George is Gone

04 September 2005 will be a day I will never forget. I was on 24 hour duty and as such, we were responsible for answering mayday calls -- performing CPR on patients who had cardiac arrest. It had been an uneventful day until about 3:30 pm when a mayday call was made for a patient at the ICU. It's a rule that everyone on duty should drop everything and attend to the patient on cardiac arrest. So with the call made, we dropped everything and ran to the ICU. We resuscitated the patient for about 40 minutes before finally pronouncing him dead, at which point we all went back to the clerks' room. It didn't register at first but I saw that my notebook, George, wasn't at our table anymore. When it did hit me, I realized the electric cord was still there so I merely assumed that one of my classmates borrowed it to type something. I tried to ask everyone of my teammates if they had my laptop. When I had seen everyone and no one had an idea where it was, it hit me. George had been stolen. The thief must've panicked and left the cord where it was. I reported it to the hospital security and they asked me and some witnesses some questions. By then, I had realized that George was indeed gone forever.

George was a gift from my aunt, and a very expensive one at that. I felt terrible that I had not taken better care of him. It sucked big time when it finally dawned on me how much stuff I had in that computer -- my research work for school, my patients' data and forms, my journal. I had to take a brief moment alone and cry silently. I immediately told my mom about it and she said that we couldn't really do anything anymore about it and that stuff like these sometimes happen. I informed my aunt too, and she said almost the same thing. I am grateful for their understanding.

It was then that I realized that God was teaching me something very important. I had been too unfocused lately and taking George away was His way of calling my attention back to Him. It may seem such a huge thing to do, allowing a P100,000 laptop to get stolen, but then what is P100,000 to God? It is He who gives and He who takes away. He used the event to snap me back to attention and remind me that I had been wandering too far away from His presence.

I guess I'm still in the process of grieving for George. I cringe everytime I realize how much work I could get done if I only had George. I now have to borrow someone else's laptop to get my own work done. I think of the 900 songs loaded on my iTunes and I feel so robbed and violated. But I guess that's God's whole point. I need to feel empty again if He is to fill me with more important things for His glory.

I'm sure in due time, George will be replaced by something much better. I've decided that my next laptop will be named Charlie. Hehe. Or maybe I'll change my mind and name him something else. Or maybe I won't ever have another notebook again. I don't really know. Right now, I'm just trying to learn as much as I can from this painful experience.

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I guess this also means my posting on this blog will be less frequent. Or maybe I'll be inspired to write more now that I will miss blogging so much. Who knows.

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In lieu of flowers for George, cash donations can be wired to the following foundation's bank account:
The Charlie Procurement Project
Account Number 12345678910

Just kidding.