AnnaMaria
My name is Celia Ramirez. I’m thirty-four years old and I live in Quezon City. For almost eight years, I thought I was happily married to Marco Dela Cruz — a man everyone admired, the kind of husband other women envied and other men respected. Marco was the head of the sales department in a large Makati company. He was confident, sociable, and always dressed sharply. People would say, “Celia, you’re lucky. You have the perfect husband.”
I smiled every time they said that, even when I wasn’t sure if I still believed it.
I worked as an accountant, quiet and disciplined. I liked order. I liked coming home early, preparing dinner, waiting for him. We weren’t rich, but our life was decent — two steady incomes, a small car, and a cozy house with white curtains and a bougainvillea bush in front. To everyone, we looked like a picture of stability.
But real life is nothing like the photos people post online.
Everything began to crumble on a humid Wednesday morning. I had gone to the Philippine General Hospital for a routine check-up — just a check-up, nothing more. I remember the smell of disinfectant in the air, the nurse’s gentle voice asking me to wait for the doctor. I thought it would be a quick visit.
When the doctor came in, her expression was serious. She held my results and spoke softly, almost as if she didn’t want to say the words out loud.
“Miss Celia,” she began, “we found a tumor. It looks like it could be malignant. We need to schedule a biopsy immediately.”
The room started spinning. I remember staring at the floor tiles, white and gray, trying to make sense of what she had just said. My throat went dry. For a few seconds, I thought maybe she had mistaken someone else’s results for mine. But no — it was my name on the paper.
That evening, I sat alone in our small kitchen, staring at the wedding photo hanging on the wall. In the picture, Marco was grinning widely, his arm wrapped around me. I was wearing a simple white dress. We looked so young, so sure of our future.
I wanted to tell him, but something inside me hesitated. I was afraid. Not of the disease — at least not yet — but of his reaction. Would he comfort me, hold me, promise we’d face it together? Or would he look away, cold and distant, like he had been lately?
Because for months, Marco had been different.
He came home later and later, always with the same excuse: “We had meetings.” His phone was always face down on the table, or in his pocket. When I asked what was wrong, he would roll his eyes.
“You’re overthinking again,” he said one night. “You should trust me more.”
But his eyes didn’t meet mine when he said it.
When I finally gathered the courage to tell him about the diagnosis, I expected at least a moment of concern. Something. Anything.
Instead, after I told him, he just sat there quietly, then sighed.
“Just… treat it,” he said flatly. “Don’t worry too much. I have a lot on my plate right now.”
No hug. No words of comfort. Not even a touch.
That night, I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling fan, listening to its low hum. I felt the weight of my body sinking into the mattress, my heart heavy with questions I didn’t dare ask. When did we stop being a team? When did my husband turn into a stranger sleeping beside me?
The following weeks were a blur of hospital visits, blood tests, and sleepless nights. I tried to stay strong. I didn’t tell my friends, and I didn’t tell my mother. I told myself Marco would come around. That maybe the stress of work was making him distant.
But then, one rainy evening, my phone rang.
It was Marco. His voice sounded odd — light, almost playful. In the background, I heard a woman’s laughter.
“Celia,” he said, half-drunk, “pick me up at Motel La Estrella on EDSA. I’m too tired to drive.”
At first, I thought I misheard him. But then, I realized what he had just said — the name of a motel. Not a hotel. A motel.
I froze. The laughter on the other end of the line made my stomach twist. I could have hung up. I could have ignored it. But instead, I grabbed my keys. I didn’t go because I wanted to fight or to beg. I went because I needed to see it with my own eyes.
The rain was pouring heavily when I arrived. The neon lights of the motel sign flickered red and blue, reflecting in the puddles. My hands were shaking as I stepped out of the car. I waited by the entrance, umbrella trembling in my grip.
Then I saw them.
Marco walked out first, his shirt half-buttoned, his arm around a young woman wearing a short red dress. She was laughing, not a care in the world. When she saw me, her smile faded.
Marco stopped in his tracks.
“Oh,” he said awkwardly, “you’re here.”
The woman looked at me from head to toe and smirked. “Is this your wife?” she asked, her voice dripping with arrogance.
Marco gave a weak laugh. “Yeah. She’s… always so obedient.”
