Nurse abandons hefty pay in US

A budding career and a hefty salary as a nurse were waiting for her in the United States in 2001 but a simple text message from a man she has had a “mutual understanding” with unexpectedly changed her mind.

“It actually changed my life. I eventually decided not to leave,” says 34-year-old Rosemarie Robitshek-Medalla in an interview in Tacloban City.

The guy had sent her a Valentine greeting using the mobile phone of his friend Alder Medalla, an engineer, who became Rosemarie’s husband 10 months later and the father of her children – Aldrich Geric, five; Alderson Eiram, four, and Althea Rose, two.

“That guy was my MU and at that time, we were already not communicating regularly until that text message,” recalls Rosemarie. The exchanges of text messages continued between her and 38-year-old Alder.

“What I like about him even now is that he is not the type of guy who would set his best foot forward. What you see is what you get,” she claims. Aside from this, Alder’s outlook in life and physical appearance fits the type of man that Rosemarie had been praying to God to be her husband.

At that time, Rosemarie was working as an operating room nurse in MCU Hospital in Caloocan City while Alder, then and now, is an account specialist at the Government Service Insurance System in Tacloban.

The two sent each other their picture and as a birthday gift to Alder, she agreed to be visited by him in Manila in July 2001. “I really wanted to know how I’d feel if I see him personally so I agreed.”

And upon seeing him at the airport, Rosemarie realized that she was really in love with Alder.

“I am very particular with personal hygiene,” she says, “but when he came out of the airport and I saw that he had eye secretion (muta), I was not turned off.”

According to Alder, the feeling was mutual. “When I saw her for the first time, I felt that my love for her grew bigger. I knew then that she’s the one I want to spend my life with.”

And after that first meeting, Alder would visit here in Manila from Tacloban every weekend. Despite the costs, he always took the plane to maximize their time together.

In August 2001, Alder had proposed marriage to Rosemarie but she was scheduled to leave soon for the US where she already had an immigrant visa as a nurse. Her paternal uncle who sent her to school even had a room in his house in the US painted with her favorite color.

“I really did not want her to go. Imagine, we were at the beginning of our relationship then. I didn’t want to get in the way,” Alder points out.

Rosemarie admitted that the idea of working in a foreign land does not sit well with her. “I really don’t like serving foreigners. I know there are many Filipinos who need my service more.”

But Rosemarie was expected to help her widowed mother and her eight siblings, following what her heart dictates was not easy. “I was also worried because I was not sure if I could get a job if I move here in Tacloban. I didn’t know what was waiting for me.”

Rosemarie, however, was convinced to stay when an auntie from Samar told her that a husband and wife are meant to stay together.

“Aside from that when Alder and I were weighing things, he told me not to worry because ‘God will provide. We let God take us where we should be. He is the center of our life,” she says.

(Editor's Note: This story also appears in the People section of Best in the Philippines).