Pursuing College

Gary and Cleo go together to the city and get themselves enrolled in one of the famous universities. The former takes up Bachelor of Marine Engineering(BSMARE) as suggested by his parents and the latter takes up Bachelor of Science in Marine Transportation (BSMT) but both study in the same school. They share a small room in a male sharehouse. Cleo's father is also staying in the city and is working as a jeepney driver. He joins with them in their shareroom.

Faith continues her college at a nearby college school taking up Education Course, but a year after, a stormy wind struck her family.

Her mom, complains of pains in her hips, thighs and legs that she could hardly walk. Not long after, she gets bedridden. One day, Faith visits her family and finds out the condition of her mom who has always been her inspiration for struggling hard in her studies. The family agrees that it will take two to take care of their sick mother. Faith volunteers to stop from schooling in her second year in college. The same goes with her younger sister named Florence, who's also a second year high school. They both decide to nurse their mom.

Faith goes back to Mrs. Malinaw's family who have been her guardians for how many years to tell them of her family's plan.

"Do you really need to go home?", Ma'am Benie asks. She has no idea how worse Faith's mother's health condition is.

"Come to think of it, don't you realize how much help you can give to your family once you finish your studies, become professional and have a well-compensated job?", she continues.

Deep inside Faith is the thought ' To whom is help would be given then, if by fate, God will call my mother's name before I finish? What can be done with the hay when the horse is gone away?'.And it seems that the Almighty has His ways. Though it took three days and nights, Faith is finally granted to go home.

As previously agreed, the two sisters, Faith and Florence take care of their sick mom. But day after day, the condition seems to worsen.

"Faith,Florence", the mother called them. "Yes mom", they replied. "Can you come and join with me in prayer?, the mother asks as she gets her rosary beads under her pillow.

"Yes mom", they answer. And they pray the Holy Rosary.

There's no single day that passes that the mother skips praying. And she shares this to her children. She teaches them to do the same.

The scary day has finally come. Death has arrived to take away their mother's life from them. It's the gloomiest day for Faith and her siblings' lives. Faith just doesn't know it is this painful to see her mother breathes her last breath. It seems for her that the Divine God never heard nor granted her prayers. This time, she wished to go against Him.From then on, she stops praying as she wants to take a strike against His power. She tends to question His existence.She couldn't help but violate her mother's wish that they should not cry for her as she leaves. She couldn't stop herself from sobbing.

Months have passed, she realized that life shouldn't stop just there. She has to stand on her feet once again and venture for something good she could find. She looks for a job and temporarily forgets her dreams to become a teacher. And she finds one. She lands in the city where she works as a caretaker of a two-storey sharehouse with ten bedrooms fully occupied, three restrooms to clean, four children and three workers of the building to prepare meals for, and many household chores to do. But despite that hard work to do, she never complains at all.

After a year, Faith thinks that working isn't good enough and she needs to do more. So, she asks her boss if she could continue with her studies. Thankfully she's being allowed. Indeed, she's able to continue in her second year this time, with lesser units though.

Florence also goes to where Faith is, and so the two of them stay there and live as working students. They arrange their schedule that Faith goes to school in the day and Florence takes the night shift.

Perhaps, time is being harsh on Faith. In herself she's always been strong and capable of doing all her works, even spending late or in the middle of the night to finish all the chores she needs to do. One day, she's startled to be called by her boss and asked to have her 18-unit study load be deducted to 12 units only. She's deeply depressed by this. She wants to finish her studies the soonest possible time and the idea of reducing her loads directly contradicts to what she plans. So she decides to withdraw all her subjects instead, and bid farewell to her bosses. Florence, in her part, does not want to stay without her sister in her side.So they both go home.

While Faith is in this misery, Gary continues his studies in the university and has finally reached the finishing line. He now graduates BSMARE. Just one more year of Apprenticeship and he'll be successfully done.

Faith recalls those days when she was still there working in the city where Gary is studying, and he happened to pass by in the place where she was at. Gary was riding on a jeep that Cleo's dad is driving. When he saw her, he got down from the jeep to talk to her. He looked so good with his smiles. His eyes sparkled like shining stars. His nose though being scarred but still appeared being well-formed. His skin was dazzling under the brightness of the sun. He was standing before her and she couldn't hold her excitement and smiles in seeing him. But there was no enough time for them to talk too much for Gary had to go and leave with the jeep and Faith had to go on doing her works.

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