If It Ain't Love it Ain't Grand

Today, I was blown away by a love story of which I am very much a part of. And I am even humbled to say I am.

They were college friends - like really tight friends belonging to a group of about 8 guys and three girls (im not so sure how many they were). He got his own thing going, she had hers. He pursued girls who wore skirts to ball games, she pursued a guy who had no idea about ballgames…and later on, preferred skirts.

Oh no, don’t even try to laugh about the latter. It was for her, and for us, a serious matter. So serious that when she learned about his change of ‘heart’, without restraint she booked the next flight to an island, grabbed her skimpiest swimsuit and dragged two of us, her cousins. When cousins come together at the oddest times of the year, say October/November, it only means one thing: P.A.I.N. Convention.

Alcohol is lame. We never used it to accompany our tears. If we had, it was for some other reasons. We faced pain head on, spilled the goriest details of ‘what went wrong’, and Philosophize Agony Into (complete and utter) Nonsense*. We were in a beautiful place…only, for the wrong reason.

So she sworned off men. No, not sworn off...she turned every opportunity of meeting men into a session of suspicious scrutiny. All the decent men she met fell on two categories: Gay and almost Gay. She concluded, and made us believe too that, all the straight men were either taken or two-timing. Haha!

And so we renewed the pact we had in college, that which was brought about by our lonely Sunday night teatimes: If we end up to be spinsters, we’d live together in a house, write and sew. She even started on a cross stitch project.

Tired of his random dating, he tried to take her out on dates. She went, because they were a clean way to get free food, free movie and some intelligent conversations. (Not only were guys around her not totally guys, they also lack wit.)

And who wouldn’t fall in love with Sherlin Camacho? She is the most honest, caring, selfless and true person I know. So, Dondy Duazo was smitten, and never recovered. He told her about it. She casually dismissed the proposal. He tried again, and another time... he found out, she was unlike the rest. He tried seven times.

She tried too. She tried to NOT care. But what woman can escape the presence of a man in-love? She asked God about this guy. And while she was talking to Him in silence, a language only a loving Father understands, Dondy squeezes her hand so tight. She knew, he’d never let go.

He has not. Even after being separated by oceans, even after spending countless nights eating noodles alone, even after her immature fits of rage, they still end the night saying: “I love you, babe!” in the presence God…and the countless spectators on Facebook.

He was proud of his cheesy-ness, surprising her with a bouquet of sunflowers one ordinary day.

Today, he didn’t know he was going to lose his balance. A Starbucks booth suddenly showed up in his office, treating everyone with that scandalously expensive coffee, all because: He turned 30! Suddenly, the background-kind of guy that Dondy is became known all over Lufthansa Technik. To say that he ‘blushed’ is waaaay below an understatement!

Was he to be embarrassed of such grand gesture? He had no idea what he was getting into when last year, at around this time, she asked her to marry him. He had no idea that this petite woman was capable of writing the VP of the HR in their company that “She wanted to surprise her fiancé so they have let her pull off her Starbucks trick”. All that while she is miles away - in Singapore.

Maybe a few years back, he didn’t know. But after today, I am sure he knows this:

He is to marry a woman who fights for love like her life hangs on it and would not hesitate, no, not even for a second, to let the whole world know about it.

I, a self-proclaimed Venus, sit silent. I tuck away my poems and maybe for today, lend her my throne.

I love you both, Sherl and Dondy!! :)

p.s. That's them in the photo :D

*The meanign of PAIN was her idea. haha!