SHE WAS MY FIRST REAL LOVE …

 

And why I’m outing myself on this blog right now, I don’t know.  Except that this is something I have to say at least once in my life.

I really, really loved her.

This happened all of 20 years ago, yet I still remember some of the time I spent with her as if it took place yesterday.

Thea was 21 when we met, a fresh UP grad, brilliant and beautiful … and she was my creative writing teacher.  The first day she walked into class, I already knew her.  Not from my present life though, but from some other existence.  It was so clear to me then.  And I know it to be true now even if I have no proof to show you.

I was 15 and in fourth year high school, the literary editor of our student magazine.  I had already decided I was going to be a writer someday. So it made absolute sense to me that my closest friend would be my writing teacher.

Of course, my batchmates and her co-teachers didn’t quite see it that way.  The resistance from the entire school was palpable and sometimes vicious.  But being the way I’ve always been, I didn’t give a damn.  Neither did Thea. 

That year, Thea and I spent as much time as we could talking.  When we weren’t talking we would write each other kilometric letters … on parchment paper and in long hand.  We walked for miles and miles every Thursday night in our perennially blue shirts and sneakers, just walking and talking, experiencing life together in the way one can only do when one is very, very young. 

      

Once, close to dawn, as I was finishing a paper, I saw her astral project in front of me.  She told me I would often visit her as well, calling to her from outside her window in the middle of the night, though I swear I do not remember such travels.

It was, as you can imagine, a very odd friendship. 

To say it couldn’t pass for a love story because nothing actually happened, I mean physically, is to not know what it means to really love.  Our was a meeting of minds and spirits in such an intense, life-changing way, the experience still amazes me. 

Years passed.  I grew up ever more the agnostic and she grew into such a deep level of spirituality it was something I could no longer comprehend. 

Thea became a missionary, then a Cenacle sister.  After years, she eventually left the order.  But she still works in the campus ministry office of a very big university.  She spends her time planning for and heading retreats … still shocking everyone with questions that penetrate the very heart of one’s being. 

I haven’t been to mass since 2nd year college, the year Thea went to Bukidnon to become a Jesuit volunteer.  I left the Church then for many, mostly feminist reasons … but I also remember feeling angry at the time, because God had somehow taken her away from me …

When we saw each other last weekend, without our other friends for the first time in years, she asked me why I had suddenly called.

I said I didn’t know but I wanted to talk with her. 

She then said she had important news to break.  She just found out several days before that she might be very, very sick.  Though she wouldn’t be sure till she got the results of her biopsy this week. 

I was in shock. 

But she had already reached a surprising level of acceptance.  She was praying for joy and courage, whatever happened.  She was sincerely curious about chemo and what it might be like.  She was at peace, she said, to be sharing in the suffering of Christ. 

I couldn’t eat as I listened to her talk about the possible struggles to come.

The timing of our meeting was so strange, I was reminded of our alleged nocturnal visits from decades past, and how it was possible we might still be meeting up now and then, sharing problems in a dimension our conscious minds would never remember.

I pray for her though I don’t really know what it means to pray to her God. 

I am afraid for her though she is stronger in faith than anyone I know. 

I want to be there for her if the pain comes.  And I want her to know that in this lifetime as in many before and after this, I love her and will always love her.