A Love Story

I've heard of true love stories. I know just this one.


Love stories can be extraordinary, portrayed with lights and colors and all, gifts and surprises and material things. Movies can be deceiving. This love story is simple, ordinary, it did not end the way I wanted it. Who the hell said love stories end up happily? Love was enough. It was just right.


There's this man, who grew up in the city, a kid who knew poverty and faced it head on. He wasn't a good guy.


Then there's this woman, who grew up in the province, a girl who worked her way to have a meal, she was a good woman.


They met sometime in the '80s, even attended EDSA people power. What a date, I say. Don't know much about the courting process. They got married, a civil wedding attended by a few good friends and relatives.


They built a family, they started from scratch. The man did construction works for extra, while being a full time pedicab driver. The year's 1988, their first son was born, premature but made it through. The man then got a job with the help of his brother, an assembler in a car manufacturer nearby. They got their second son in 1989, pretty fast eh? Through hard work, the man got regularized and his job was more than enough to keep his growing family steady. In 1991 the third son was born, then in 1993, their first daughter. Lastly in 1994, their youngest son.


They went through every thing normal parents experience with their kids. It wasn't always easy or happy, but that's the way married life is.


In the end, someone has to leave. Only in true life will you ever see a love end, physically, not mentally. Because love stays in the heart and soul. It still hurts anyway, you'll wish you never have to place your feet upon these things.


February 2005 the good woman got an illness, unknown. She went through lots of tests. In the end she died, of cancer. The man never left her bed. Although he wasn't good in expressing what he feels, even if he says things that are contrary to what's inside his heart, you'll see in his actions that he love her with all his life.


In her last minutes she suffered from a massive cardiac arrest, add to that the loss of oxygen in her brain, she was in a state of stroke. She can't speak. She was heavily breathing, she lost her control on human excretion. What she had inside her for weeks, things that can't get out due to the malignant cancer, all poured out at once. And he simply cleaned everything, oblivious to the fact that it was waste he has in his bare hands. She had to be cleansed, that's what's in his mind. He never complained, he was just there, silently working. Praying for her to be spared. Crying inside his mind. He never left her. After a few minutes, from labored to silent breathing, she passed on. His love along with it. But her memory stays in his heart.


One of the last few words the man heard from the woman those days were, "You're always enough.."


He never left her side, he was with her in the last few moments before she's dressed and groomed. I can remember him talking about this in a brave manner, talking in details. I'm sure he was crying all the time, when all this was happening. I don't ever want to stand in his shoe, and I don't know how I could manage to, if ever I'm placed there.

I remember him crying once. He was outside, coming in the backdoor, eyes swollen and almost speechless. What he told me before breaking into tears broke my heart, "I miss your mom.."


I broke into my own set of tears afterwards. And yes, they were my parents.