MikeLigalig.com

By Aica Dioquino

TL;DR: At the mention of the accident, she looked down, felt the wedding band that remains on her finger. Something must have passed across her face, I don’t know, my eyes fixed on the way she touched that ring. A moment. And then she let go, as applause beckoned her to the podium to fulfill the morning’s task. Two years and a big leap since I took this photo, I still remember this moment vividly.
—
Took this photo two years ago. VP Leni was a month into her term, and I a couple of months in the new beat. She and I didn’t know each other; just a forgettable introduction after her inauguration.

The early days of her term teased with blooming optimism, at the recent unfolding of relations with the President. But amid all the moments of moments, this was among the few that stuck with this observer the most.

She sat there listening to the introduction being read: a list of credentials... that somehow led to a paragraph about how the “tragic crash” that took her husband’s life led to her sitting there, the second-highest official in the land.

At the mention of the accident, she looked down, felt the wedding band that remains on her finger. Something must have passed across her face, I don’t know, my eyes fixed on the way she touched that ring. A moment. And then she let go, as applause beckoned her to the podium to fulfill the morning’s task.

Two years and a big leap later, I still remember this moment vividly. Only it holds more meaning, I guess, now that I’ve heard more about their love story. About love language; how Sec. Jesse helped her through law school (and then she gave me love advice, haha). That the bulky black watch she normally wears was his. How he always bought a “hers” to his watches, and how he wanted to wear matching clothes with her. Then a rundown of how their love story began: He sent feelers through old-school telegram. Courted her formally at home, and courted her parents, too. When he earned her ‘yes,’ he already knew and couldn’t wait to spend his life with her. And encouraged her to pursue her dream of becoming a lawyer.

Sometimes, at the most random moments at work—in the middle of conversations with sectors, a visit to a poor household, an official function—you can catch her touching that vial that hangs close to her heart, or playing with her wedding ring. Perhaps by instinct, or coincidence. Her phone wallpaper is a photo of them in a hug. When the going gets tougher, she posts about him. She says she is thankful their three girls took after their Papa. She keeps him nearby as she believes in the Filipino’s right to dream, the work she does patterned on the leadership he espoused. She may even channel his reported perseverance/stubbornness at times.
 
We’re conquering dragons on the daily, and there’s always an extra urge to fight back when the attack taints this story. A loss led to all of this. She tells the story dry-eyed: losing her husband so suddenly, a “tragic crash” turning her world upside down. It’s been written that she braved through opening the body bag, to make sure that the remains recovered from deep in the sea, after the longest three days, was the love of her life.

People tend—or choose—to forget that loss is painful. There is nothing more painful than losing him, she has said. She does not like playing the widow card, but here she is, picking up where he left of. She tries, every day, as she treads through her own narrative, anchored by the ring that bore his faithfulness and that vial in which a part of him rests. #

Linkback: https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=121716.0