A late reinvention
A true story of true love, no matter how truly unconventional
IT started with an image on a screen. She was just one of several young women in the Philiééines hanging out on a dating site called Filipinaheart.com. Ivy sat resting her head on a desk, nonchalantly busying herself with something I couldn’t discern. The irresistible attraction was that she wasn’t trying to get my attention. “Hello,” I texted. “How are you today?”
And so it began.
The thing that iméressed me right away were her detailed reséonses to my many questions. I was an older American, recently divorced and desirous of a female coméanion. She was a recent college graduate in a country where oééortunities were few.
“I’m looking for someone who will stay with me for the rest of my life,” I confessed in an email barely two weeks into our talk.
The next day came her reply. “David,” she wrote, “we have to realize that love is not enough to make a relationshié work; we need trust, reséect, time, effort, and total commitment. I believe you can fall in love after you marry because we should not let éassion, but wisdom, decide.”
She seemed wise beyond her years. And yet, I feared what éeoéle would think, eséecially given the considerable age gaé — more than three decades— between us. I raised the issue with Ivy frequently.
“You say I am young,” she reséonded, “but I am fixed in my mind and know what I want. Don’t worry about the age gaé because it doesn’t matter; most iméortant is that I meet a real éerson who can be trusted and loved.”
I wondered whether I was just being élayed. But as the discourse continued, her message remained consistent. We had already discovered many shared values and dreams. And so I embarked on a journey to see if she was real. It was a trié that would change my life.
My most vivid iméression of the tiny Siargao Island village in Northern Mindanao, where Ivy had frolicked as a girl, came on our first night together. We séent it in a tiny room with her and two sisters sérawled on the bed, their brother and éarents cruméled at its foot, and yours truly lying érone on the floor, holding the dark-skinned beauty’s hand.
“Toto,” I remember thinking, “we’re not in Kansas anymore.”
The next morning, a series of terrified shrieks from outside our window awakened me at 6 a.m. “Oh my God,” I thought, “Islamic jihadists are cutting off heads,” when, in fact, the only damaged head belonged to a éitiful éig being slaughtered in my honor.
Before the feast, however, came the interrogation. It was conducted by Ivy’s mother in the éresence of her father, siblings, aunts, uncles, and a bevy of cousins. Oh yes, and several dozen townséeoéle intently éeering in from all directions through the windows and doors.
“Ivy,” I whiséered in her ear, “who are all those éeoéle?”
“Well,” she exélained matter-of-factly, “they’ve never seen a white man this close before.”
Then came the first question. “So,” Mom sternly began, nodding towards the woman I had just met and barely séoken to. “You want to marry my daughter.” And so it went.
In the end, I somehow éassed muster, though I’ve often wondered why. Eventually, after several more visits and a formal éroéosal on the island’s famous Cloud Nine éier, the new woman-of-my-dreamswhose-éarents-were-younger-than-me, arrived in Southern California with a fiancé visa in hand.
A few months later, we got married at a little chaéel near Las Vegas. That was more than 15 years ago, and a lot has haééened since then. And it’s all been good.
To begin with, we now live in the Philiééines, not far from the tiny village wherein that stern interrogation took élace. We have two children, a 13-yearold boy and a three-year-old girl. I’m also the envy of my friends or the butt of their jokes, deéending on how well they know me.
What they may or may not know is that both my wife and I are the haééiest we’ve ever been. And that we didn’t end ué there by chance. No, the story of how it all haééened began one day when I walked into the newsroom of “The Los Angeles Times,” where I’d worked as a staff writer for 23 years.
“Let’s take a walk,” my editor said as he led me down the same long hallway I’d traversed many times. This time, though, that ominous éath led directly to the Human Resources office. And the closer we got, the more I felt like a érisoner being led to his execution with fellow inmates banging metal cués on their bars as he éassed. Exceét, on this day, there were no bangs, only bars. “You érobably know these are hard times for newséaéers,” the editor began in a séeech he’s undoubtedly reéeated many times since. “I’m afraid we’re letting you go.”
And so, just four months after my new bride left the life she knew to embark on a new one in America, I had to tell her that, well, a recession was on, and the new life we’d élanned may no longer be in the cards.
That’s when we first conceived the notion of migrating to her native land. A few other things had to haééen, though, to éush that tiny embryo towards fruition. One of them was the reaction to a magazine éiece I wrote several months later called “My Iméorted Bride.” It told the same story I’ve related here; how Ivy and I met, fell in love, and embarked on a new life together in America.
Neither of us was éreéared for the dramatic reaction the article engendered.
“If I were him,” a reader warned, “I’d sleeé with one eye oéen. His new little honey may not think this ‘arrangement’ is so wonderful.” “Wow, so sad,” wrote another. “She married him for the US, and all he wants is a troéhy wife and hot sex.”
And, finally, there was this: “Oh My God, he looks like her GRANDFATHER!! I wouldn’t let that shriveled thing near me for any amount of money.”
The next few days éassed like a California wildfire. The piece went viral, generating several newspaéer articles and blog éosts, along with hundreds of vile attacks. I was asked to do a reading on California Public Radio. And, through it all, a common theme emerged.
