Memory of Hope

The following letter is my contribution to our book club's activity in relation to the discussion of the book Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. It is one of the many memories that I look back to for strength and courage to face life's everyday trials.

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My dearest Allie,

Your life is the fulfillment of mine.

I will never forget the moment I first saw you. I was fuzzy from medication, but it was so easy to perceive your beauty, my darling – all six pounds and 46 centimeters of you. You were crying your heart out, but it was the most beautiful sound in the world. Had I been able, I would have held you and kissed you right that moment, but I had to be just a little more patient. After all, we have our whole lives ahead of us - Nanay and her little Aurelia.

Two years and four months later, and we are still living that life that I promised we’d share, and there hasn’t been a day that I forget to thank the Lord for the wonderful gift that is you. Your Tatay and I are doing everything in our power to raise you properly, to give you a decent and comfortable life, to provide for your material, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual needs. Every endeavor that we undertake is for you, darling – that is how much we love you. All our frustrations, all the difficulties that we endure, we endure – for you. And you reward us with that pretty smile, the sweet way you utter “Nanay” or “Tatay”, the way you charm us with your witty antics and impress us with how much you’ve learned each day.

You have your whole life ahead of you, my sweet baby, and rest assured that Nanay (and Tatay, too) will be behind you every step of the way. You are the source of our boundless joy, the balm to our emotional wounds, our inspiration to become better. Every day we celebrate you, because you are living proof of God’s love and grace – and every day, we are thankful.

Your life is the celebration of mine. I love you, anak.

Nanay

Blotting you out

Dear Friend,

I know it is highly pretentious of me to call you “friend” when we have, in fact, been anything at all but – friends, that is – for the last couple of years. But since this will be the last time I will call you that, perhaps we can allow ourselves a few minutes of delusion?

Hindsight, I don’t even know when it all started. I can’t recall a specific instance or event when we stopped being friends. I am not certain if it’s a series of little things, or a huge, unforgivable one that I am not aware of, but this one thing is definite: the animosity between us is so perceivably thick that I would only be blind and stupid not to see it.

And it makes me sad. Sincerely, honestly sad.

I remember the better days, those days when we used to share so many things and I thought we understood each other so perfectly. Those were the days when we were each other’s confidantes, pouring out our gripes about the people around us to each other, commiserating and resolving to not let ourselves be dragged down with problems - other people's or our own. We did get each other then, didn’t we? Or was it all just a pretense? It couldn’t have been. I don’t think we had been hoodwinked into keeping a friendship, simply because we understood each other too damned well and for damned too long for everything to be just an act.

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 Instead, I will just consider this friendship as one that slowly died a natural death – it was good and wonderful and uplifting while it was alive, but eventually it deteriorated, it suffered, and now it just perished. Having met a natural death, therefore, it couldn’t have been avoided. Neither of us could have prevented it. And if I were inclined to shed a few tears in grief, I would do it for the memories that remained. They were good memories, weren’t they? Thank you for those.

Our paths will cross every now and then, and I assure you that you can expect nothing but civility from me – I will not shy away nor be rude because you don’t deserve that. But I am now blotting you out as someone who used to matter. And I say this with no trace of bitterness or regret.

I am glad you have found better friends to share your life with. I hope you treat each other well, and that your friendship won’t go the same way as ours did.

Sincerely,
M

Moving

Over the weekend, we've finally settled in our new home[1] – a bigger condominium unit in the same residential building we've been living in for the past 3 years. The OFW-owner of our old unit is coming home to settle in the Philippines next month, and he intends to set up his place there. Which was fine with us, as it would be a good opportunity to find a bigger space for the little girl.

Having only lived[2] in one place all my life – our ancestral house in the province, which my mother maintains – I found the entire process of moving out and moving in very tedious and exhausting. We[3] used to live in a small one-bedroom apartment, where space (or lack thereof) is a constant problem, so we limited our furniture and stuff to the basics in order to maximize whatever space we have. This time, however, we were able to find a bigger unit – it’s still a one-bedroom deal, but a far, far cry from the one we just vacated. The little girl has a relatively wider floor area to navigate and play in now, and our sparse furniture and junk barely filled it up.

