true column
bohol sunday post
Here’s the winner of the “My Unforgettable Love Story†contest. The winner will receive a t-shirt courtesy of Mikey Gatal (
www.mikeygatal.com) and Island City Mall Screenville Cinema.
Space in the heart
By: Angeline Valencia
Love blooming on holy week? We have that among the rare ones ever told.
Since I knew her name, Cleng became the byword of every sunshine on mornings that meet me day after day after day. And, it grew into a sonata that lulls me to sleep at night.
A friendship blooming over dinner dates and movie-watching led to late-night romantic talks on holy week of 2006.
She had nothing to do on the holy week, while I had to come up with the ad material for our company over the holidays and finish some partial drafts of the company policies. She asked if we could be together on the holidays. I could have been gnashing my teeth in regret if I wasted that chance.
So, on Maundy Thursday we headed to a remote barangay in Carmen where I occupied a unit of the company’s staff house project.
On our way on board a v-hire, sensing that I was sleepy, she offered her bag laid on her lap to be my pillow. And, I lost consciousness to be drowned in dreams of me and her.
The day before, I just got an MIDI player on installment. With an MIDI CD containing 10,000 songs fed on it, she and three other buddies had a good exercise of their vocal chords, while I was finishing what I had to in a corner of the living room. I took a break from time to time, though, to join them, conscious that she might laugh at my do-re-mi but brave enough to send a message.
I really intended to facilitate a sing-along session with her on the microphone, for it was her songs that tempted me to ask for her name and I always have the thought that where there are songs for her to sing, I have the opportunity to hear her singing.
On our last night at the staff house, we had an opportunity to be alone in the room other than where our buddies were staying. That was when I led a conversation into having her telling me, “I love you, too†before I told her “I love youâ€. Just making sure I got an answer before I utter the question. Just making sure I have her before chances slip through my grip.
But that just confirmed the feelings. We actually started confirming the relationship between us in the following week back in Tagbilaran City when we decided to be together and vowed our love to span for a lifetime and even beyond.
The following nights we would talk about becoming both mothers to the child she would deliver later in a few months- -she being the biological, and I would be the not-so biological. She will bear the child from her womb. I would from my heart.
To find a good hint for a good name for the child, we agreed to have an ultrasound on her to see if it had to be feminine or masculine. The long queue at Lao’s OB-Gyne Clinic teased the thrill. I went out of the clinic for a moment to buy candy at a nearby store. When I went back, I peeped at the door to see her wide voiceless smile and formed her lips into what was soundless syllables of “ba-ye†(girl).
She told me she was happy that I got my wish and her mother’s that it would be a girl.
We went home smiling as we agreed we would be the three angels, considering that Angel is her other nickname, I have the “Angel†in my Angeline and her mother had been suggesting we should call her Angelaine--Ange from my Angeline and “laine†from her real name, Arlaine Cecile.
We went home reminiscing how I always insisted it must be a girl in one of our past conversations when we were about to plunge into a deeper friendship until I proposed to be the other mother of the child in her womb which was the first moment she said I touched her heart.
She realized I was touching her heart more when our friendship inched towards a relationship that invites public opinions and judgment, though.
And, the child became the heart of what’s between us. We are mothers, we are parents.
Linkback:
https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=10376.0
