MANILA, Philippines – John and Gladys Lao face a difficult decision that will determine whether their youngest son, 3-year-old Brandon Emmanuel, will live or die.

“The doctors said: If you don’t do anything, you’ll see him deteriorate and then lose him. But then if you do something, it can correct the problem but you have the risk of losing him right away,” Gladys told Rappler on Friday, January 16.

Born premature, Brandon spent the first 40 days of his life in an incubator. After 7 months, doctors said he had a hole in his heart and pulmonary hypertension.

A different team of doctors would later discover that Brandon also has a severely damaged left lung, which is now taking its toll on his health.

“To see him deteriorate – that’s what’s hard for us,” said Gladys. 

Brandon is the only reason why the couple wanted to meet Pope Francis during his 5-day trip to the Philippines. Gladys wrote to and emailed the Papal Nuncio in Manila, in hopes of securing tickets to the Pope’s meeting with families at the Mall of Asia Arena.

Theirs was a simple wish: for the Pope, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, to bless their son Brandon, the youngest in a brood of 3 boys.

The Laos were the first family the Pope encountered – and blessed – when he entered the massive MOA Arena on Friday. John said they wanted to get as close as they could to the Pope, but did not want to get their hopes up.

Meeting the Pope

Although they were seated in the “patrol” section of the area, they were far from the stage were the Pope would stay during the program.

The couple, both 44-year-olds, said they probably have destiny, divine intervention, a Swiss Guard, and several “Francises” to thank.

As the Pope made his way into the arena, Gladys said one of the Pope’s security personnel from the Vatican saw her and Brandon and motioned for them to go down, closer to where the Pope would pass a mere seconds later.

“He really wanted us to meet the Pope,” said Gladys of the Pope’s security personnel who saw them.

Before she knew it, she was right in front of the pontiff, who was already praying over Brandon. “I felt cold. I’m not sure because I was emotional. I was trying to fight it because I was afraid that I was going to drop him,” she said.

There were a million things John and Gladys wanted to tell the Pope but in the end, only two words came out: “Thank you.”

“I really wanted to say thank you and he said, ‘Do not cry.’ And then he was holding my face and telling me to stop crying…but the more I cried,” Gladys told Rappler hours after their meeting.

Once a bouncing little boy, Brandon now needs a constant supply of oxygen from a tank and spends most of the days sleeping.

His lips and finger tips are a ghastly shade of blue, a sign that his condition is not improving. He rarely stirs, contentedly sleeping on his mothers’s chest.

But when the Pope started praying over the child, Brandon woke up – and started crying.

It took a while before John joined his family. He was busy taking pictures of Gladys, Brandon, and the Pope. The Pope, Gladys said, asked where the father was in Italian. It was Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle who translated for the pontiff.

Someone eventually pulled him down. “I was shaking. It’s hard for me to cry, I don’t cry. That time, I don’t know why [but] I cried; I was crying,” added John.

Waiting for a sign

Brandon is the baby the Laos badly wanted to have – their “pahabol” child. 

He has two older brothers, 17 and 14. “The doctors told me: if you want another child, try to have the baby before you turn 40, so we tried, but nothing happened. We had miscarriages and all. I was already 42 when I had him,” said Gladys.

By next week, the Laos will have to make one of their hardest decisions ever: whether or not little Brandon should undergo a lobectomy or not. The couple and their team of doctors will be meeting to discuss the pros and cons.

“For the past weeks, he’s been moaning; he doesn’t sleep well. That’s when the doctors realized [that] it’s urgent we do something about it,” said Gladys.

John said they’ve been praying for a sign.

“The doctors are giving us the decision. We were praying the whole time for a sign. Tingin nga namin baka (We’re thinking) this is a sign because the Pope only has one lung,” he said.

Two more Francises also helped the couple along the way: John’s friend Francis, who lent them an extra oxygen tank for Brandon to bring to MOA; and Doctor Francis Dimalanta, who accompanied the family to the Arena.

“Maybe it’s divine intervention,” said Gladys.

Speaking to a crowd of close to 30,000 Filipinos from all over the world, the Pope reminded families, particularly parents, never to stop dreaming.

“To dream how will your daughter or son be, it is not possible to have a family without such dreams. When you lose this capacity to dream, then you lose the capacity to love, and this energy to love is lost,” said the Pope.

Against and maybe even because of the odds, the Laos have not given up on dreaming for Brandon and the rest of their boys.

“Complete healing, that’s all I ask for every day….[Brandon’s] complete healing. I’m also praying for my kids because they have a hard time with us being focused on Brandon, spending so much for him. [They] sometimes they take the backseat,” said John.

It hasn’t been an easy 3 years but Gladys said little miracles – in the form of kind strangers at the MOA Arena who cleared a path for them when they say Brandon, prayers from all over the world, and meeting the Pope in spite the odds – make life a little easier.

Gladys and John, like many Catholics all over the Philippines, have decided to leave their worries to the big man upstairs. “When nothing can be done, you get down on your knees,” she said.

Fighting back tears, she added: The feeling now is…it’s best to just surrender. Thy will be done. [It’s like God] is saying: I’m going to take care of you. So if ever we lose [Brandon], I’ll still be at peace because he was blessed.” – Rappler.com