The day our annulment was finalized, my ex-husband, Mang Rodel, handed me a simple ATM card. He spoke in a calm, steady voice: — “There’s 3,000 pesos here. It should be enough to help you survive for a few months.”
He said it as if our 37 years together were worth only that much. As if I were an old, broken thing that no longer had any use. I watched him turn his back and walk out of the Family Court in Quezon City without a single glance behind him.
I felt a lump in my throat so heavy I could barely breathe. I kept the card. Not because I needed the money, but because it felt like a thorn embedded in my heart.
The Dark Years
After the separation, I lived in a cramped, damp room in the outskirts of Caloocan. I survived by doing whatever I could: scrubbing floors as a labandera, watching over parked cars, and collecting plastic bottles in the streets. Those were the darkest years of my life.
Many times, I went hungry. Many nights, I went to sleep with nothing but water in my stomach. But I never touched those 3,000 pesos. It wasn’t just pride—I didn’t want to touch what felt like a “limosna” (alms). I hated that card. I hated being left behind. I hated feeling like a burden after a lifetime of service.
Time passed slowly, like a dull knife cutting deep. My body aged rapidly. There were days when just getting out of bed felt like a losing battle. My children visited once in a while and left a little cash, but they had their own families to feed in the province. I never told them about my dizzy spells or the pain in my chest. I didn’t want to be another problem for them.
The Discovery
Until one day… I collapsed in front of my rented room. The doctor at the public hospital was blunt: — “Severe malnutrition. You need treatment. You need to be confined.”
I knew I had no choice. For the first time in five years, I thought of that card. “It only has 3,000 pesos… but maybe it can pay for a few days of medicine.”
The next morning, I went to the bank. My hands were shaking as I handed the card to the young teller. — “I want to withdraw everything, please.”
In my mind, I was already imagining walking out with a few small bills, returning to my miserable life. But the girl stared at the screen for a long time. Then, she looked at me, her eyes wide with shock. — “Ma’am…” she swallowed hard. “The balance isn’t 3,000 pesos.”
My heart skipped a beat. “Then… how much is it?”
She printed the statement and slid it across the counter. I looked at the paper, and it felt like the world stopped spinning.
₱983,000.00
Nearly a million pesos. I couldn’t catch my breath. I thought I was misreading the numbers. I looked again. The number didn’t change.
— “Who… who deposited this money?” I asked, my voice trembling. The teller turned the screen toward me. There was a name I knew all too well.
RODEL.
Monthly transfers. For five years. Without failing once.
The Search for the Truth
I went home in total silence. That night, I didn’t sleep. I just stared at the ceiling and cried. I remembered his sad eyes during the divorce. His strange silences. The nights he stayed awake while I pretended to sleep.
What if… he didn’t leave me because he didn’t love me?
I needed answers. The next day, I took a bus to the small town in Batangas where his older sister, Ate Tess, lived. Her house was a small bahay-kubo near the rice fields.
— “Ate Tess… are you there?” I called out, my voice breaking. She came out, and the moment she saw me, her eyes filled with tears. — “Elena… you finally came.” — “Where is Rodel? I need to talk to him.”
Ate Tess stayed silent. She went inside and returned with a small wooden box. Her hands were shaking. — “Elena… Rodel passed away.”
I felt like my heart was being ripped out of my chest. “No… that can’t be… it’s only been five years…”
She sobbed. “He had terminal cancer… even before the annulment.”
The world crumbled around me. — “He didn’t want you to be his nurse,” she continued. “He didn’t want you to spend your final years watching the man you love wither away and die. That’s why he pushed you away. That’s why he set you free.”
She handed me the box. “This is for you. He said to give it to you only if you came looking for him.”
Inside was a letter. In his handwriting.
Elena,
When you read this, I will be gone. Please forgive me for leaving in the cruelest way possible. It hurt me more than you can imagine.
I didn’t want you to take care of me while my light faded. I wanted you to live without chains, without tears. The money is so that you will never lack anything. Eat well. Live well.
I don’t need you to forgive me. I only want you to be happy.
If there is another life… I would choose you all over again.
I fell to my knees. I cried like a child. For five years, I lived my life hating him… while he was fighting death, sending me money month after month, until his hands could no longer do it.
I thought I was abandoned. But the truth was different: He loved me so much… that he chose to die alone so I could live.
In front of his photograph on the family altar, I touched the frame with trembling fingers. — “Why didn’t you tell me…?”
But he could no longer answer. That day, when I held that card with 3,000 pesos, I thought I was a woman cast aside. Five years later, facing his memory, I understood the truth:
I was never alone. I was loved… until the very end.