For Just A Moment

We laughed until we had to cry 
And we love right down to our last goodbye 

We were the best, 

I think we'll ever be 

Just you and me 
For just a moment 

About five years ago someone asked me nonchalantly while I was busy tapping my laptop keys, “When we get to the inevitable, will you blog about me?” I had to stop what I was doing, took a sip of his beer and gazed at the shore outside our hotel window. “I promise to write about you. When - that I do not know. But all of these are blog worthy.” He cupped my face, kissed me and said he will be waiting to read what I will have to say about him.

His question tugged a chord in my blogger heart and until this day I can still vividly hear his voice asking me that. I have done a few blog posts about him in the past but it was written with much ambivalence, a perfect example of when love and hate collide. The recent events in my life and hours spent talking with my best friend Anthony and inner posse Myla made me rediscover essentials that I buried after the demise of our relationship.  Perhaps when you are deep in pain, you choose to think about the bad memories and negate the happy ones. Yet when you reach the point when you are good and healed, your eyes become objective and yes, acknowledge those times when you were so happy you didn’t mind if you were to die the next  day.

Both Anthony and Mymy are in the same opinion that my relationship with Leia’s dad was the time they saw me the happiest. It was the relationship where I was comfortable in my own skin, where I didn’t wear a facade. They said that although our story didn’t have a happy ending, it was a fairy tale. Of course we had fights and we argue but I remember that each time we disagree; it never made us insecure about the relationship. We didn’t have the same opinion on things but we never took it personally. We were mature enough to know that our differences had nothing to do with how we feel for each other.

One close friend who is twenty years older than me quipped one night while we were sitting outside our temporary home in GenSan that “Derek” is my soul mate. The cynic in me never believed in the archaic idea of a soul mate. But Mama Rose, in her wisdom explained that she looked at me and him not as individuals but as one soul. We meshed so well that it blurred our distinctiveness.

In retrospect, I have to agree with them. This was the relationship where I felt most accepted, most valued and yes, most loved. He never patronized me and instead valued my outlook and strengths. He never competed with me but saw me as an ally, the proverbial strong woman behind his success as a neurosurgeon. On the other hand, I allowed myself to be weak knowing full well that he will take very good care of me. The situation may have been complicated but the emotions we felt for each other was unpretentious. We can easily admit upfront jealousy, happiness and fear that one day it will be over. Every time we talk about what was looming, we would be so full of emotions that only silence can convey its true depth. We made an unspoken rule that we will not touch on our fated separation because to discuss it won’t prevent it from happening. Reality was so palpable that we allowed ourselves to be dumb and deny it. It was respite, it was our way of dealing with the painful truth that while we can shout to the whole world how much we love each other, the world would mock and scorn at us.

My daughter is a strong reminder of those wonderful and intoxicating times I was “Meredith”. You may have an idea what happened but I never heard people close to me speak ill of him. To me it was proof that they knew the breadth of the love he had for me. Leia may be born out of wedlock but she was conceived out of love. No one can question that. Derek and I chose to do the right thing but it will not erase the fact that our relationship was real and passionate as it can be.

We gave it a good fight until there was nothing left to do but say goodbye.

“For the best is only bought at the cost of great pain.” – EPL