RESILIENT HEART: UNSTABLE HOME, AN UNSTABLE MARRIAGE, AND A SELF-MADE LIFE BEYOND PAIN

By Ruby Wight

This is a tale of a life full of challenges. As an innocent child, Ruby endured physical abuse from the hands of her own mother and found solace in an invisible friend-God, you might say. She was molested by a priest at barely 16 and subjected to a humiliating public scandal. Yet, nothing could deter her from her ambition to become a lawyer unti

• Language: English
• Publisher: Best Seller Publishing, LLC
• Release date: Aug 21, 2021
• ISBN: 9781956649031

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Copyright © 2021 by Ruby C. Wight.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in

any manner whatsoever without prior written consent of the authors,

except as provided by the United States of America copyright law.

Published by Best Seller Publishing®, Pasadena, CA

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DEDICATION

I dedicate this book to my beloved Tatay in Heaven, my Papa and Mama, my four beautiful and wonderful kids, and especially my baby, Coconut, who waited to pass away at the completion of this book. His passing was the real test of my Resilient Heart.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I appreciate and thank the people who went out of their comfort zone and out of their way to support me in the darkest winters of my life, especially the following:

Charito G. Elmore

Ruena A. Horn

Anthony Silva

John E. Hill

Michael R. Sullivan

Fr. Augusto E. Villote

Nelia P-Cacic

DISCLAIMER: This book is based on the author’s recollection of events, and she has accurately conveyed the stories within to the best of her knowledge. However, in the interest of maintaining privacy and anonymity, some names and identifying characteristics of individuals and locations have been changed.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: Growing Pains

Salvation at Last

Graduation in a Convent

Not a Pious Priest

Aftermath

Planning a Bright Future

Chapter 2: Life Is Chosen

Proposal and Regret

Leaving Looks Like a Good Option

A Fork in the Road: Which to Take?

Welcome to America

Lucky Numbers

The (Second) Honeymoon Is Over

Chapter 3: Baby Boom

I Will Protect You with All My Life

Parents Part

No Sending Money to the Philippines

Squeezed, like by a Boa Constrictor

Growing Bigger and Apart

Hearts Flitter

Happy . . . for a Moment

Chapter 4: It Ended Before It Began

Tubes Tied

Do Not Repeat the Past

No Escape Hatch

High Control

How to Talk to God

Negotiation

Chapter 5: How to Mend What Was Already Broken

No Winning

One Last Chance

Broken Bodies and Hearts

Desperate for a Miracle

Pilgrimage Junkie

Chapter 6: A New Adventure

Escape to Turkey, but Not without Challenges

Family Paradise

A Funeral Instead of a Vacation

Philippine Funeral

Surprise

Chapter 7: Getting My Footing

Manifest

Ready for Romance

Going Steady

Emotional Whiplash

Making a New Home

Chapter 8: Traveling for My Life Purpose

Manifest Travel

Joys of Switzerland

Manifestation Complete

Near-Death Experience

Pilgrimages Are My Purpose

Bad Endings Deserve Breakfast in Bed

Chapter 9: My Resilient Heart Can Handle Anything

On My Own Pilgrimage: A Business

Up in Flames

Father Turns 70

Holy Land Pilgrimage

More Travel Manifestations

COVID Halts Everything

Afterword

Appendix

Introduction

It is my intention for this book to bring light to the readers, to inspire them to find hope, relief, healing, and a sense of adventure. This book is intended to empower anyone who feels lost, shattered, destroyed, trapped, and helpless. Rise up! Claim your place in this world to live life to the fullest, regardless of your circumstances!

As a child, I often believed there was more to life than what appeared. I used to stare in the mirror and ask myself if my physical body could do more. At age 8, I checked myself to see if I was growing wings, if I could fly, or if I had superpowers like Wonder Woman. The mirror stared back at me and said No to all my questions, but my mind refused to take that for an answer.

I was born during a time of martial law in the Philippines. Life was never easy. My childhood was the most nightmarish part of my existence. I saw social injustice everywhere, even in my own home. I grew up and resolved to be a lawyer, to bring justice to the oppressed.

