In searching for my father over the last few years, I finally stumbled on a story that would make a box-office hit. In the process I discovered the great love my grandparents had for one another.
Fifteen years on Monday, June 3— that’s how long he’s been gone. I was poring through some old photographs the other day when it suddenly hit me that my son has been gone for 15 years now, and a wave of intense longing and sadness suddenly came over me. He was 4 years old when he passed away one rainy early evening in 1998, after having been in a coma for two weeks. His small, newly operated heart finally stopped beating that Wednesday evening, and he returned to his true home.
A separation or an annulment process is never easy—for the person going through it, and for all the family members affected by it. No matter how progressive we have become, there’s still a lot of stigma attached to it, more so in Philippine society.
Losing an election feels very much like the end of a relationship, complete with the anxiety, attendant heartbreak, sorrow and sleepless nights.
My mother took up running as a sport at age 40. Several years later, my father died, and she became a widow at 47.
All through my growing-up years, I was often asked by my mom’s contemporaries and colleagues, “Kilala mo ba si Grace Poe?” Apparently, I was a dead ringer for FPJ’s only child. Although, he and my mother had worked together on several films, and was a close personal friend, the king’s daughter and I had never met.
“Connect with your center at the edge of the world…” the tagline on the Terranea brochure read. Terranea is the resort-spa where my childhood friend Joy was taking me for the day, a good 24 hours after I landed in the city of angels.
We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate. We travel to bring what little we can, in our ignorance and knowledge, to those parts of the globe whose riches are differently dispersed. And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again—to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more.”—Pico Iyer
Although my dad passed away on an April’s day 32 years ago, and I’ve now lived the better part of my life without him, whenever this month comes along, my days are often filled with thoughts of him and what my life would have been like had he been alive.
As a child, I was a huge scaredy-cat. I had overprotective parents who tried to shield me from all sorts of danger, real and imagined, because of their love for me. It took decades, much heartbreak and many losses before I finally grew into the courage that I have now. Close to 50 now, I’d like to think that I’m finally fearless.
Sitting in a family court several months ago, I was struck by a poster that the judge had hung on her wall.
