Mom would have turned 95 yesterday. She died young, at 45, from breast cancer. I’d rather remember the good days than dwell on how strict she was.
She graduated with an Education degree, major in English, minor in Music, from UP Diliman. During martial law, she insisted we study there too, much to the horror of my titos and titas in Manila. Besides English, she taught Speech classes, which is probably why English became our first language.
My mother-in-law died today. It is with great sadness that I write this.
We knew it was coming. She had been ill these past two years, and we had time to ready ourselves. Or so I thought. Today it came anyway, and it was still a shock.
It has been almost 26 years. Twenty-six years.
You would think the sheer weight of time passing would make the loss easier to explain. It doesn’t. Those words still hit a place in me that regular language cannot reach.
When you lose a child, you change. It is not just sadness. It feels like a physical piece of you was torn away. You are left with a heavy quiet where laughter used to be. You wake up expecting to hear little footsteps, but there is nothing. A whole future just vanished. All that love is left with nowhere to go.
Twenty years ago, I sat down in front of a computer and typed my way out of a grief pit.
I didn’t call it blogging yet. I called it surviving. On February 24, 2006, I launched aboutmyrecovery.com, and the first thing I ever wrote was this: “I chose joy over sadness. It is said that grief is inevitable, but misery is optional.”
A year looks tidy on paper. January to December. One clean line. My 2025 did not move like that. It came in scenes, small ones. A notification. A quote that sat heavy in my chest. A long walk that made everything quiet enough for me to hear myself again. A graduation photo that looked familiar and still felt strange. If I had to name the thread that ran through my posts from January to December 25, it would be this: I kept circling the same question. How do you keep living honestly when you’re carrying loss, memory, and time?
Outside, everything signals celebration. Lights blink. Carols repeat. Shop windows insist on cheer.
Inside some homes, it’s heavier than that.
For some of us, this season doesn’t feel wonderful. It feels tiring. Or lonely. Or unexpectedly sharp. And when you’re not okay at a time when happiness seems mandatory, that mismatch can be its own quiet burden.
Spend a lot of time alone? You’re not broken, and you’re not the only one. What really shapes those hours is the story you tell yourself.
Psychologist Ethan Kross, speaking on Big Think, makes a simple point: time by yourself can lift you and help you grow. Not something to fear or dodge. The rub is how we frame it. Read More →
Dear 16-year-old me,
You’re probably rolling your eyes, thinking, “What could my old self possibly tell me?” Fair enough. I am you, only 52 years older, and there are certain matters you truly need to hear.
First, the tough part: the word “negra” your uncles sometimes use. I know how it feels every time they say it. It makes your morena skin and thick, beautiful hair seem like flaws. It makes you feel ugly.
Stop right there. They’re wrong. You are not ugly. Read More →
I have been thinking about death lately, and then I stumbled on an old post of mine on “Death and Dying” with this line from Norman Cousins: “Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside of us while we live.”
What dies inside me is not always the big stuff. It is often the quiet things: curiosity, courage, tenderness, and the habit of noticing small joys. Sometimes faith. Sometimes trust. Sometimes just the willingness to try again.
Grief can do that to me. So can my chronic ailments or a long season of stress. I keep moving, do the errands, show up. But the inner lights dim. Numb helps for a while. Stay there too long, and parts of me forget the way back.
I’ve heard it said, “Grief is the price we pay for love.” People say Queen Elizabeth II said it. Maybe. I don’t know. What I do know is the words are true.
When I first heard it, I thought, that sounds harsh. Like love is some cruel deal, happiness traded for pain. But it’s not that. It’s just the truth no one wants to face.
Because when we love, we don’t think about the end. We laugh, we sit at the table together, we hold our kids close. We don’t stop and say, one day this will be gone. We can’t. We just live. And then, when loss comes, that’s when we realize. This is the cost.
