The smell of salt and diesel hung in the air as Second Engineer Ramon “Mon” Villanueva stood at the stern of the cargo ship, watching the endless blue stretch toward the horizon. It had been eight months since he last saw land, and even longer since he held his wife and son in his arms.
Mon had been a seafarer for almost two decades. At 42, his hands were rough from years of tightening bolts and fixing engines deep in the belly of vessels. He had sailed trough typhoons, dodged pirates near Somalia, and celebrated too many birthdays over scratchy satellite calls.
This voyage was particularly long 10 months from port to port, delivering goods from Rotterdam to Singapore, then back through the Pacific. The isolation was the hardest part. Mon and his crewmates often joked that they knew the ship better that their own families. And in a way, it was true.
He carried a small, worn-out journal with him pages filled with drawings his son Gabriel had made before Mon left. Spaceships, dinosaurs, and a stick-figure family with “Papa” always drawn the biggest. He’d flip through the pages on sleepless nights, listening to the creak of the metal hull and the hum of the engine.
Mon’s wife, Liza, kept their life together back in Iloilo. She was strong, capable, and endlessly patient. They had agreed early in their marriage that he would work at sea to secure their son’s education and future. It was a deal made in love. Though heavy with sacrifice.
One night, somewhere in the Indian Ocean, Mon received a message through the ship’s satellite system: “Gabriel is in the hospital. High fever. Doctor said it’s a dengue.
Mon felt his world collapse into a steel cage. He begged the captain for any possible way to leave and early port, a helicopter transfer, anything. But the logistics were impossible. His son was sick, and he was thousands of miles away, trapped on a vessel that couldn’t stop.
For three days, Mon couldn’t eat. He worked like a machine, silent and hollow, counting hours by the minute. Then finally, another message came. “Fever is down. Platelet count rising. He’s okay now. Don’t worry.”
He locked himself in the engine room and cried, letting the roaring turbines drown the sound.
When the ship finally docked in Manila four months later, Mon disembarked with shaky legs and heart bursting with urgency. He rushed through immigration, clutching a single duffel bag and his journal. At the arrivals, gate he saw them Liza waving, and Gabriel, a bit taller now, running into his arms.
“Papa!” Gabriel yelled. “I drew more!”
Mon knelt down, tears streaming as he hugged his son tighter than ever. “I don’t need drawings anymore, son. I have the real thing now.”
For Mon, the ocean had taken many things: time, moments, years. But as he stood there with his family, he knew it could never take away the reason he endured it all.