It may sound silly to say this, but I will admit it nonetheless: I feel sentimental towards that rented space that our family called “home” for the past 3 years. The little girl spent the first 2 years of her young life in that small unit, the place where she experienced a lot of a baby’s firsts and marked many a milestone. Truly, can anyone blame me for being wistful as I hauled our boxes and bags away and said goodbye? :(

I know that this new place we’re currently staying in is also temporary. We are planning to get our own house someday, hopefully sooner. We are trying our best to realize that dream as soon as we can, more for Allie’s sake than ours. But I know that, when we finally have our very own place, I will once again feel this bittersweet emotion of leaving something in order to embrace another thing. Call me silly for getting attached to objects and places, but I can’t help it. Don’t you feel that way sometimes, too?

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[1] Home is where the heart is, yes?

[2] Excepting the months I lived in a boarding house during my college and law school years.

[3] Tatay, Nanay, Little Girl and two yayas. Go figure.

 

Who's extremely myopic?

Last week, I paid a visit to the optometrist to have my eyes refracted. I've been itching to get replacement eyeglasses for the longest time because my current pair are plastic - the kind that doesn't have nose pads and which have the tendency to cause pimples where the frames touch the skin. (For the record, this is my first pair of nose pads-less frames. And - I realize now - also the last. I blame my husband for saying they look good on me. I'm a sucker for praise. Heh.)

So finally, I went to the optical shop, had a refraction, and voila! My grade has increased yet again!

My new prescription glasses.

I had my very first pair of eyeglasses during my freshman year in high school: both eyes had a grade of 3.50. Pretty high for a first-timer, yes. I must have been suffering from myopia for the longest time but didn't tell my parents that anything was out of the ordinary - I didn't think the inability to read anything written on the board at school was uncommon at all, even with the fact that I was seated in the front row. I just used to squint a lot when I couldn't read anything, and I managed. When I first complained about it to my parents in high school, I was already suffering from headaches. So they brought me to the eye doctor, and there you go. 3.50 plus low astigmatism.

And then as the years went by, my nearsightedness just got worse - I don't know what causes it, exactly. I wouldn't say too much reading is contributory because I know many people who also read a lot, but who have retained their 20/20 vision even now. The only explanation that my doctor can offer is that it's in my genes, as both my parents and other relatives are highly myopic. Well, looks like I don't have much choice in the matter, then.

So at is stands now, my grade has increased from 6.25 last year to 6.50 this year, both eyes. Plus astigmatism of .5. Nearly blind, yes.

Affirmation of Love: A Letter

On the occasion of our third wedding anniversary, I wrote the following letter to my better half. Pardon the mush.

Darling, 

The months and the years are slipping by and I tell you often enough that I love you, that my life would not be complete without you. Every single day that I wake up and see you beside me, every time I look at our daughter’s beautiful face and realize how much she has taken after you, I feel an overflowing of gratitude for having been so blessed. I must have done something really, really good in my life for God to reward me with so much love and happiness. 

Being with you has made me a better person. You generously overlooked – and continue to overlook – my weaknesses and you never forget to express your appreciation for everything I do for you and Allie, no matter how little. Your encouragement buoys me when I feel down, your support assures me that despite my imperfections, I can still strive at being better. Thank you, my love. I hope that I will always be worthy of you, that I can be the kind of woman that you deserve. 

image from we heart it

They say that a lifetime is not enough for anyone to truly know the person they love. If this is true, then the more I get to know you, the more I want to know, and the more I can't wait for each new day just to be with you: to watch the sun rise in your arms and to see the smile on your eyes. Every day I love you more, and every day I realize to a greater extent how much our marriage and our family mean to me, how much you mean to me. 

In just a couple of weeks, we’ll be celebrating our third year wedding anniversary. A few days after that, we’ll be celebrating our sixth year of being an “official” couple. Has it been that long? It feels like it was only yesterday when we first met, when we were just a couple of bumbling sophomore college students with nary an idea that we were destined for each other, after all. Has it really been nearly 16 years since that fateful day? I guess it has. We’ve meandered and gone through our separate ways in the interim, but here we finally are, with each other. And saying “yes” to you when you asked if I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you has been one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life. 

The past three years have not all been roses and candies, but I will not trade it for anything in the world. Our marriage is my commitment not only to you, but also to God before whom we made our vows – vows that I will keep until my last breath. It sounds cliché and Jerry Maguire-ish, but I know you will forgive me if I say that yes, you truly complete me. 

Through the days and through the nights, thank you for always being there. I will always be here for you, darling. I am forever yours.

xoxo