Our Love Story (Maalaala Mo Kaya)
Henry & Donna Love Conquers All
by Henry Lubong

It was almost spring time, I was in my room when I picked up the phone and called Jeanette. She answered and I said my name and asked if I could speak to Donna. She replied "Sorry wrong number, but I know the phone number that you're looking for." I realized it was Jeanette so we both laughed and I was so embarrassed of what I just did.

I met Jeannete in a chat room and she introduced me to Donna. After our conversation, I called Donna and that was the beginning of more wonderful things to come. We started calling and sending emails almost every day. We used every means of communications (chat, letters, email and phone) to get in touch with each other

On June 22, 1997, about 2:00 in the morning, Donna and I we're still on the phone since we begin chatting 4 hours ago. A few more minutes, it seems like the world had stopped spinning and all I can feel moving is my heart pounding very fast. It was so quiet around the house but I couldn't help myself to shout with joy. She just made me the happiest man on earth! That morning, she became my girlfriend. As the Filipino saying goes, "Ibinigay n'ya ang matamis n'yang Oo."

During that time, she was still living in Canada and I was in California. She just turned 17 and I was 21 years old. We knew that long distance relationship is not gonna be easy for us. There were months that I would spend more than $1000 for long distance calls. Oh yes, we talked a lot and we were on the phone a few times a day. But being far from each other was just one of the hurdles we were about to face. She was just graduating from high school and still had to finish college. Our religion has also been the biggest part of our ups and downs. She was a Catholic and I was an Iglesia Ni Cristo. To some people, this is not a big deal, but for Christians like us, it is. And to make things more complicated, her parents didn't like the idea of us being together because of the aforementioned reasons. Patience and endurance would be the key for us to stay together.

In the summer of 1998, I first met Donna in person. It was her graduation day and I flew to Canada to celebrate it with her. I met her parents but it didn't turn out well. Another year would past and our relationship had turned into a gloomy and very devastating stage. We broke up at the same month that our love had bloomed. For many months, I was in melancholy and there were times I wished that my life would rather end than living without her.

Time did not become my friend during my loneliness as my wounds got deeper and deeper everyday. I dated a couple of girls but there was not a day goes by that I didn't compare them to Donna. Love hurts so bad and even the song "Oh! Donna" had became my favorite song.

On March 2000, I just came from my gf's (at that time) house. That night, I couldn't help myself and I called Donna. She just had her birthday a few days ago. Her dad answered the phone but he didn't recognize my voice. I said I was a friend and he gave the phone to her. We said hi and greeted her belated happy birthday. Aftwerwards I asked if she is seeing someone and she said yes. She then asked the same question and I replied with a hesitating yes. Despite the fact that we were both involved with other people, we still gave each other's phone numbers and email addresses and then minutes later, we hung up. The following day, I was at my gf's house again and checking my yahoo email. She was behind me when she saw Donna's email came in. My big mistake was, I opened the email first instead of deleting it right away. She cried, we talked, and I promised her not to have anything to do with Donna ever again. But promises are meant to be broken I guess. I went home and being a smart ass, I retrieved Donna's email from the trash folder. She emailed me her phone number and was asking me to call her.

So I called her up but it was her voice mail. After a few days, she called back but I wasn't available. We played phone tag for three weeks before we finally got a hold of each other. We started talking on the phone again. After a few weeks, my girlfriend and I broke up. I also found out later from Donna that she wasn't really seeing anyone at the time I asked her. Donna's calls became frequent as she calls a few times a week and that became once day and then a few times a day. We just started talking again but we never really brought up getting back together in our conversations.

Months went by and we continued our communication by calling each other on the phone. But it was never like before. Things has changed, specially for me. I was hurt a lot and each day I talk to her, I wanted to burst out with revenge. But my love for her did not fade and it has always been there to calm things down. And I realized, LOVE was not the problem but TRUST. How can you love someone that you don't trust? Love is truly amazing and full of mysteries. So we tried our best to work things out and heal the wounds and pain that still lingers to punish us.

To be continued...