September 26, 2002

     I always take it as a compliment. Not a few times when friends and acquaintances come up to me and say, 'How did you make her fall in love with you?' Probably a few more would like to tell me that but chose to play it safe. I can always take that as an insult. But even if I don't have that much sense of humor, I still consider it as the ultimate compliment. You know what, I have asked myself the same question.

     On Sunday, September 29, my wife and I will celebrate our 6th anniversary together as a couple. Looking as gorgeous as ever, I asked her again last week, 'How did I make you fall in love with me?'. 'You're not that hard to fall in love with.' she responded. If I had not known her for six years, I would have thought she was lying.

     History tells me I am not easy to love, not even to like. I tried making advances to girls in College and the only response I managed to get was ... 'Get lost!'. I tried to be creative once. I tried lines from the song 'Pretty Woman', something like, 'I don't believe you, you're not the truth. No one could look as good as you'. What I got as a response was 'Get a life. You're a creep!'. I don't know if that's from a song too, but I usually end up alone in the corner of a room or underneath an acacia tree singing Jose Mari Chan's 'Beautiful Girl'.

     My apartment did not have a telephone so I used to annoy my neighbors by using their phones for hours. I'd rather take chances on my neighbors, they may have already plotted to assassinate me, but I could not take my chances at lovely ladies at the other end of the line. The bad part of it was, they were usually 'false positives'. Don't get fooled when they stay with you on the phone that they actually like you. They are just trying to get away from cooking dinner, washing the dishes, or feeding the dog. By the way, they won't miss the dog. They are talking to you.

"The bride was so beautiful. I couldn't help but think how many in the 300 or so guests were thinking "How did he get her to fall in love with him?"

     It was tough, I'm telling you. It took me close to two years before I could get my future wife to say yes. But she did not tell me I was a creep or somebody who looks like Freddy Kruger from Friday the 13th. Well, she doesn't watch horror movies so who knows.

     She was a volunteer nurse at the ICU of the University Hospital when we first met. I definitely did not score a point when the first thing she noticed was my monitoring chart (for vital signs every 15 minutes) was already up to 4:00 am when it was only 11:00 pm. I definitely did not make a good impression when I slept at one of the ICU isolation rooms and had a nurse supervisor wake me up after four hours.

     She has admitted she did not like me at first, but who did? I think that's the very purpose of courting, to make somebody like you. How you do it is another problem. I have this good friend who used to change girlfriends every two weeks. You would think he could have been my best resource on how to attract girls short of me calling Joe D'Mango or Kuya Cesar. Not on your life. It's like asking a lawyer to explain a gastric bypass. He was a natural magnet for girls, he didn't have to do the courting. He was Justin Timberlake years before NSync.

     When she finally said yes, I never had a doubt she's the one I'd marry. When I asked her, she said she thought about that even before she said yes. That was the only time I felt good about myself.

     We got married in a simple civil ceremony at a lovely chapel in an equally lovely village of Bloomingdale, Illinois on September 29, 1996 together with a few close friends. We got married again, this time at St. Joseph's Church at San Isidro, Jaro, on September 24, 2000 (that's as close as we could get to the original date), this time with our parents and good old friends. We had Drs. Ike Lagon, Jerry Gomez, Jerry Alabado as godparents, among others.

     The bride was so beautiful. I couldn't help but think how many in the 300 or so guests were thinking 'How did he get her to fall in love with him?'

     She became a mother, the very best in the entire world. She is the best friend of our five-year old daughter who was the flower girl at our church wedding. They are usually in cahoots with each other, so that when we could not agree on something like which restaurant to go or which mall to shop, the vote is usually 2 to 1 in their favor.

     She loves shoes. She buys shoes, wears them once, and then it's time to buy another one. With the daughter, the expenses has doubled. Whatever my wife gets, my daughter gets.

     But she's so frugal in eveything else. One time, she kept looking at a $300 handbag she has been dreaming to own ever since. I said, 'why don't you buy it?' She said she'll wait until it goes on sale for less than $20. Of course, that's one way of her saying, 'you can buy and give it to me as a gift and I wouldn't feel so guilty.'

     She deserves it. She has somehow combined housekeeping, helping our daughter with homework, and going to work on night shifts. And she isn't the first to fall asleep on her day off.

     She is the main reason why I had to sacrifice medical practice to write silly columns for free. Needless to say, who would pay for a silly column?

     It would be a big problem if she doesn't have a sense of humor or read some of my columns. I told her one day while thinking of a topic to write that I might write about our anniversary. She responded, 'You write a column?'

     I'm lucky and I know it.

     Not that I presume you don't know this but I still read it in the papers and hear it on TV on a regular basis. I'm talking about the usage of the word anniversary. Anniversary is a word derived from the Latin word annus, meaning year and versus, past participle of vertere, meaning to turn. It's basically 'to turn a year', but that's Latin, so let's ask Webster. Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary defines 'anniversary' as 'the annual recurrence of a date marking a notable event'. Yet, you still read or hear people say, 'Today is the ____-year anniversary....'. That's redundant and plain wrong. 6th anniversary is enough. Here's worse: Every time the 11th day of a month is hit, I hear this on TV: "Today is the __-month anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center...". And every time, the person saying it or writing it is just plain wrong. If you wish to point out the significance of a day of any month, you simply should write or say, "Seven months ago today, America was attacked..." Anniversary as a word stands alone and should never be associated with a day or month. Geez, how much do these people pay their copyreaders?

     I saw my wife crying in front of the TV last week. "Is something wrong?" I asked. She just shook her head left to right while wiping tears at the same time. I looked at the TV and I got my answer: It was the final episode of "Pangako Sa 'Yo".

     Dr. Noel Binayas e-mailed me recently that the University President conveyed to Dr. Victoria Villareal, our College Dean, her congratulations on the recent award our site has received. I really feel good about myself now.

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     The author's e-mail address is at drgarcia@wvsumedaa.com

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