School was my life-saving grace. Also, my father often rescued me from domestic chores so I could read. He believed that my brain belonged to books, not to dirty dishes.

Right after I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts and a major in English, I enrolled in the Bachelor of Laws program at Ateneo de Davao University. After my first year of law school, I made the toughest decision of my life to leave my country and start a new adventure. I realized I’d be better off finding my own self than pursuing social justice in a country infested with untold corruption and with crooks in every institution.

In 1992, I accepted the marriage proposal of my pen pal from California. I simply could not pass up on an offer filled with promises for a new family of my own, for freedom, and for the lifestyle that I deserved. In August of that year, I landed in San Francisco to begin the life promised by my fiancé. Twenty days later, we got married, having signed a prenuptial agreement beforehand — with me taking it for granted that it was fair, when I should have read it carefully and had it checked by a lawyer.

Although conceiving children was not on my own agenda, I conceded to the wishes of my husband, who wanted to have kids. Nevertheless, I was a hands-on mother, determined to be the kind of parent I had wished for. In the Philippines and in the Catholic Church, divorce is not an option; marriage is a lifelong adventure. My adventure in marriage was quite a journey. It did not turn out the way I had envisioned it. The free lifestyle my husband had promised me was not delivered. Divorce ensued.

To distract myself from the conundrum of divorce, I went on pilgrimages to Fátima in Portugal, to Lourdes in France, and to Assisi and Rome in Italy. I subsequently went to India where, while on a visit to Kerala, which had been hit hard by the 2004 tsunami, I was offered a partnership in a tourism agency. I incorporated a pilgrimage tour company in California with the intention of creating a thriving business to both earn a living and give back to a community that had been affected by catastrophic events. I had no training in the travel business, but my background in real estate and marketing and my skill at trading stock options made it easy for me to launch the tour company.

My journey through severe child abuse, bullying, molestation, and a broken marriage left me asking big questions about life. Just when I thought I had reached rock bottom, I realized there was no bottom at all. The downward plunge can only be measured when you start grasping for relief, or instead opt to give up on life.

By the grace of God, my spirit was never broken throughout the tumultuous events of my life. I never chose to give up. Instead, I found a sense of adventure through divine intervention by taking the road less traveled.

As a mother of three, I resolved to correct every wrong my parents had committed when they raised me. Despite my divorce and the undesirable traits of my ex-husband, my children managed to find their own roles in the world without engaging in any of the classic behavior attributed to children of divorced parents.

This book is about transcending life’s challenges, about finding courage in the face of adversity, facing uncertainty with fearlessness, and marching toward self-realization to unleash undreamed-of possibilities.

1

Growing Pains

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that

encloses your understanding.

— Kahlil Gibran

The sound of silence was deafening that Sunday afternoon at home. My father must have gone to town. My mother must have been at the chapel down the street with my baby brother. And my older sister must have been hanging out with her friends.

It was the perfect time to consummate a plan I had been contemplating for a while. I had a small, dark bottle, and I filled it with rat poison. I was confident that drinking it would end my suffering. I felt I had no other way to stop my sister’s bullying.

She almost always passed her own chores on to me. When I refused to do them, she scratched my arms like a cat, leaving my skin scarred. Every time she made a mistake, she accused me of doing it, thereby escaping my mother’s wrath by shifting it toward me. I contemplated running away, but where would I go? How would I survive? No, I did not want to take the chance of being raped or exploited by a stranger. Killing myself was the only recourse I could think of to solve my dilemma.

The last time my mother beat me, I stood facing the window with my hands on the sill to support my legs. Every time the stick hit the back of my legs, I trembled in pain.

"Enough of the pain! I screamed, but only inside my head as I afterward examined the abrasions on my legs. When will this end? Does a child deserve to be beaten like an animal?"

I was incredibly sad because no one was there to protect me, except occasionally when my father happened to walk in and stop my mother. But the more he and my mother fought and argued over me, the more my mother would hit me with a stick during my father’s absences. My own mother hurting me physically strained my heart and made me grow apart from her. Even at the innocent age of 8, I knew beating a child was not the right