Keep Bleeding Love

4|| THE AMAZING JANE

JANE

Life was and will never be easy. But surviving all the hardships and challenges passed to us as we navigate the world strengthens us. It makes us wiser and victorious. Those words I didn't live by from the start. I realized the validity of it throughout living. And before I understood them, I had the pleasure of going through hardships and challenges after challenges. I learned about life the hard way.

Everyone started from being young, carefree, and reckless. I wasn't an exception. When my parents divorced, I was 12. It left me under the care of my grandmother, my mom's mother. She was the most caring and selfless woman I have ever met. Despite her old age, she spared me the agony of going through the nerve-wracking every weekend change of which parent I needed to go to. The moment she volunteered to take care of me, I found a home.

My grandma showered me with her love that completed me. Her concern for me was genuine and powerful; it made me believe that one's selfless love for others' children can be better than the love of two separated parents. Everything that I was supposed to receive from both of my parents, my grandma gave, and even more. If there was one aspect she'd skipped, it was to prepare me for losing her. The pain of her demise was more unbearable than my parents' divorce. At 17, I wasn't ready to let her go. But death happened.

My grandma left me alone. The only person who made me feel loved and wanted to leave me. In six months, I experienced life full circle. I was the happiest to start fresh from college. With my grandma in hand, we celebrated as what she said was the first of many precious moments in my life. I opted for a local community college to be near her. I enjoyed the first few months of being a freshman, full of ambitions and passion for earning a degree and working after.

However, if there are joyful surprises, there are also unpleasant ones. My grandma suddenly got sick in my fifth month of living the dream. My grandma's sickness eventually led to her death. So before six months were over, just a few months before I turned 18, I got the taste of starting college, sickness, and death in the family.

Being alone again while navigating the beginning of college at 17 was a giant task. The pressure of getting a degree while drowning in loneliness and the feeling of loss took a toll on me. I survived my first year for the sake of surviving. I felt unloved and unwanted again. That's why I grabbed and clung to the only man who gave me his attention. Suddenly, it felt good to be wanted and loved again.

My world revolved around him. He was like the lifebuoy thrown at me when I was drowning. But the downside of it was it blinded me. I lost myself as I gave in to all his demands. I made myself in all ways possible to fit into his life. It felt comforting at the beginning. But as cliche as it may sound, everything has its ending. When I discovered I was pregnant at 18, the beginning of life inside me ended the only relationship I had then. I realized when I told him about the pregnancy that I only wanted along for the ride. When he declined the news and broke up with me, I realized I wasn't part of his life plan, his future.

He abandoned me again. Except for that time, it wasn't just me, including the little one inside me. When I learned I was pregnant; I had already fallen in love with my little one. But it would have been selfish of me to have had her stay with me, knowing then that I have nothing to give. As painful as it may have been, I knew that giving her up for adoption was the best gift an 18-year-old mother could have given her daughter. I wouldn't want her to suffer with me. She deserved a family that accepted her.

But as reality sunk in, giving up my sweet bean was triple all the pain and heartbreak I experienced. Every night, my heart and stomach flipped. I felt pushed and pulled, knotted many times I could not count. The unexplainable feeling was a combination of getting run by a train and having a fresh wound peppered, salted, and washed with vinegar simultaneously. The only thing that kept me going was the idea that somewhere she was being loved and cared for, in a way I couldn't.

With all the remaining strength in me, I finished college. I got the job as a Supervisor for W Supermarket. It was my vacation from work when I met Aya, the daughter I had never experienced. Seeing her was like me looking at myself in front of a mirror. I couldn't risk the chance of not helping her, knowing that she badly needed help. After I heard her story, I knew in my heart that her situation was a gift handed to me. A gift for me to save and help someone who was once like me. Accepting her changed my life forever.

Gratitude will not be enough to express how having Aya in my life made me happy. She gave me the chance to be a friend, a mother, and a grandmother. Though I didn't experience the same with my daughter, I felt how it was with Cid and Aya's little family. Truly, being a family doesn't always need a bloodline. Helping someone has no time and place.

With gratitude for my new family and all the joy they bring to my life, I pray that whatever mistakes I've had in the past, whatever shortcomings, I'm able to pay forward. I've realized that all the sacrifices we've made, all the challenges we've survived, and all the sufferings made us who we are at present. It's up to us to use all our experiences as our strength in building a better future.

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