My Mom knows a LOVE STORY

It is a quiet Saturday afternoon inside our house today. I am reading, my siblings are attending to their digital concerns, my mom is ironing our clothes while our neighbor is playing 96.3 Easy Rock FM on loud speakers.

I have to go to inside a room because while the music is good, it distracts me from reading a (nonetheless) self-help book. With the unexpected playing of some songs, my mom quips, "bata pa ako nung sumikat yang kantang 'yan," and "alam mo pinanuod pa namin ni Papa mo sa sine yung pelikula niyan, yang yung theme song. Sa Cubao pa yun e." 

Each of us continues with our different worlds until my mother felt nostalgic in one song: Endless Love, a duet by Diana Ross and Lionel Richie. She starts recalling...

(not in her exact words)

Alam niyo mayroon akong kaklase noong first year college
Bata pa lang siya, sila na nung boyfriend niya noon. Mag-first love sila. First boyfriend na yun
Tapos 'yan yung theme song nila. Tuwing tumutugtog yan, kumakanta sila, sumasayaw sila
Lahat kami kinikilig. Ang sweet sweet nila
Tapos isang araw, yung boyfriend niya, nagpunta ng Navotas sa bahay nila
Nahold-up, eh nanlaban yata, napatay
Tapos yung kaklase ko, sobrang nalungkot siya na umabot sa hindi na siya nakapag-aral
Gabi-gabi nandun kami sa burol ng boyfriend niya. Iyak kami nang iyak kasi iyak siya ng iyak
Facetowel ang dadalhin mo dahil hagulgol ka sa kanya
Tapos araw-araw hinahanap namin siya, hindi siya makita sa bahay nila
Nandun pala siya sa sementeryo, sa puntod ng boyfriend niya
Minsan dinadala na lang namin siya ng pagkain

Tuwing naririnig ko yung kantang yan, yung kaklase kong yun yung naaalala ko
Asan na kaya yun. Hindi ko nga alam kung nakapagtapos ng pag-aaral yun
Ang alam ko nag-aral siya after ng ilang taon. Pinilit na lang yata siya ng pamilya niya nun
Pero siya ayaw niya na talaga
Sabi lumipat na daw sila sa Cavite
Hindi ko rin alam kung nakapang-asawa pa siya
Ano na kaya nangyari doon

Kaya tuwing naririnig ko talaga yang kantang yan, yung Endless Love
Hindi ko mapigilang maiyak
Naaalala ko sila, ang sweet sweet nila
Tapos namatay yung lalaki. Kawawa naman yung kaklase ko.
Hindi ko talaga mapigilang umiyak tuwing naririnig ko yung kantang yan



My mother grabbed me and my sister's attention with her monologue. She occasionally stopped from ironing and wiped her tears with a towel. 

We can't help but think of where is that woman now? That girlfriend who still went to the cemetery everyday after her boyfriend's interment. That young lady who traded her studies to experience the pain and chose to live with it. She must be one blessed woman right now because of her guardian angel. A man so young, promising, loyal and sweet who looks up to her from heaven thinking, "I'm so sorry to leave early. But I thank God for your loyalty."

To the people reading this, if you cannot recall the lyrics of Endless Love, you need not Google it anymore. The way my mother recounted that love story is better than singing the song entirely.

Wow. What a way to spend Saturday afternoon. 

It's way past 5 P.M. now. I am done reading the book, my mother is also done with the ironing while our neighbor has turned off the radio. Within minutes, another story was born and I could not have been happier.

Staring at the Wall

Tuesday Night. I talked to one person I know from way back and the conversation we had helped me move on with a lot of issues I held on to since November. I though I did fine during our talk. However, from Wednesday to Friday, I felt heavy deep inside and I only had one word for it: stress. 

I will not go into details on what we talked about. It was good. But something about the conversation made me rethink the state I am currently in. And then I felt that our talk was just the 'icing on the cake.' I realized that the reason we conversed is because soon enough, I would have to revisit an old fear and an ancient quest.  

Friday Lunch time. Stress and disorientation got the best of me and as a cure, I went to the bookstore and bought my first self-help book from Bro. Bo Sanchez entitled "Your Past Does Not Define Your Future." I read it in the bus while travelling home and I was deeply touched with some of the messages and anecdotes in the book. 

Mind you, I have always wanted to read it since college but I didn't have the courage to pick it up and place it on the cashier. I always told myself, "may perfect timing ang pagbabasa ko niyan." And last night was 'that' time.

I admire how Bro. Bo opened up about his addictions -- his struggles with sex, pornography, masturbation, and more importantly, finding and revaluing himself. I believe that to some extent, all of us can relate to what he has gone through, maybe not with sex and lust but with addiction itself. I, for one, am undergoing through a lot recently and I thank him for reminding me that there is indeed hope and rescue that is always available for us, courtesy of God. 

Too much holiness and godliness now. If you would let me continue, I'd like to share with you a part of the book:

CHAPTER 10: UNTIL YOU GET HEALED (my short version)

There was a woman in a mental facility and she was violent, helpless even. Everyone including her doctors have given up on her and she was left secluded in her room and always staring at the wall. 

Everyone quit on her, except one person.

The janitor in the hospital has always wanted to help her and see if there is still a means to cater her recovery. What he did was after his duty, he would go inside the woman's room, his own chair by the hand, sit parallel with the woman and stare at the wall with her for 30 silent minutes. 

Years have passed and this routine continued. One day, the janitor sat beside the woman, as usual, and surprisingly, the woman started talking and it evolved into conversations. Eventually the woman was released from the mental hospital fully recovered.

And why was she healed? Because there was one man who through his actions, told the woman, "Listen lady, I'm going to stay here beside you. I'm never going to leave you. I'll sit here with you until you get healed."


I wish all of us would get to meet our own version of that janitor someday. But as Bro. Bo put it, and I totally agree, that janitor is God. He will never leave us. He will sit beside us, year on year, until we get healed from whatever it is that has been causing us pain.


In general, I am not a fan of reading self-help books because they tell of a story of one person's triumph and his recommendations which are not applicable for everyone. And when I do, which is seldom, I see to it that even from judging it by the cover, it is a worthwhile read. With this book, I wasn't wrong.  

Believe that your past does not define your future. 

And as I continue on with life, I hope I can walk focused now and avoid more of that Tuesday night in the coming days. 

(Photo not mine)