Valentine’s Day 2015.  This was not how I imagined the day would be months ago when everything was coming up roses.  I had a new love, or should I say he found me, but now he’s gone ahead to heaven, leaving me alone with a broken heart.  Just as the love of my life, my husband, my best friend and father of my children did earlier.  So now, I have two angels up above.  And a heart full of grief that needs to mend.  And must.  And will!

I arrived from Rome the other day, sick as a dog.  My son Niccolo picked me up from the airport.  Before going home, we passed by St. Therese of the Child Jesus, to visit Mike, pray and tell him how much we loved and miss him.

The stress of the past three weeks had finally caught up on me.  Acute bronchitis, the doctor said, and ordered strict bed rest.  But this was not possible as my dear aunt Julia, former dean of the College of the Holy Spirit and youngest sister of my father, had died while I was in Rome.  There was a wake to attend to and a burial to make.  Just as I had before I left for Spain two weeks ago.  It seemed that sorrow had decided to burrow a permanent hole in my heart.

Tita Jill had helped take care of me and my four siblings, aged four to 11, when my father had died. There was no way I would stay away.  I arranged for mass last night and early this morning just before her burial in the family plot in La Loma Cemetery.  From her friends’ tributes, I learned how much she had enriched their lives with her gentleness, her brilliance, her passion for excellence, her generosity of heart and her simplicity.  What a role model she was for all of us!

I could not help but compare the two wakes and burials that straddled my trip to Spain and Italy.  That of my boyfriend Rolando Perez Gosiengfiao’s was elaborate, chockfull of family and friends paying their respects throughout the day and night, flowers lining up the corridor, a flag draped over his coffin and smart marines standing guard beside his casket.  Each night a different group (Young Presidents’ Organization, World Presidents’ Organization, AIESEC, BCDA, GenRex) hosted the mass and dinner, paying tribute to a great man who had touched their lives and left an imprint hard to erase.  My aunt’s was simple, with only intimate family and friends present.  But love abounded nevertheless.  What struck me was no matter how brilliant or rich or powerful one is, at the end of our lives, we don’t take anything with us.  Except for the love we had shared with those we leave behind.

After the burial, Bea and I had brunch at Wildflour.  I sampled cacio e pepe pasta for the very first time on her prodding. It’s a wonder I didn’t have this in Rome. It was sinfully delightful, but more than the food, it was the company that made brunch truly special.  For how many moms can have the pleasure of lunch with their first born on Valentine’s Day, especially if their daughter is such an attractive young woman that many would like to date?  I felt honored that my daughter had decided to turn down all Valentine date requests to spend the day with me.

After brunch, we meandered over to the Saturday Salcedo market, bought flowers and passed by San Antonio in Forbes to say a prayer for Mr. G, as Bea calls Rollie.  We then went home to comply with my  doctor’s orders.

And lo and behold, a surprise awaited us!  Since my birthday, the house has been dusty and topsy-turvy due to renovation.  Blue burlap had covered the area on the ground floor where walls were being removed, and new panels put up.   Before leaving for Spain, I had decided to take the plunge and fix the large first floor room which had previously served as an office, and later as an entertainment room.

When Mike took ill with cancer and could no longer make the trip up to the second floor, that became his sick room.  It was also where he took his final breath and died in my arms as I had promised him.  The room was just too sad for me, and so I hardly entered it.  But my mom was getting on in age, and was having a hard time going up the stairs, so I decided it was time to make the change.  I also had excellent advice from Rollie on what to do with the room.

When Bea and I got home this afternoon, we were greeted by a wonderful sight.  The workers had removed the burlap covering the renovations ongoing in the living room, and the place had opened up.  It was now spacious, airy, and bright! Oh, what a wonderful feeling it evoked!  And I now have a sitting room full of natural light to paint in.  What joy!

Tonight, I had dinner in bed with Bea.  She prepared her signature tomato and basil pasta, and we had cheese and Spanish ham paired with a Vin de Bordeaux, while watching The Mummy Returns, and then Sex in the City on TV.  Cara is working in Boracay and Niccolo spent the day in Clark with his friends.  Now, Bea has gone to bed, and here I am writing and reflecting on my life these past few months.

Come to think of it, this was Rollie’s gift for me: a new lease on life.  Seven months ago, when my world was dark and I was grieving for Mike, Rollie came barging into my life.   Rollie taught me it was possible to love and be happy once again.  From the moment he sent me that message on FB, I was literally hooked.

Rollie was always looking for ways to get together, whether for halo-halo, picking me up from an event, offering to help me with my speeches, going to the Saturday market at Salcedo, driving me to Alfonso,  showing me where he grew up, or accompanying me to buy gifts.  He would sometimes show up unannounced where I was, seeming to have just been in the vicinity. Little did I know that it had been carefully planned.

He was a man of many inconsistencies.  Every chance he got, he would introduce me to his family and friends and would post our photos proudly on his Facebook page, tagging me whenever he could.  And yet he told me not to write about him because he was a private individual.  And so I would untag him.  At times, exasperated, I would unfriend him, but he always asked me back.  And truth to tell, no matter how many fights we had, we never could stay away from each other more than a day.

We had long conversations, yes, even arguments, about everything under the sun, especially religion, marriage, my church service, my busy schedule, and social customs.  Rollie was a professed atheist, and this cut me deeply, being quite religious.  It was hard to reconcile that the man I loved did not believe in the same things I did.  I refused to eat with him unless we said grace before meals.  He was very gracious and obliged me in this.  He even accompanied me to mass, though he would not stay all the way to the final blessing.

