Ako si Maricel (I am Maricel). I'm 32, a registered nurse from Pangasinan in the Philippines, working nights on a medical floor at a hospital in Chicago since 1996. My son Paolo is seven and lives with my mother, my Nanay, back home. My husband Ramil is a technician on a contract in Saudi Arabia. So we are three people in three countries, thirteen hours apart at the farthest, and one telephone card. I write here in the mornings after my shift, when I cannot sleep yet. Pasensya na (please be patient with me) if some entries are long and some are only a few words.

BOX WATCH Box #3 of 1999 (the Christmas box): picked up Saturday, Sept. 25. By sea. Should be at Nanay's door in about 6 weeks, 8 if customs is slow. I will tell you when Paolo opens it.

Sept. 26, 1999 (Sunday)

The box is gone. The man from the cargo company came yesterday with his little truck and his clipboard and lifted it onto the dolly and said, "Whoa, what's in here, bricks?" I said, "Almost." He laughed because every Filipino box is like that. They charge by the box, not the weight, so you pack it until it's like a rock.

Now there is an empty place in the corner of my apartment where it stood for six weeks. I keep looking at the corner. It's silly. It was just a box. But every time I put something in it, I was thinking of the person who will take it out. Now it's on a truck to California and then a ship across the whole Pacific and I am only here.

Ramil called from Riyadh this morning. It's his afternoon there. He says it's still hot, hot, hot, like an oven with the door open. He asked me what I sent. I told him: everything. He said, "Did you send me anything?" I said yes, a letter at the bottom, under the corned beef. He has to wait until June, when his contract is finished and he goes home on vacation, to read it. That's okay. It will keep.

Sept. 24, 1999 (Friday)

A patient of mine died last night. I won't write his name. He was 88, a retired mailman, and he had been with us four days on comfort care. His family decided that together, and the doctor agreed, and I think it was right.

They were all there. His daughter held one hand and his granddaughter held the other, and his son stood at the foot of the bed like a soldier. At about 2 a.m. the priest came and prayed over him. Then the daughter took out a rosary and started to pray it, very quietly, and I stood by the door and I prayed it with her in my head in Tagalog, the way Lola taught me, because my mouth would not do it in English.

He went at 4:10. It was very quiet. His breathing just got slower and slower and then it didn't come. The granddaughter looked at me like she was asking, is that it? And I nodded. Then I let them be.

After, I cleaned his face and combed his hair and put the blanket straight, the way I would want someone to do for my own Tatay if I could not be there. When I was done, Ate Baby was waiting in the break room with hot pandesal and coffee. She didn't say anything. She just pushed the bag to me. That's what we do.

In the car I cried a little. Not for him, exactly. He had a good long life and everyone he loved was in the room. Maybe that's why I cried.

Sept. 19, 1999 (Sunday)

Paolo is seven today. Pito na siya. Seven years old.

Because the Philippines is 13 hours ahead of Chicago, his birthday started yesterday while I was still asleep after my shift. I called at 7 p.m. my time, which was 8 in the morning his time, before his party. Nanay put him on and he said, "Mama! Guess what, I'm seven!" like it was news to me. Like I didn't count the days on the calendar on my refrigerator.

I sang Happy Birthday to him on a phone card. Nanay says she cooked pancit, for long life, and the sweet spaghetti with hotdogs that the kids love, and there were cousins, and a cake from the bakery in town with his name on it in blue frosting. I could hear the cousins shouting in the background. I closed my eyes and I could almost see the house.

His present is in the box. It will arrive in November. I told him it's coming "by boat" and he thinks this is very exciting, a present on a ship.

Before he gave the phone back he asked, "Mama, when are you coming home?" And I said soon, anak. And he said, "Soon is long." Then he said bye and ran off to his cousins.

Soon is long. My son is a poet.

Sept. 15, 1999 (Wednesday)

This is the plan. I am writing it here so it becomes real.

