Gratefully

The other Sunday, as I was sitting in our lanai sipping my favorite brew  watching leaves, stems and vines make an emerald riot in our small garden, my son Chino in the nearby dining room watching the prelims to the Pacquiao-Algieri bout and my husband Ed in the computer room watching it, too  I thought to myself that life is good and that my happiness is complete. What a wonderful world — even if my 28-year-old son couldn’t (and wouldn’t!) sit on my lap anymore as he used to when he was eight. The mere fact that the people I loved most were under the same roof with me, all of us in good health, made my heart sing.

Then I thought, “Perhaps I would have been happier if Joanna were on the seat beside me.” She would have been 22 and she surely would have had her arms around me, her head on my shoulder, as most girls are wont to do on a balmy Sunday at home with Mom.

But she was destined to be an angel the second I gave birth to her on Nov. 26, 1992. She was but 5 1/2 months in my womb (22 weeks), three and a half months premature, and her lungs couldn’t give her life.

And then it hit me, as strongly as a Pacquiao left hook on Algieri, that one’s heart could still sing even if one corner of it is deeply scarred. That every heart that has had to grieve can still exult and beat with joy.

Nothing or no one can complete us more than the realization that though we may not have everyone or everything our heart desires, we can be still be completely happy.

* * *

My calming view every morning.

This year, as in most years, November came and went fast. Ed and I celebrated our 29th wedding anniversary with a staycation at EDSA Shangri-La with Chino. On Nov. 26, I brought red roses to Joanna’s grave. On Nov. 27, I joined in the celebration of Thanksgiving Day, the American holiday, that makes one stop and count one’s blessings no matter one’s race. All of life’s ups and downs distilled in one month.

November is thus, bittersweet. But because I prefer to look at the half-full glass, I say it is sweetbitter.

The good times definitely outweigh the bad.

* * *

I am grateful for every new day. I read somewhere that when one opens one’s eyes, one should put a hand to one’s heart. What you feel beating there is called “purpose.”

There is a reason your heart beats, because there is also a reason it could have stopped beating.

I am grateful that give or take some nights that we were apart due to travels and/or tampuhans, I have someone beside me to wake up to every day. Ed and I have seen each other first thing in the morning for almost three decades now and we’re still together. I guess we like the way the other looks without makeup or Photoshop. The same goes for our un-Photoshopped inner selves.

Chino is usually out of the house by the time we have breakfast. I am grateful I have a conscientious son who leaves the house no later than 7 a.m. every day in order to be at his desk by 8:30. I remember the times we used to rise at 4 a.m. on weekdays in order for him to catch his school bus to the Ateneo.

I am grateful for the freshly made espresso Americano I have every morning from beans I buy from Starbucks (or from beans from the Mountain Province from my colleague Büm Tenorio or from Peet’s from my Uncle Caesar Reyes). The hardest thing about surviving a brownout is surviving without my espresso. I love the aroma, the perk and the feel-good feeling I get with even one sip of coffee. I feel energized as well as relaxed. I’m grateful that something so good can come with loads of anti-oxidants, too.

I’m grateful for my helper Sally, who prepares my breakfast. I cannot, for the life of me, operate an espresso machine.

I’m grateful for the people who pack my chutes, so to speak. I’m as good as those who pack the lifesavers that keep me flying. I’m grateful for my wingmen (I just watched Pearl Harbor on SkyCable and I know whereof I speak), the people at home and at work who watch my back.

I leave for work with my driver Mang Ric on the wheel. I am grateful he has kept me safe all these years on Metro Manila’s crazy streets. I am grateful for his kindness. I remember one time when my leg was in a cast and I couldn’t hop on a step in order to enter my home. Mang Ric knelt down in front of me and put both his bare hands together, palms upward, offering them as my stepping stone to the threshold.

Teddy bears from EDSA Shangri-La for our 29th wedding anniversary.

He probably doesn’t remember that incident, but it is forever etched in a chamber of my grateful heart.

* * *

I am grateful for my work because it makes me give back to my Creator. It is my homage to Him for the gift He has given me. I believe we live in order to make the most of the special gifts that have been given us, and I am privileged to be able to do that with my work.

I am grateful I like what I do for a living, and therefore I have a life as well as a livelihood.

When I was in high school at the Assumption Convent, I interviewed alumna Boots Anson Roa for the school paper, Facets. She told me something that stuck to me like melted cotton candy: “When you love what you do, work is not a drudgery.” I have never had a drudgery of a working day since I started working when I was 18 years old for STAR magazine, edited by the late journalism icon and STAR founding chairman Betty Go-Belmonte or “BGB.”

I am grateful I was mentored by BGB, who trained me to always look at the half- full, instead of the half-empty, glass. In news, in life.

And then God blessed me with more mentors who are now legends — my UP Journalism teacher Louie Beltran; my boss at the Aquino Press Office, Secretary Teddy Benigno (“When in doubt, cover.”); and STAR publisher Max Soliven (“If you don’t write it, someone else will.”)

I am grateful I have girl friends, mostly my Assumption batch mates. They say a man lives longer when a woman looks after him (or a man partner looks after him like a woman does) and women live longer because they keep in touch with their girl friends. At least three of my batch mates are cancer survivors, and they credit a good part of their strength to the support of their girl friends, who turn chemo sessions into parties, and parties into counseling sessions.

* * *

I still think of my baby girl Joanna, almost every day. Always, I wish she were here on earth, holding my hand, instead of in heaven watching over me. There is always a longing when I think of her.

But I am happy with my life, despite the tears. I was devastated, too, by my father Frank Mayor’s death four years ago. He was in my life since the day I was born, and he and my mom Sonia have loved me on earth the longest.

Again, like my mother has, I wiped the tears away and moved on. How can one know what sweet is without having had to taste the bitter? How can one dance with joy if one doesn’t know how it is to have limped with sorrow?

Happiness is a choice, so I have chosen it.

Joy is a blessing and I thank God I have received it.

I.Am.Truly.Grateful. From the bottom of my heart, even if a part of it is scarred.

(You may e-mail me at [email protected].)