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Continue reading →: When an Ugly Shower Curtain made me Cry
Apart from the photo album, my tita who was sorting through my mom’s things handed me an ugly green shower curtain. It had butterflies and white lilies printed on it, the kind of design you only buy when you are in a rush or when the store has nothing else…
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Continue reading →: How Puzzle Pieces Come Together
I once picked up a single puzzle piece and wondered where it was supposed to fit. On its own, it looked ordinary, just a weird shape with a bit of color. But a puzzle never makes sense one piece at a time. You only see the beauty when everything comes…
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Continue reading →: Before Mom, After Mom
My mother sat on a chair, wearing her green duster, inside a cozy bungalow that felt achingly familiar. Her graying hair was combed away from her face, revealing the wide, familiar plane of her forehead. I knew she had cancer. The knowledge sat quietly between us, like another person in…
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Continue reading →: Green Bones
When the funeral coordinator turned over my mother’s ashes, she handed us a small packet of fragments. For a moment, I thought they were implants I had never known about. She told us they were green bones. It is rare, she said, and many believe it to be a sign…
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Continue reading →: The Last Breaths
I had just stepped out of work when my mom’s caregiver called. Her voice told me everything before the words even landed. I rushed home. I walked into the room and saw my mother taking her last breaths. And here’s the cruel part: I’m an anesthesiologist. I spend my life…
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Continue reading →: Could have been a Nepo Baby
Yes, I am the son of a DPWH engineer. But my father was different. In the early ’90s, when Pampanga was battered by lahar and infrastructure projects were in demand, he could have profited from it. Instead, I saw him return bribes, ranging from baskets of mangoes to…
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Continue reading →: ‘O Sole Mio, Puta!
I dodged an arranged date because of an emergency call. Admittedly, I’m that career-driven person with a heart locked tighter than a corrupt politician’s bank account. Relationships? I’ve always seen them as detours. Beautiful, yes, but prone to traffic and emotional potholes. I’m content being single. The thought of dating,…
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Continue reading →: Across the River, Eros
When I was younger and still believed in love, I went through a failed love affair so dramatic, I half expected Zeus to intervene. I didn’t write to win anyone back. I wrote to figure out what the hell had just happened. And because apparently, when I’m heartbroken, I speak…
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Continue reading →: Komorebi
This piece was written for the souvenir program of the 52nd Philippine Board of Anesthesiology Conferment Ceremonies. It draws inspiration from the ceremony’s central theme—Komorebi, the Japanese word for sunlight filtering through trees. This served as a metaphor for resilience and quiet hope amid adversity. Composed during the height of…
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Continue reading →: They Stood when the Tears Spoke
I used to roll my eyes at those chick flick moments, you know, when the protagonist delivers a soul-stirring speech and the crowd magically rises in a standing ovation. I always thought, yeah right. In real life, that’s the part where I either zone out or whisper snarky comments to…
ETHER DIARIES
controlled breaths | uncontrolled thoughts
Hello,
I’m Macoy Cruz
I’m an obstetric anesthesiologist by training, and honestly, a satirist because it’s the only way to stay sane. Most days I’m tucked behind the drapes, dealing with misbehaving vitals, badly timed alarms, and patients who may or may not be fully committed to consciousness.
I was clinically diagnosed with depression in 2018, and it has been relapsing ever since. I look fine most of the time. I function. I teach. I work. Then the heaviness shows up again, stays for a while, and eventually lets go. It comes and goes in cycles, and I have learned to move with it even when it feels like it is pulling me under.
This blog has become part of how I cope. Writing helps me steady myself when the quiet depression returns. It gives me a place to breathe and make sense of the days when I feel like I am slipping beneath the surface.
So this space is my cool down zone. Part storytime, part rant, part emotional first aid kit. Expect thoughts on medicine, life, and the strange challenge of staying awake in a system that seems built to knock everyone out, figuratively and literally.
Ether Diaries 