I was one breathe short of dying today. I wasnt expecting that a phone call would bring such terrible news. I was in a meeting when my cellphone rang. It was Yaya. I had to answer. I heard only one message from the unintelligible voice that came across the phone lines. Come home, we need you here. So I said excuse me sir - I have to rush home.
My cellphone rang again. It was the landlord of the apartment where I lived. There’s trouble here ma’am - your maid brandished a knife at me, at the guards, at my houseboy….. the rest of the sentence was lost on me.
Knife! Knife! Knife!….OMG! I became a devil at the wheel. Not paying attention really, didn’t care if my car was nicked along the way (still dont care), or if i beat any red lights (I was prepared to beg my way out of a ticket). I only had one goal… to make sure that my son was safe. I parked, ran out and saw my nanny outside the apartment. She ran to me obviously shaken and I hugged her. The flood gates opened and the tears flowed. I heard my son’s voice… “ate lian ano to?” I went to my son who was at my a neighbor’s place. I hugged him and held on to him like my life depended on it. I was startled out of my stupor as he said…”mommy san ka nagpunta?” It was only then that I let out the breathe that I didn’t realize i was holding. Everything will be fine….or will it?
No one can ever imagine what I went through during those 30 minutes. No one will ever know or even be close to understanding how it was like to be in my shoes. To be so helpless, to be so far away, to be so utterly useless to a child who so needed his mother the most.
No one will ever know what I feel now after everything has calmed down and I’ve put my son to sleep. The horrors, the pain, the fear, the guilt, the anger, the shock, the emptiness, the loneliness. To feel too much at one time. To feel so terrible.
I cried. I cried like that was the last time I will be able to cry. I cried for all the things that could’ve happened and for all the things it could’ve meant. I cried because I felt I failed. Then after all the tears flowed I turned numb. Staring into space. Blocking out all thoughts. Blocking out all feeling. I moved like a robot. And I realized I really need to be strong…for my son…because at the end of the day, the only one who can hold you up is yourself.