I kept looking for ways to tell him our relationship could not flourish. One time, I told him our Chinese astrology signs were opposed.  He was a tiger and I was fire monkey.  And since monkeys and dragons were the best match (Mike was a water dragon), I said I must find myself a dragon.  He was so cut up by this remark that he stopped talking to me, and told me I win.  When I saw him, he was crying in his living room.  When I asked him why he was crying, he said he wanted desperately to be my dragon.  Oh, Rollie!

Facebook messenger was our lifeline, a surprising channel for two mature individuals. Like teenagers, we were glued to our mobile phones, waiting for the three dots to start blinking.  The roles had been reversed.  My children would tell me to stop looking at my phone all the time.

It was sad that my children could not accept our relationship.  Early on, Rollie told me he had fallen in love with my family, and looked forward to being part of it.  He said he was taken by the love that we all obviously shared.  But he was also understanding that it was just too soon after Mike had died.  All things will work out in the end, he said.  He was so sure of it.

Plans, Rollie had a lot of.  Where we would live, where we would travel, what we would do for the rest of our lives.  He gave me keys to his condo, and asked me to move in.  I told him not unless we were married.  Which again brought up the issue of social customs.  If we lived in the US, this would not even be an issue, he would argue. Why were papers so important, he asked?  I told him it was a matter of values, not papers.  Frustrated,  he announced he would put up our pictures in his condo to make me feel more at home.  I was in tears when his housekeeper in Hong Kong told me at the funeral that he bought a frame on this last trip and told her this was for my photo in Salcedo.  He never got around to doing it.

For some unknown reason, Rollie unleashed the poet in me. I would find myself penning my emotions in rapid fire, in a fever of inspiration.  I would send my poems to him, and each time, he would catch his breath, amazed at what I had written, and flattered to be the subject of the muse.

We painted together, and he loved the work I did, even blowing up a sketch I had made of him. He was very proud of that likeness of him that he put it up in his living room.  For Christmas, Rollie bought me a set of oils from New York after he saw me throw away my old oil set that had dried up.

Rollie loved music, and singing. He brought music back into my life.  We would sit and listen to music, and sometimes, he would burst into song.   He sang for me at his brother Ed’s birthday, and his sister-in-law whispered to me that it was obvious Rollie was in love with me, and that she hoped I loved him too.

Although he said he envied my writing skills, he showed me a book he had written on his wife after she died and another one he had written about his family. I was very touched by his gesture of love. He encouraged me to write a book for my mom’s 80^th birthday and collaborated with me by digitalizing all the old photo prints.

Last year, Rollie urged me to write a book on Mike to celebrate our life together and to close that chapter so we could start a new one.  I was unable to write during the Christmas break because I was sick, so when Rollie said he was going to be away the week Pope Francis came, he told me I should start on that book for Mike.  And that was what I did.  He called me from Hong Kong to check how I was doing.  When I told him I had spent the better part of the weekend crying while writing and that I was only half way done, he told me to “Keep going, my courageous girl.  I love you!”

I admired the way Rollie fixed his home. He had impeccable taste.  He would bring me flowers and plants for my house, telling me that they livened up the house.  Rollie convinced me to renovate my house, to dispel the sadness that had permeated it and to bring back the happiness that was there before.  He disliked my white lights and advised me to change all my bulbs to warm white for a cozier feel.

On his last trip to Hong Kong, Rollie biked all the way to Shamshuipo to buy LED lights to surprise me and taught me how to change my lights. He was supposed to come to my house at 4pm to start on the lights the afternoon he died. He never made it home.

Living a fit life was something Rollie embraced with a passion. He biked, swam, watched his food intake, made sure he had eight hours of sleep a day.  To keep up, I bought a bike which he promised he would teach me how to use.  I think he was more excited than I was.  I started going to the gym, and drinking his banana, apple, pechay concoction for breakfast.

The trip to Hong Kong on the first of January was our chance to be together alone.  He and I were both so excited to be together. It was a beautiful time, and he told me that he felt so comfortable being with me.  It was like being married 10, 20 years.  We were so happy together, except for the last night when we had another of our little tiffs, and traveled home hardly talking to each other.   But make up we did, as usual.  As Rollie said, there is nothing that can stop this love we have.  Well, nothing except death, and what a thief it is!

The week before he died, Rollie and I had dinner at an Indian restaurant near his home. He had decided to become vegan once again, and it was the perfect place for that. He said he used to eat there before but was very lonely; it was after his wife had died.  But he perked up, saying this time it’s different, I have you with me. I was teasing him about all his past girlfriends, when he took my hand and said, “This I know, Monette, you’re my last great love, the one I will spend the rest of my life with.”  I didn’t realize then how prophetic those words were.

If there’s one thing Rollie complained about, it was my need to love and be loved.  He said I was too needy. He always told me to become self-sufficient, to be happy being me, by myself.  Yes, Rollie taught me I could be happy after the death of my beloved Mike. Now, I need to get on with life, and learn to be happy without Rollie beside me.  Circle of life.

And there are many things I am truly grateful for.  First and foremost are my three beautiful children: Bea, Cara and Niccolo.  I have my mom who loves me unconditionally, my beloved sister, my brothers, their families, Cathy who takes care of me and my family.  I have my friends, and my work family at TeamAsia.  I’ve loved and been loved by two wonderful men, Mike and Rollie.  But most of all, I have a faithful and loving God who never lets go of me, despite my many failings.

At the Sistine Chapel the day before I left Rome, I was blessed to have had the opportunity to go to confession with Fr. Valentine, a black priest who suddenly showed up just as the museum was about to close.   Despite more than a hundred tourists milling about, I felt at peace talking to him and telling him about my grieving heart.  I asked him for prayers to discern and accomplish what I had been sent here on earth to do.

Someone sent me these amazing flowers yesterday without a card.  I have no idea who they’re from, but am truly grateful to the kind soul out there who remembered me.  It was after all, a different twist to this special day of love.