This is a true story of how a simple piece of calendar art about to be discarded, turns to be a preview of my own life.
In 2005, i started my volunteer year, settling in a small community house in Catbalogan, Samar. For this year, i’ve decided to just clear my headspace of city pressure and drama, and dedicate the next couple of months soul searching, and being of service to a community. I’ve only packed some essentials for this trip, and starting bare means having the opportunity to be intentional with what i keep.
In my corner of the bedroom, i had a woven bamboo mat, a pillow, my books, and a bare wall. There was an artwork I had seen a few times around our community house, and each time my eyes landed on it, something held me there, briefly but deeply. So I called dibs on it, and my bare wall was instantly brighter and warmer with the addition of this rogue piece of art.
Its colors felt like a nostalgic sunset, and it featured a family of four: a mother teaching her son to read, while the daughter playfully clung to her father’s back. They were just enjoying a moment outdoors. The whole scene felt peaceful and calm, and it just felt perfect.
I taped it on my wall, layering strips of tape just to make it stick to the wood. It was the last thing I saw before I went to sleep and the first thing that greeted me in the morning. My only piece of art, my unspoken wish.
While lying in bed, it would swim in my thoughts.
It would be nice to have something like that, I’d think. A simple, happy family. The mother in the picture had defined collarbones, subtle curves, and long, flowing dark hair. The father was playful and present, protecting his pack with reassuring smile. A curious little boy. A sweet little girl.
And then I’d fall asleep.
At that time, it was just a feeling, not a plan. There was no urgency, no desperation, and no expectation. I only had a vision of what I wanted to feel, and it came straight from that image. In my mind, I was that woman. You can call it delusion, but it was such a treat for the imagination.
Something you should know about me is that I was 24 years old and I had never been in a relationship. Years before this, I did make a detailed list of the traits I wanted in a guy, but that belongs in a completely different blog post.
When I finished my volunteer year in 2006, I packed my things, took a quick snapshot of the calendar image, and finally detached myself from it. Its edges had browned and the months had worn it out. It had outlasted the rest of the calendar, and I was grateful for visual embrace it gave me each time I looked at it. It was a beautiful year full of experiences and stories, and i thought it ended there.
After I moved back to Manila, I had to figure out what to do with my life. The calendar image completely faded from my memory.
Found a job after my volunteer year, met someone interesting – but we didn’t date until a year later. Had quite a whirlwind romance (dated, married and got pregnant, gave birth within a year) – quite a leap for me – as i had a hard time getting into any commitment. I also found out I had cancer shortly after my son was born. It was a long, dark stretch, and during those months, a peaceful, picturesque family felt like someone else’s life.
Life kept moving. Fast forward to 2012.
One evening, while scrolling through old images on my phone, I paused.
I looked at a recent photo of my own family, and something about it felt strangely familiar. A little boy. A little girl. My husband, smiling. Such a simple and happy picture.
Déjà vu hit me in trickles. I knew this feeling. Was I imagining things? I dug deep into my digital archives, back to the folders from my volunteer year, searching for the snapshot of the artwork.
And there it was. I was looking at it with fresh eyes, after not having seen it for 6 years.
It wasn’t just the coincidence of having a partner, a son, and a daughter. It was almost funny how even our hair resembled the painting. The vision had come true quietly, entirely unnoticed. Life had simply unfolded, and I had stepped right into the frame without realizing it.
I had married the personified version of the man in that calendar. It was a massive “whoa” moment. And i thought that was such a wonderful surprise. Look at you, Universe, being awesome and clever and making a way to manifest my family.
But the story doesn’t end there.
One evening, while engaged in kitchen duties, I told my mother-in-law about this interesting calendar artwork that i kept – and seems to have manifested our family. She listened and smiled like it wasn’t something new. She told me that long ago, her son – my husband – had asked her to save a page from a calendar too. A picture he wanted to keep and frame.
That was a curious moment. What did it look like?
“A painting of a family,” she said casually. “A mother, a father, a little boy, and a little girl.”
I stopped washing the dishes. The tap kept running, but my hands froze as I slowly turned to face her. I paused, turning off the faucet. Every single hair on my arms stood on end.
She mentioned she had misplaced a lot of documents when they moved houses, but as she continued to describe the scene, my mind started racing. I was caught between total excitement and absolute disbelief. No way. Could it really be the exact same image?
With a mix of intense anticipation and shock, I dried my hands, pulled up my phone, and scrambled to find that copy of the snapshot from the calendar.
She furrowed her brows, reached into her pocket for her reading glasses, and leaned in close. For a full minute, the kitchen was completely silent. Then, she gasped.
She looked up at me. “Yan nga! (That’s it!)“, she said softly, with so much fondness for a distant memory.
I needed to hear it straight from the man I married.
He was playing the drums, engrossed with the piece he’s been perfecting. I tapped him, and motioned him to remove his headphones for a question. He looked at me, slightly annoyed with the interruption, but paused his playing and asked what i needed.
I took a deep breath. I asked him if he ever asked his mom to keep a calendar image of a family?
He tilted his head, thinking hard. Then slowly confirmed that he did recall asking his mom to save a certain calendar page.
“Why?” I prodded, not letting him put back his headphones just yet.
“Because I liked the image,” he said. “A peaceful, loving family.”
“Was it anything like this?” I showed him the photo.
As he looked at it, his expression shifted. I could see the memory coming back to him, something familiar he hadn’t thought about in years.
A few moments later, it clicked. He looked at it again, then turned to me.
“Wait,” he said, his voice dropping. “I think it really is the same one.”
Was it a wild coincidence, or was it serendipity? It was so perfectly orchestrated that it felt like the universe had a writer on its payroll. Somehow, long before we ever found each other, we were both orbiting the exact same vision.
Looking at my husband, an intense realization settled in: I didn’t manifest this family on my own.
We were in this together from the very start.
And the story kept writing itself. Two years after that family photo, our youngest arrived – the one the painting never saw coming. And our family grew in other ways too, the kind that require a different kind of love and intention. The calendar showed four. We became more.
That little image on a bare wall in Catbalogan had no idea what it was starting.
