Love that never truly left

“Describe your mom in one word.”

Mao to’y pangutana sa staff sa Pinoy Big Brother pag-audition namo sa akong best friend back in 2012. Klaro man siguro nga wala ko nakuha kay wa man gyud ko nigawas sa TV. Pero usahay makahuna-huna ko nga kung akong natubag ato kay, “Which one?” basi’g makasulod ko sa next level screening.

Duha gyud bitaw akong mama pero usa ra ang naa sa akong heart. Perhaps that is why today’s Gospel hits differently.

Jesus said, “I will not leave you orphans.”

— Gospel of John 14:18

Since namatay si Mama Bing, orphaned is exactly how I have felt.

Not necessarily abandoned.

Not unloved.

But incomplete.

I no longer expect to be as carefree or as whole as I once was when both my parents were still alive. There is now a quiet absence that stays with me even on ordinary days. A missing voice. A missing presence. A missing home.

Yet looking back, I realize how deeply blessed I was.

I was loved by a mother who cared for me as though I were truly her own. And even after leaving this world, she somehow still finds ways to visit me — through memories, through familiar feelings, through moments difficult to explain but impossible to deny.

There was also another truth I only learned to face recently.

I met my biological mother when I was already 21 years old. People often talk about lukso ng dugo, but honestly, there was none. No sudden connection. No magical feeling. Murag wala lang. And maybe because I convinced myself for years that it did not affect me, I never realized how deeply the abandonment stayed in me.

Just recently, while reflecting on my unhealthy ways of self-soothing and my constant need for reassurance, affection, understanding, and attention, I asked myself: Unsay dili nako ganahan sa akong kaugalingon?

And slowly, the answer surfaced.

Maybe part of me still carried the pain of being given away at birth.

The silent questions remained: Was I not important enough to keep?

Was I not valuable enough to choose?

Perhaps that quiet wound caused me to search for love everywhere else — trying to fill what I thought was missing within me.

But God was kind to me.

Because even before I knew how to love myself, He already surrounded me with people who loved me regardless. Through my parents, I experienced a love that was patient, generous, understanding, and real.

And maybe that is why love, for me, has never been abstract.

Love is something I can grasp. Something I can recognize. Something I have touched and received because of my parents. I can understand why Jesus said He would not leave us as orphans because I know what it feels like to continue being loved even when the people you love are no longer physically there.

The problem was, I slowly made my parents my source.

So when they were gone, I got lost too.

I forgot that the love I received from them was never truly theirs to begin with. It came from God first. Gipahulam lang sa Ginoo ang iyang gugma pinaagi sa akong mga ginikanan aron akong mabati ug masabtan.

And although lisod gihapon usahay because God can still feel abstract — dili makita, dili madungog, dili mahikap o magakos — slowly, through people, memories, experiences, and grace, I have begun to feel Him.

Maybe that is what Jesus meant all along.

“I will not leave you orphans.”

Because even when human love leaves physically, the Love where it came from remains.

And perhaps the opposite of being orphaned is not the absence of loss, but the certainty that love never truly left.