"ISAO!" "Sin!"
Those were the first words out of Tan Rosa, Mary's grandmother, when Mary got home.
Mary just started her nursing program at the College of Guam in the 1960s when she brought home her human anatomy book. Her professor had just passed them out to the nursing students earlier that day, and Mary had her reading assignment, to memorize the names of the different parts of the body, starting with the major bones.
In those days, many grandmothers were like a second mom, living in the household with everybody else. Since Mary's mom had a job as a cashier in a store not far away, grandma was the one who stayed home the whole day and night, supervising the cooking, cleaning and washing. When Mary got home some days, it was grandma she first met, not mom or dad.
Even Mary's mother had some misgivings about Mary going to the College of Guam. Mothers were very protective of their unwed daughters back then. Single females and males mixing together, even at school, spelled danger to them! Tan Rosa never even went to school and learned to read letters at an older age thanks to a brother teaching her. Mary's mom only went as far as the eighth grade. Before the war, a classroom education was thought unnecessary for girls after they learned to read and write.
Even the promise of financial stability as a nurse did not ease mother's mind at first. It was only when Mary's best friend, who married right out of high school but who was also studying nursing, agreed to drive Mary back and forth to the College (now the University) that Mary's mother relented. A married woman, she thought, could be trusted to make sure Mary walked the straight line.
But grandma was a different matter. With her generation, there was no talk of human reproduction or even parts of the body. When grandma saw the figures of naked humans of both sexes, albeit skeletal, grandma had a fit. She wanted to throw the books out of the house.
Mary's father had to intervene and explain what the charts and pictures were, pointing to bones in the book then showing on his own arm or shoulder what bones matched the chart.
When it came to the reproductive organs, Mary's father focused only on the uterus and explained that doctors and nurses needed to know all about the tuyan (womb) for the sake of the unborn child who might die if there is a problem. He explained that all the pattera (midwife) could do was limited to massaging, moving the baby in the right position and other such things, but that doctors could do more to save the life of a baby, with the nurse's help.
Thinking of saving babies' lives, Tan Rosa gave in.
Ironically, Mary, now a nurse of some years, assisted grandma Rosa on her death bed with her nursing skills.
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