The Adik Has A Source

Waiting in the Rain by Christos Stavrou

My parents have been married for 31 years. Like in any other partnership, theirs have hit highs and lows as years wore on. Throughout the 3-decade marriage, my parents endured anything from comedic situations that seem to be from the movies to intensely tragic ones. Like any pair, my father and my mother have told moving tales like the time when they were so financially handicapped that they had to move to the province to be workers on my uncle's farm. There were funny stories, too that highlighted a he-said-she-said version of how my parents met. The stories of when they were together were never scant. However, it wasn't until recently that I heard the story of my parents' wedding.

After 38 days of knowing each other, my parents decided to get marriend. My father, the owner of such an amazingly adik mind, was so smitten that he asked my mother if she wanted to marry him just barely a month after asking her for her name.

While not a lot of women would expect to be proposed to over the phone, my mother received a phone call from my father one day. Professing his deep love for her, he told my mom that he knows he wants to spend the rest of his life with her. He didn't ask for my mom for an immediate 'yes' or 'no'. My father decided to let my mom answer him via fashion: a gesture my mom (former TV model) would have loved. My dad asked my mom to meet him the next day at the corner of the street where he usually picks her up for a date. If my mom wore red, then it was a sign that his proposal wasa turned down. If she wore blue, then it was a 'yes'. They agreed on the time and put the phone down.

My father is a prompt man. When you ask him to be somewhere, he arrives there 30 minutes ahead of schedule. So, on probably one of the most important days of his life, he arrives to the meeting spot early, with fear and excitement lending him wings to fly from Sta. Ana to Mandaluyong. The time they agreed to meet came and my mom was nowhere in sight. Ten minutes passed then it crawled to twenty. Disheartened, my dad realized that he scared my mom away for being so passionate and brash. He decided to wait it out for five more minutes before leaving. Then, like in the movies, my mom appears and waves at him: she is wearing blue.


And, as they say, the rest is history. My mother and father got married in secret in July then, had their church wedding in December. I didn't make an appearance in their lives until five years after my mom said 'yes'.