Dear Emily,
I was extremely happy with Al my husband. He was exciting, good-looking, set to inherit a lot of land, with a thriving business of his own. We had eight children.
Martial law took all that away when he fled to America. His business collapsed, the agrilands exchanged for worthless bonds. I also found out he had another family. When he died in the 1990s, any assistance to my children stopped completely.
It’s now been 40 years. My children and I survived, and we have careers of our own. What they miss is meeting their relatives on their father’s side. The legal wife refuses to allow my children to meet their relatives, even on social media. She says that she was hurt from her husband’s betrayal, and will not allow more pain and embarrassment by letting anyone know this well-kept secret.
EVITA
A secret is a secret only if only one person knows about it. How can it be a secret when a whole family, almost a virtual barangay, knows about it? And pray tell, what century these relatives are living in? Aren’t they aware how permissive and tolerant society has become?
The “illegal” kids have nothing to do with their elders’ morality and should not be subjected to whatever gobbledygook they are proponents of. They share bloodlines, and as such, have every right to meet relatives, other than those they only approve of.
If the legal wife doesn’t want the half siblings to meet, fine. But what about those who may themselves want to meet the other half? Is there a law that restricts them from doing so? Just remember, embarrassment in cases like this has gone the way of the Dodo bird. It’s irrevocably extinct. What happens when these kids communicate via social media? You ask Russia to hack it?
Forty years is a looong time to hold pain or even feel the rawness of it. It’s not like kimchi that gets better with age. What your husband did is really horrible. But she should move on, because nobody and nothing stays stationary anymore. Hasn’t she ever been affected by or made aware of the shifting sands of time?
Forgive, forget, turn the page and live life again. Why be a living dead?
emarcelo@inquirer.com.ph or emarcelo629@gmail.com