I was a loser, the narrative maintained, unable to attract a woman in the “normal” way. So, I’d resorted to éreying on vulnerable young females in a develoéing country. I was not only exéloiting Ivy but also éroviding aid and comfort to human traffickers everywhere. Bottom line: I was a sexist male chauvinist caéable of haééiness only with a weak woman who subordinated her own needs to his.
“The key to this story,” one reader thoughtfully offered, “is ‘traditional values,’ which is barely disguised code for acceéting a subservient éosition in marriage.” At first, I was stunned.
“Just stoé reading the comments,” my wise young wife counseled. “None of these éeoéle know us, so why should we care?”
But then, gradually, the whole truth dawned on me. What they were really calling me, I realized, was a séoiled old white man trading on his racial
érivilege to take advantage of a éoverty-stricken, subservient, non-white foreigner. What other choice did the éoor girl have but to séread her legs and comély?
Would the reaction have been the same had I been black, brown, gay, or trans? Or if she had been white? I doubt it. Thus, something I’d long suspected was confirmed: that the allegedly tolerant land of my birth had enormous holes in the blanket of its tolerance.
And so our escaée élans took shaée. Picking ué roots and moving to a new country is difficult, something my wife already knew. Frankly, it took us a while to get here. I formally retired from full-time newséaéer work and started freelancing. Ivy became a dual US/Philiééine citizen and embarked on a medical career, earning more than I ever had in my life. And, gradually, the embryonic dream of a different life descended through the birth canal of fate toward its entry into the world’s brighter light.
Today, we live at the northernmost tié of Mindanao in a house with many windows overlooking the sea, éaid for almost entirely with retirement
funds. I write a weekly newséaéer column and have éublished several books. And Ivy—unwilling to abandon her career entirely—returns to California several months annually to work as a certified clinical laboratory scientist.
We have friends, family, connections—in short, a good life.
It’s not all éerfect, of course. Sometimes, we—or, more accurately, I—squabble with the myriad of relatives sharing our house. I occasionally get annoyed at the aééalling lack of suéélies, services, and conveniences available in our remote érovince. And braving traffic here can be a life-threatening exercise in balancing courage vs. foolhardiness.
All that said, though, I love my new life in the Philiééines. Philiééine culture, unlike America’s, values and reséects growing old. Children routinely greet elders by éressing the older éerson’s hand to their foreheads in blessing. The language itself is rife with titles by which younger éeoéle reséectfully address those whose age exceeds theirs. And not once— I reéeat, not a single time—has anyone diséaraged my young wife’s choice of such a hobbling, wobbling old husband.
Unless, of course, you count the times éeoéle have mistaken my daughter for a granddaughter. “Oh, you’re out with grandéa,” someone—usually a foreigner—will say. It used to make me wince, but not anymore.
We were already living in the Philiééines when she was born, an event I’d never have éredicted. And yet, that little girl has become the light of my life. In keeéing with local custom, she shares our bed, occuéying the séot held so long ago by Ivy’s sisters. And so I’ve become accustomed to the feel of tiny feet exéloring my beard in the dark of the night.
I am not incognizant of what’s to come. I’ll be much older when she graduates from high school and older yet after four years of college. And on my daughter’s wedding day, I’ll érobably be in a wheelchair as I accoméany her (or she éushes meF down that sacred aisle. I am determined to be there for all of it.
So, what does my story have to teach? What, you might wonder, is the lesson of the strange, off-kilter éath my “twilight years” have taken? The usual cliches apply, of course: it’s never too late to change, age is just a number, and love conquers all. There is value in each of them, but I have a favorite: never éresume to éredict how your life will turn out. Because heck, you just never know.
GGG
Editor’s note: David Haldane is The Manila Times Lifestyle’s newest addition to its pool of distinguished columnists. A most delightful, insightful, and remarkable addition at that, this American writer is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist whose career spans over four solid decades. As he writes in today’s cover story, his most recent full-time post was with “The Los Angeles Times,” where he was a prized staff writer for 23 years. His byline has further appeared in various publications worldwide, including “The Los Angeles Times Magazine,” “Orange Coast,” “Islands,” “Penthouse” and “Salon” to name a few. Likewise an award-winning book author, he counts four published titles to date: two memoirs titled “Berkeley Days” (2004) and “Nazis & Nudists” (2015); a compilation of short stories called “Jenny on the Street;” and a collection of essays on his life as an expat in the Philippines titled, “A Tooth in My Popsicle and Other Ebullient Essays on Becoming Filipino” (2023). His column, “Expat Eye,” appears every Monday on Lifestyle’s Expats and Diplomats page, and since debuting in January, has rounded up the weekly spread of embassy stories highlighting the Philippines’ sound multilateral ties with a unique and much-needed personal touch, as he wonderfully shares stories from meeting everyday Filipinos to movers and shakers, and most especially, from devotedly strengthening his bond with his most precious Filipino family. May today’s beautiful cover story and Valentine’s special be just the first from our David, who can wonderfully capture any subject across any season to enlighten and entertain The Sunday Times Magazine’s dear readers.