Suddenly, Aling Susan’s knees gave way. She slid off the bed and collapsed onto the floor, kneeling at the doctor’s feet.
“Aling Susan! What’s wrong?!” Dr. Adrian cried in alarm, rushing to support her.
But Aling Susan reached for his neck, gently touching the crescent-shaped mark. Tears streamed down her face.
“That mark…” she sobbed.
“My son has that… my son who disappeared at the Quiapo fair… thirty years ago.”
Dr. Adrian froze.
Slowly, he lowered his stethoscope and stared at her.
“Quiapo?” he asked, his voice shaking.
“At the fair?”
“Yes… his name was Jun-jun… he loved cotton candy… he was wearing a Superman shirt…”
Dr. Adrian burst into tears.
He knelt in front of her.
“The people who adopted me told me…” he cried.
“They found me crying beside the Ferris wheel in Quiapo. I was holding a stick of cotton candy. And I was wearing… a Superman shirt.”
Mother and son stared at each other.
A bond that had been silent for thirty years suddenly surged back to life.
“Jun-jun?!”
“Nanay?!”
Dr. Adrian hugged Aling Susan tightly.
A hug fate had denied them for three decades.
In the cold hospital room, they felt the warmth of love.
“I thought you abandoned me,” Adrian cried like a child.
“I thought you didn’t love me.”
“No, my son! No!” Aling Susan sobbed.
“I searched for you every day. I prayed for you every day. Forgive me, my child!”
They cried for a long time.
When the tears finally subsided, Dr. Adrian gently wiped his mother’s face.
“Nay,” he said, holding her hand.
“We need to proceed with the surgery.”
“I’m scared, my son,” Aling Susan whispered.
Dr. Adrian smiled.
But this time, it wasn’t the smile of a doctor to a patient.
It was the smile of a son to his mother.
“Don’t be afraid, Nay. I will be the one to operate on you. I won’t let you be taken away from me again. I’ll do everything I can.”
“I saved thousands of hearts,” he said softly,
“but yours is the most important one.”
The surgery was a success.
When Aling Susan woke up, what she saw was not just a doctor—but family.
Adrian was tightly holding her hand.
“My mother is awake,” Adrian said happily to the nurses.
At last, Aling Susan’s heart found its cure—
not in medicine,
not in a scalpel,
but in the return of the piece that had been missing all along.
From that day on, Aling Susan was no longer alone.
After her recovery, Adrian brought her to live with him. He introduced her not as a patient, not as a stranger from his past—but proudly, as his mother. Every morning, she waited for him with warm soup and quiet prayers. Every night, Adrian made sure to kiss her forehead before going to sleep, as if afraid fate might steal her away again.
Years lost could never be returned. But love, they learned, does not count time the way people do.
At the hospital, Adrian became a gentler doctor. Every elderly patient reminded him of his Nanay. Every saved life felt like an apology to the child he once was—and a promise to never let go again.
Sometimes, Aling Susan would take out the old, faded photograph of a little boy holding cotton candy. She would smile through her tears and whisper,
“Salamat, Diyos ko… You returned my child.”
And in the quiet moments, Adrian would look at the crescent-shaped birthmark in the mirror and realize—
It was never just a mark of fate.
It was a sign that no matter how far love is separated,
a mother’s heart and a child’s heart
will always find their way back to each other.