(This was translated from a beautifully written letter in Tagalog; I hope the translation captured the essence of the sender’s poignant story.)
DEAR EMILY,
I had a seven-year affair with a woman 32 years my senior. I met her right after I graduated from college, a case of serendipity because by then, she was separating legally from her gallivanting husband. She was managing her father’s business while I was just starting out in life.
I was a stupid young boy before I met her. I had girlfriends left and right, thinking that that was all there was to life. I even got a girl pregnant when I was 15! She helped me find a good job that allowed me to save and get a place of my own. She insisted, though, on spending for our out-of-town trips. She always joked that she would let me know when she started needing help from me.
Those seven years were the best times of my life. She passed on to me her taste in simple clothes, good table manners, and speaking well, and desperately tried to improve my grammar, to no avail. She taught me the value of generosity, kindness (to those less fortunate than me, and I came from a very poor family), humility and humor. In spite her accomplishments, she never took herself seriously.
Most important of all, she taught me how to make love to a woman, the right way—not the hurried stuff young boys passed on to each other, or learned from porn films or cheap hookers or ignorant girls like them. It was that wonderful kind of lovemaking that satisfied both of us completely. I became the man I am because of her—thousands of miles away from what I was before I met her.
She passed away recently and very suddenly—thus, this sharing.
Many men are so shallow in believing that only young and beautiful women can give them happiness, restore their youth, or satisfy their waning sex drive. They cannot get past the female exterior packaging, not realizing that behind the inevitable wrinkles, or the flab here and there, they may discover a passionate and sublimely wonderful, older, mature woman. Some leave their wives for these exact reasons, not realizing that happiness is very much a state of mind.
I miss my great love. She was funny and crazy and always kind. I never saw our age difference. She is gone, and she left a gaping emptiness in my life.—M.G.
Answer:
Your heartwarming story is truly touching! Bravo! There aren’t many relationships like what you’ve been through that end up a glowing success. You and your love had seven years of blissful existence, “getting on,” to paraphrase one writer, “with the simple business of giving each other simple natural happiness.” You had the good fortune of being “color-blind,” waving away all the unnecessary trappings of bias, bigotry or nitpicking.
Her sudden death, though lamentable, has spared you the agony of a waning love or just plain boredom. The tragedy of love, it’s been said, is not death or separation. The tragedy of love is indifference. As it happens to the best of us, you were lucky not to have been even nicked by any of those.
That’s a riveting, albeit sad love story. You clearly didn’t need any advice in the love department. It’s a nice story to share around the campfire, to learn from, and to teach those men who never grew up the true meaning of falling in love.
Are there any more of you out there, or was the mold thrown away after you were made?
(emarcelo@inquirer.com.ph or emarcelo629@gmail.com—SUBJECT: LIFESTYLE)