I have my green card since 1996, so I can file the petition for Ramil and Paolo to join me. The form is called an I-130. I went on my day off to see a lawyer who helps at the Filipino community center, a very kind lady who speaks Tagalog and talks very fast. She said file now. The wait for the family of a green card holder is years, she said, and she will not guess how many. But in 2001 I can apply to become a citizen, and when I am a citizen, Ramil and Paolo become "immediate relatives" and the waiting line is much shorter. The petition I file now stays with us. So we start the clock.

So I will file. I have the birth certificates and our marriage contract. Nanay has to get new copies from the city hall, with the stamp, and mail them. The lawyer said, and I liked this, "Paper is slow, but paper is patient."

When I told Ramil he was quiet a long time. Then he said, "Chicago. Snow." I said yes, snow. He has never seen it. He said, "Okay. I will buy a jacket."

Sept. 11, 1999 (Saturday)

Four nights in a row. Pagod na pagod (so, so tired). I will write tomorrow. Or the day after.

Sept. 3, 1999 (Friday)

On my refrigerator I have three clocks drawn on an index card: CHICAGO, RIYADH, PANGASINAN. Riyadh is 8 hours ahead of me. Home is 13 hours ahead. When I get off at 7:30 in the morning, it is 8:30 at night at home, so I call Paolo from the pay phone in the lobby before he sleeps. Ramil's day off is Friday, so on Friday morning when I get off, and it is his Friday afternoon, that is our time.

I buy the phone cards at the Filipino store, five or six at a time. Every card is a small lie. The front says "120 MINUTES TO THE PHILIPPINES!!" and then the back, in letters for ants, says there is a connection fee each call, and a maintenance fee every week. So it is really 80 minutes, maybe 70. Ate Joy has a notebook where she writes down which cards cheat the most. She says she will make a web page about it. I told her go, I will link to it.

Tonight, sale on the cards, $10 each. I bought six. Hay naku. There goes the new shoes.

Aug. 25, 1999 (Wednesday)

Let me tell you about my night shift family.

On our floor at night we are four Filipina nurses and three American ones and one charge nurse from Poland. The Americans call us "the Manila Mafia," even though none of us is from Manila. Ate Baby (her real name is Rosario, but nobody calls her that) is from Iloilo and has been here since 1974 and knows everything. If a doctor forgets an order, Ate Baby knows. If the IV pump is broken, Ate Baby knows how to make it behave. Tess is my age and has two kids here and a husband who drives a cab. Joy is the youngest, just passed her boards, and cries at commercials.

At 3 a.m., if the floor is quiet, we have merienda (snack time) in the break room. Somebody always brings something. Last night it was turon, fried banana in the lumpia wrapper with brown sugar, from Tess. The American nurses come in "just to see." Then they eat three.

We speak Tagalog when we are tired and English when a patient needs us. Sometimes we mix it so much even we don't know which one we're talking. The charge nurse says she's learned "kain na" (come eat) and "hay naku" and that's all she needs.

I think without these ladies I would not last one month here. With them I have lasted three years.

Aug. 15, 1999 (Sunday)

Started the Christmas box today. Yes, in August. If you are Filipino you understand. If you are not, let me explain.

A balikbayan box is a big cardboard box (mine is the biggest size, as tall as my hip) that you fill with everything you want to send home, and a cargo company picks it up and sends it by sea, door to door. It takes six weeks, sometimes two months. So if you want it there for Christmas, you ship it by the end of September. So you start in August. You leave it open in the corner and every time you go to the store you buy one or two things more.

What's in it so far: Spam (4), corned beef (6), Hershey's Kisses (2 big bags), lotion for Nanay, the good shampoo, Colgate (8 tubes, don't ask, toothpaste is precious), vitamins, three T-shirts from the Chicago Bulls for my brother-in-law and the cousins, and a pair of rubber shoes for Paolo, one size too big so he can grow in them.

It's funny. I am a nurse with a license in two countries and here I am on my knees at 10 in the morning after a twelve-hour shift, counting toothpaste. But this is love, for us. Love you can pack.