<h3>Love and time</h3>

I think I wasn't even ten that time, but I already knew love was never measured by length of time. More than 20 years later today, I still feel very strongly about this.

My first valuable love lesson was culled from my mother's love story. For the longest time that her friends and siblings remember, she was involved romantically with a guy named R. starting from her last days in college all the way down until they were both working. I couldn't exactly remember how and where they met, but I am sure that their many years of being together started when she entered her twenties.

R. apparently was every girl's dreamboy. Tall, athletic, well-chiseled, schooled. While my mom was, modesty aside, a looker in her time. Petite, confident, conservative yet fashionable. R. was my mom's first love. Both loved each other deeply.

Things changed on their eighth year when she left the province to pursue graduate studies in the city. Within a few months, she got the dreaded news, like in most soap operas, about her R. getting somebody else pregnant. Many of what actually happened to my mom after the news broke out has never really been disclosed. All that her sisters managed to tell us was that my mom cried for months. And more months. And that they have never seen somebody cry like she did. When she was done with school, she went back home still broken-hearted, but nevertheless recovered. If R. actually talked to my mom that time to explain his side, I don't know that part of the story.

My mom, meanwhile, burned her time doing well in her teaching job. By then, she was in the central town elementary school teaching baking and sewing to grade six pupils. Slowly, she was having a grand time and she now found her old self again. To some extent, her renewed cheerfulness was brought by a some guy, a new guy. This time around, it was Dad. Both knew each other since they were kids having been neighbors in the town where they both grew up. They knew each other very well; in fact, their parents call themselves friends.

Eight months later, one Saturday in late November, my mom finally found love again. This time, one that brought her immense joy and meaning. They got married quite late -- mom at 28, dad at 27. When we were growing up, I don't know for what reason, but my mom would sometimes fill us up with her story and emphasize about not being deceived by time. Just because a couple has been together longer than other couples does not mean thay they have more meaningful relationship or that they should end up marrying each other.