Feisty Female

My friend found out early Friday that she was going to have a baby girl. It made for great news to kick off the weekend, quite the extreme of the coup threat and state of emergency of the past week. I'm sure it'll be so much different from raising a baby boy. I can just see myself being such a hands-on tita (to the point of being atribida, another favorite adjective used by Rhoel and Jon to describe me).

But then when I got to the office I had an email from a friend whose dad was dying of cancer. She said it was just a matter of time now. She has a toddler too and she was explaining to him that Lolo was going away on a field trip. But he asked, how can he go on a field trip with his dextrose? And he said he would lock the door so Lolo won't be able to leave. And he was getting upset bcoz everyone was crying. It was heartbreaking. It's agonizing enough to have to deal with the death of your father, much more to have to explain it to a toddler. There should be a rule somewhere that would disallow children below 12 to experience the death of a loved one.

That night I had dinner with a friend who was leaving our former law office for a job that will pay her twice as much but will require her to be on call 24/7. She had all these apprehensions, like whether she'll still be able to see her daughter, or whether she'll get along with her boss, or how long she can endure the demands of her new job. She's a single mother and one of the smartest, bravest women I know.

My worries were along different lines when I moved to a new job last year. I knew that I was going to be less stressed and would be able to spend more time with my family, but I was worried whether we'd be able to manage with my drastic paycut, whether I'd get properly appreciated (not to mention compensated) by my new bosses and generally whether it was the right career move for me.

We have another friend who left the law office and stopped working altogether to be a full-time mom. This girl graduated at the top of her class and even topped the Bar so you can imagine that she had one bright future ahead of her in the legal profession. But I remember that one of her reasons for taking the plunge was that she wanted to spend more time with her son, who was lagging behind in pre-school (he was still in “A” while his classmates have moved on to “E”). Her son is ok now (perhaps even reading faster than the rest of them) and my friend seems happier than ever.

And you think girls are just these flighty creatures who would shop from dusk till dawn if that's how long the stores are open, and fragile beings who shamelessly cry in theaters over movies like Brokeback Mountain. Well, we are all those things alright, but we also have strength and endurance in the face of death, and self-denial and resilience in the name of motherhood. And we have the grace and tenacity to deal with life's blows on a daily basis.