezed Mara’s hand. “You and your wife—be strong. But don’t let the two of you get hurt.”

Mara nodded. “Salamat, Aling Mercy.”

That night, they brought Basti home. They set the safety plan on the fridge beside drawings of suns and stick figures. They folded away the red threads. Mara placed the wooden box on a high shelf and, after a long pause, slid in a new photo—Basti’s sleepy face from the hospital—behind Basilio’s yellowed record. Two boys, two generations, a line not of blood alone but of lessons painfully learned.

In the quiet, Mara whispered to Paolo, “We almost lost him because love forgot how to breathe.”

Paolo pulled her close. “Then we teach it,” he murmured. “Every day. We teach it how.”

Across the compound, in a room that had carried more nights than it could count, Lola knelt beside her bed with the broken-decade rosary. “Basilio,” she said into the dark, “patawad. Basti, patawad.” She kissed the crucifix, then pressed it to her forehead. “Tulungan mo akong bitawan bilang pag-ibig, hindi bilang takot.”

Outside, Quezon City hummed its never-ending lullaby—jeepneys growling, dogs barking, a radio three houses away crooning an old ballad about letting go. Inside the little home, people slept—for the first time not because of a potion or a prayer that tightened, but because threads had been cut and hands, shaken, had finally chosen to open.

To be continued…