True love

What do you call your true love?

Funny how we change our terms of endearment  and the physical spaces we maintain as our relationships grow older.  A couple once called each other “love” when they were sweethearts.   You could only see half the woman when they walked down the streets as the man would almost carry her as they strolled.

In the first few years of their marriage when the honeymoon was still in their system, they shifted to pangga or beloved and they walked together with his arm proudly around her waist.

When the first baby came, you could see pangga  still beside his pangga with his arm over her shoulder to show possession as they would make their morning exercise to ease her delivery.

When child after child came, pangga changed to Mama and Papa, “for the child’s benefit” they would reason.  And in these moments Mama and Papa would sit three children apart in the jeepney or trudge one ahead of the other in the sidewalk.  There were rare moments of holding hands or eyes meeting over three heads in the park when they had a chance to take a break during weekends.

When the children grew to have pals of their own and Mama and Papa could draw closer to each other as they lingered at the malls together, they were too wide to have arms around each other’s waist and be traffic hazards if they opted to pace lovingly along the side lanes.  So they continued to follow each other yelling at one another as they conversed because they could not whisper lovingly since they were an arm’s length apart.

A year or so from this, Pa now called Ma Kumander (Chief)  when he and his friends would talk about their wives and Ma would call Pa “Ang Hari” (the king) when she had her moments with her Kumares ( lady friends).  As parents Ma and Pa would talk at the dining table about bills, tuitions, children’s school concerns and less and less about themselves.  Dates were for settling arguments and conversations with others through texts as they discussed the family agenda from across the table.

As distance and discussions and endearments change, relationships change as well.  If one is not careful, the love that unite couples would be eroded with demands of the changing times and pockets of divorce lawyers or in our culture, annulment solicitors gain weight.

More care, more consciousness, more commitment is needed to keep marriages.  Thus it calls for more care, more consciousness, more commitment to get into serious relationships prior to marriage.

It is becoming good business to put people together.  Wedding organizers, flower shops, garment designers, caterers, car rentals, and other sources of wedding services make well in the business of marriage preparations.  It is even bigger  business to move people apart.

Each year, we celebrate Valentine’s let’s look at how far we have gone in our building on our relationships.  I find hope a dear friend’s consistent reference to his wife as his TRUE LOVE.  This endearment has never changed in all the years that I have known him.  The constancy of people in their relationships simplify lifestyles and stabilize businesses as couples remain focused in their investments and the raising of their families.

Good business stems from focused minds.  Focused minds come from stable homes.  Stable homes come from being with one true love.

Happy Valentines!