MY BABY HAS MY HEART

(Photo caption: Dr. Maria Krista A. Pinol-Solis shows to me the Maguindanao boy suffering from a serious heart ailment who she wanted to be brought to the hospital immediately.)

My eldest daughter, Maria Krista, now a doctor and newly married to her childhood boyfriend ChitoSolis, has always shown a character which reflected my personality.

I found her to have an extraordinary ability to remember places where she had been too.

When she was just about four years old, I drove her through the sidestreets of Kamuning in Quezon City on the way to Araneta Center and stopped by a store where I bought her favorite Yakult.

I forgot all about that. But two years later, when we passed by the same road again for only the second time, she excitedly pointed to the store where I bought the Yakult two years earlier and said: “Papa di ba dyan mo ako binilhan ng Yakult?”

But more than her exceptional power to remember places, I saw in her a caring heart.

Even as a young girl, she showed concern for the poorest of the poor, gathering the family’s old clothes, her used toys and other things she found in the house which she donated to a congregation of Catholic sisters involved in charity work.

Yesterday, tired and sleepy, she patiently attended to over 200 people who lined up to consult with her regarding their illnesses.

It was during the endless consultations that I saw in Dr. Maria Krista once again the caring heart.

“Papa, papa this boy has to be admitted in a hospital,” she told me showing to me a young Maguindanao boy who was almost blue and obviously suffering from a serious heart disease.

The worried look of concern in her face made me realize that this girl, who as a young girl rode on my shoulders whenever I cooked for the family, possesses the same heart that I have, a heart which easily succumbs to pity and care for the poorest of the poor.

(The young Maguindanao boy and another Christian boy suffering from serious heart ailments will be referred to the Philippine Heart Center and I will seek President Noynoy Aquino’s help to get them medical attention.)

While she has no inclination or interest in politics choosing to stay away from public view just like her younger sister, Josa Bernadette, Dr. Maria Krista Asentista Pinol-Solis is a copy of Manny Pinol.

And I am proud of this young doctor who as a little girl held my hand and said: “Papa, alam mo mahal kita. At mahal ko din si Mama.”