I didn’t answer. I just looked at him — the man I once trusted with my whole life — and felt something inside me quietly break.
At that moment, a black car pulled up beside us. Out stepped a middle-aged man in a gray suit — my lawyer, Attorney Romualdo.
I walked toward Marco, rain soaking my clothes, and handed him a folder.
“This is the divorce agreement,” I said calmly. Then I took out my phone, opened a video file, and showed it to him — a video of him and the same woman, taken at a bar a few nights before.
His face went pale. The woman gasped, covering her mouth.
“You followed me?” Marco stammered.
“No,” I said. “I just needed the truth.”
For a long moment, he said nothing. Then, right there in front of the motel entrance, under the pouring rain, he fell to his knees.
“Celia, please…” he begged. “Don’t do this. I made a mistake. I’m sorry.”
Passersby stopped to watch. Some took out their phones and recorded the scene — the proud man from Makati, kneeling in the rain, his clothes soaked, his mistress backing away.
I didn’t cry. I didn’t even raise my voice. I just looked at him and said softly, “I have cancer, Marco. I’m weak, but I’m not blind. And I’m not stupid.”
Then I turned around, got into my car, and drove away.
The rain blurred the windshield, but I didn’t wipe the tears that mixed with it.
A week later, the divorce was finalized. I moved to Tagaytay to stay with my mother. The air there was cooler, cleaner, and quiet. I started my treatment and tried to rebuild myself piece by piece.
At first, I didn’t know how to start over. I felt broken, empty, and tired. My body was weak from therapy, and my heart was still heavy. But slowly, I began to heal — not just physically, but emotionally.
I took long walks in the morning, breathing in the fresh mountain air. I learned how to cook healthy meals and spent time gardening with my mother. For the first time in years, I felt peace.
One afternoon, while I was sitting on the porch, my old colleague from Makati called. She sounded hesitant, but then she told me:
“Celia, I thought you should know — Marco lost his job. There was an internal scandal. That girl left him. He tried to reach you, but no one knows where you are.”
I listened quietly, then smiled faintly.
“If we’re no longer together,” I said, “that’s fine. Whatever debt we had, we’ve already paid in full.”
Months passed. My health improved. My hair began to grow back. I joined a small charity group in Pasig that supported cancer patients. I started working part-time as their accountant. The work filled my days with purpose.
Sometimes I met young women who reminded me of myself — women trying to stay strong while their partners drifted away. I would sit beside them, hold their hands, and tell them softly, “You’re stronger than you think. You can survive this.”
One evening, a teenage girl — barely sixteen, frail from chemotherapy — looked up at me and asked, “Tita Celia, are you afraid of dying?”
I smiled, brushed her hair gently, and said, “No, my dear. I used to be more afraid of living with people who betrayed me. Now, I’m not afraid of anything. Because once you learn to love yourself, no one can break you again.”
That night, as I walked home, I looked at the city lights of Manila in the distance. The sky was clear after days of rain. I thought about my old life — the house, the car, the long evenings waiting for Marco to come home. I realized I no longer missed any of it.
What I missed was myself — the woman I used to be before I started shrinking to fit someone else’s expectations. But she was back now.
A year after the divorce, I was officially declared in remission. My doctor smiled as she handed me the results. “You’re doing great, Celia. Keep living healthy. Keep living happy.”
When I left the hospital, I stood outside and took a deep breath. The sun felt warm on my skin.
I realized then that everything I went through — the pain, the betrayal, the fear — had led me to this exact moment of peace.
Later that evening, I got a message from an unknown number. It was Marco.
“Celia, I heard you’re healthy again. I’m glad. I’m sorry for everything. I hope someday you can forgive me.”
I stared at the message for a while, then deleted it.
Forgiveness, I thought, wasn’t something I owed him. It was something I had already given myself.
Now, every night before I sleep, I light a candle by my window. Not for Marco, and not for the pain — but for the strength I found when everything fell apart.
Because sometimes, losing someone who destroys your peace is the most healing thing that can ever happen to you.
And if there’s one thing I’ve learned from everything — from love, betrayal, sickness, and survival — it’s this: even after the darkest nights, there’s always light waiting for those who dare to start again.
