A number of my girl friends have become widowed, leaving very few of us with husbands. And, of nearly all the other nonwidows, who are taking care of older husbands, I belong yet to an even smaller minority. I have a husband, who, by natural arrangements, would be taking care of me. After all, he is most physically fit, and I am six years older and happen to come from a family where husbands outlive wives.

My widowed friends with close ties to their daughters, sons and daughters-in-law, and with grandchildren, too, as a bonus, were inclined, more so after they lost their husbands, to welcome the idea of living with one of them in later years. But there were also those who insisted, even against their children’s wishes, on living on their own. According to them, taking care of themselves, having their own personal space, was the way they could best cope with their loss and adjust to their new situation. To be sure, they made time for their children and grandchildren, but they took to widowhood as an adventure and embraced their new freedom.

I myself don’t want to think about those options. I may not even get there. Besides, if Vergel and I had our way, we’d leave together.

Meanwhile, I find myself cherishing the company of girl friends I have accumulated through my long lifetime. They make up an interesting lot, and they have a definite and special role in my senior years.

Closest and dearest

The closest and dearest ones are family and schoolmates—God knows I have kept friends from Maryknoll, where I went for grade school, and St. Theresa’s in Quezon City, for high school, and St. Theresa’s in Manila, for college. In the two years between high school and college I went to Colegio Mayor de Santo Padre Poveda, in Madrid, and made lasting friendships with other Filipinas as well as some Teresiana nuns whose order runs the school. A few of those nuns came over to teach in their extension school here and, upon retirement, chose to make the Philippines their home as well as the center of their life’s mission.

I gravitate mostly and naturally toward those with whom I share interests—writing, theater-going, exercising, restaurant sampling.

But there is something extra special and surprisingly deep about friendships and comradeships my husband and I have made in the streets in support of causes. Some are among the religious, others rediscovered old friends, and still others relatively new but traceable to common friends.

Still some are complete strangers, like the mother of a boy victimized by extrajudicial murder in the antidrug war whom I hold in what feels like a most natural embrace. We seem to reinforce each other’s courage and determination to stand up for what we believe in. And, as we did in Edsa, we take the risks as simply there to be taken in unnatural times.

Friends who do their part by praying call us brave, but we’re just as afraid as anybody else. As my husband says, “We’re just too afraid for our children and grandchildren to be afraid for ourselves.”

I’m one to not let friendships go, despite distance and other circumstances. But, for moral and other principled convictions, I don’t mind ending friendship with betrayers.

Sense of urgency

With Viber, Facebook and text messages, however, the connection is not easy to escape. At my age, there’s a now-or-never sense of urgency in engaging in meaningful activities, like visiting ailing friends and praying together for friends who have gone ahead, lunching with special friends, cousins, children and grandchildren which I truly look forward to.

At this stage of life, as long as it doesn’t take away from husband-time, I look forward to girl-time. I always seem to come away recharged in their company. There’s a definite place for sisterhood, especially as we advance through senior life with all the physical and memory attrition that goes with it. There’s consolation, comfort and laughs to be had from active sisterhood; indeed, it can be rejuvenating.

I sometimes feel guilty going off with girl friends to lunch, leaving Vergel to eat out by himself, which he prefers to eating home alone. I usually time it with his tennis or his own lunches, with news sources and friends, but sometimes it just can’t be helped. While I still can and, at every chance, I want to partake of the simple joys of other people’s and my children’s company.

Recently, I went with girl friends to watch a movie that I’d been wanting to see but that Vergel didn’t mind missing—“Crazy Rich Asians.” This after a group of classmates and I had had a full day, praying the rosary before the noonday Mass for departed and ailing friends and lunching together. Four of us decided to extend girl-time.

As full as we were, we bought popcorn, slices of Vargas butter cake, and cold bottled water, and were indeed entertained and affected in other welcome ways. I was even brought to tears! We all felt giddy talking about the movie all the way home.

I told Vergel the story over dinner and, for all his patience listening, I couldn’t help noticing how relieved he was to have been spared, on one hand. On the other hand, my own feelings of guilt watching without him were assuaged.

Thanks to girl friends!