The cold wind of Toronto bit through Ana Dela Cruz’s coat as she stepped out of the hospital after another twelve-hour shift. Snowflakes swirled around her like confetti, but she hardly noticed. Her feet ached, her back screamed, and her heart carried a heaviness that no medicine could cure.
Ana had been a nurse in Canada for almost four years. Back in the Philippines, she was already a licensed nurse, but she had to start from scratch to meet foreign requirements going through exams, long waiting periods, and hours of volunteer work before finally earning her license to practice in Ontario.
She looked up at the night sky, barely visible behind the city lights, and thought of her mother back home in Cavite. Just a week ago, her mom had been diagnose with breast cancer. The news came like a storm unannounced and overwhelming. Ana had break, trying not to make any sound as tears fell silently onto her surgical mask.
She wanted to go home immediately. But she couldn’t. Flights were expensive, her savings were slim, and there were patients waiting for her. She felt torn between duty and love, between country and family.
Ana shared a small basement apartment with two other Filipino nurses, both equally exhausted, both clinging to dreams of eventually bringing their families abroad. Their shared kitchen bore sticky notes with reminders to call home, pay remittances, and submit work forms. The fridge was covered in magnets from Philippines cities Cebu, Davao, Baguio as if they were trying to hold onto pieces of home.
Each night, Ana Face Timed her mother. They talked about medicines, about treatment options, about faith. But her mother always ended the call with a smile and the same line: “Don’t worry about me, anak. Just do your best there. I’m proud of you.”
It was that line that kept Ana going.
The Hospital was relentless patients with failings lungs, old men dying alone, babies born too early. She saw life come and go everyday, and each goodbye made her think of her own family. OFWs like her weren’t just away they were emotionally displaced, constantly trying to be present in two places at once.
One evening, while assisting a Filipino senior patient who had just undergone surgery, the old man looked at her and whispered, “Salamat, hija. Your smile feels like home.
Ana felt prick her eyes. In a city of strangers, sometimes kindness was currency.
On her day off, Ana finally decided to book a flight home. It wasn’t for a long time just two weeks but it was enough. Enough to be by her mother’s side during the first round of chemotherapy. Enough to remind herself why she was enduring all this.
As the plane touched down in Manila months later, the humid air rushed in as if welcoming her back. She saw her siblings waving from the crowd, her mother seated in a wheelchair but smiling.
Ana ran to her and hugged her tightly. “Ma, I’m here now.
And for that moment, everything was enough.
