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BY PETER SOLIS NERY
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February 19, 2018
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MY GREEN CARD came through the mail on Dec. 12, 2012 — 12/12/12. I served my hospital one more year. Then, in January 2014, right around my 45th birthday, I decided to leave L.A. and retire in Maryland to become a devoted and more dedicated husband to R who was, by then, already 67 years old.
In August and September 2014, we vacationed in the Philippines. I asked him if I could stay for 40 days to attend to the needs of my literary foundation, which we established “to promote, propagate, and preserve Hiligaynon literature.” R agreed. But he only wanted to stay in the Philippines for 20 days. So, he decided to go back to America ahead of me.
Needless to say, I was worried that he would be away from me for 20 days. But I really wanted to live out my personal mission — my personal cause for the literature of the Philippines, and the literature of my Hiligaynon mother tongue — especially now that I am retired from Nursing.
I made promises and commitments. I accepted speaking invitations, and gave lectures and talks for the whole month of September. I lectured on Fiction Writing in the Mother Tongue — in Baguio City and Los Baños in Luzon; in Capiz, Bacolod, Kabankalan, Iloilo City and the town of Calinog in the Visayas; in Koronadal, Sultan Kudarat, and Polomolok in Mindanao — a total of 11 seminars in nine various cities all over the Philippines. All within 25 days in September of 2014!
Soon, I sorely missed my husband. But he knew. He understood that there were causes and ideals that I believe in, that are greater than myself, greater than our relationship.
For literature, and for the Hiligaynon language, R couldn’t be jealous.
Before I accepted the engagement ring — with a diamond stud the size of a Congo pea, that he offered to me when he proposed me to marry him in 2008, I explained to him, frankly, that he cannot, and should not, tie me down. Or stop me from flying and soaring to reach my goals. He wasn’t supposed to stand in the way of my dedication to writing, literature, and the Hiligaynon language. These happened to be my first dreams and first loves way before he came into my life.
My only dream, my grandest dream, in life is to be able to write beautiful and touching stories, immortal characters and unforgettable dramatis personae, preferably in my first language, the Hiligaynon.
If I have a mistress (a Filipino querido, really), or if I loved someone else greater than my spouse, it would be no one, and nothing else, but Hiligaynon language and literature. R understood that.
In my lectures, I shared what I learned in structuring an organic story. I also tried to excite my listeners — teachers and students, to write in their native language. I also taught them to write true fiction — the writing of stories that are about, and based on, their experiences, things that disturb and muddle their thoughts. I told them, their stories could help shed light on the human condition. And maybe, even if it is just one person that they have enlightened and consoled (or only themselves), it will all be worth it. (To be continued/PN)
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