The Rainbow continues...

The 8-Shaded Rainbow –Part 18

Robert 

An obsession – that was what happened to me a few months back, when a relative of mine told me to find and read a certain book entitled, “The Alchemist.”  For some reasons, (now I already know why) the said book is always out of the library.  All the more that my curiosity heightened and my obsession deepened; I will have to admit that for a good 2-3 months, I was so dumb not to think of reserving the book the next time it is back in the library.  All those times, I rely on my luck, that I may find the said book one day, perfectly piled on a neat and orderly shelf, waiting just for me – like a soul mate.  Oh, how so very special I could have been thinking about myself; how so unfortunate to think as such too.

So my insanity was over one day when I finally realized that yes, I could actually place a reservation for whatever book I wanted.  You know what?  Sadly sometimes, I am almost convinced that my brain is not designed to do multi-tasking.  Sometimes, it just gets stuck while buffering.

When I finally have the book between my palms, the hype intensified.  I was itching so much to check it out and run home as fast as only a horse can, and then bury my nose and my eyeballs in between chapters.  Oh yes, you can call me that, I won’t mind because I am in fact, a freak.  I am a hardcore bookworm.  I read books for 48 hours straight; I’d skip meal for a good storyline; I’d skip bath too.   I get high with the smell of the crisp pages.  Literature is DQ for me – Oreo flavour!  

I tell you what; I finished the entire book in 2 hours and Bam! I was a convert.  I am now a Paolo Coelho official and certified disciple.  And why not?  Every single word written there struck my heart like a burning spear of truth.  Every scenario, every phase, every place, I feel like I’ve been there, I was there, like it was about me.  The biggest impact and the most important implication it has brought about in my life is my self realization and how I should perceive the circumstances around.  Above all, it strengthened my faith and enlightened my way.

Very recently, Robert – a fellow whom I look up to so much like my own brother, went home to the Philippines for holidays.  I have known Robert in depth when we went to a concert along with a whole bunch of friends about 6-7 months back.  Since our acquaintance, I know that Robert is a married man.  And as if putting together some kiddie puzzle pieces, I easily put together the picture of Robert and Jackie as husband and wife.  Why?  Because they are that kind of picture.  No need to elaborate on that.  The fact (which I found out not before long): Robert’s family is in the Philippines.  He is “happily” married and a father to two children.  I swear this is not the first time I have known such a set-up happening around; also, this isn’t “news” anymore.  Almost everyone’s doing it.  But why am I so surprised?  Only one thing it could be; I thought Robert is not among that “almost everyone.”  I actually believed he is sane.  I was disappointed, I have to admit.  The next days and months following the prize of my being gullible, I found myself talking and treating Robert not like that of a brother anymore; I am sad to say that I was indeed very disappointed with him.  Somehow, I do not believe anymore whatever he has to say.  For me, everything is but a joke – just like the “Big Joke” he radiates, projecting the “good-family-man-image” religiously taking responsibility of whatever his family needs back home; yet, here he is, at this other side of the world, holding another woman’s hand, kissing her, sleeping with her, living in one roof with her – living a double life.

Two days before his flight back home, I had the chance to talk to my dear old friend Robert.  I was pretty loud about the issue, making fun of him and his affair.  I am looking at the whole thing as a game and that everyone can make fun out of it if they want.  I did.  Until I saw Robert’s eyes glooming and moistening.  I stopped in shock.  Not until that face of Robert that I saw actually appeared right through my very eyes, did I come to fathom that sometimes, the things which I might think to myself like “nothing,” could actually mean “everything” to another.

Robert, in the course of helping out Jackie with her life (being a single mother to two very young kids from two different fathers) fell in love with her.  The rest is...yep!  History.  And how in the world could that possibly happen to the “World’s No.1 Dad?”  Oh, I don’t know.  I don’t have the keys to the vault of answers. 

A couple of weeks before Robert sets off to fly home, Jackie found a new boyfriend.  Younger, absolutely single, has a kick-ass job and is head over heels in love with her.  Robert, though he made an agreement with Jackie that if in case she’d find someone else, he won’t get in the way, found himself crumbling when it finally happened.  Oh Dear, he totally did not see it coming.  And when it was finally right on his face, he did not know whether to shut his eyes or shut his heart.  He admitted to me how crazy in love he had been.  He told me how people around perceive what he and Jackie has, as nothing but a social norm.  Nothing extra special – just your ordinary “overseas-worker-sexual-affair.”  Robert however, told me with quivering lips and a broken heart, how his world crashed and how he was awaken and taken back to reality by losing Jackie.  I felt sincerely sorry for him.

Today, as I was browsing through Robert’s holiday photos (in FaceBook) with his beautiful family, I remembered “The Alchemist” again.  That and how our lives in the world has been written by only “One Hand”; why things happen for a reason; how we are all interconnected; how each and every person we meet have their purpose to touch our lives somehow – either briefly or far much longer; how the interactions should shape our lives and the person that we become; how we come up braver and tougher after every blow; how we should dust ourselves off and move on after we fall.

(Sigh!)  Oh well, Robert and I speak the same dialect.  For a “written” reason and purpose, Robert and his family’s inter-island getaway in the Philippines, brought them to Cebu City where my family resides.  A call, a couple of SMS, then they were set to meet and they did.  At that moment, I am again in such a big awe, thinking to myself that this person, exactly this one person, someone I know all too well, someone whom I was actually talking with, a few weeks back here at some thousands of miles half way of the globe, is the same person talking to my family right now.  I don’t know but such a strong feeling touched me that it is as if, I myself went home and spent a very special while with the people I love the most.

It was nothing but a wishful thinking to start.  I know it could happen as much as it could not.  Now that it in fact did happen, I believe it is because, it was written.