How A Daughter Became Prodigal And Her Return

This is not an average story or even a pretty one, with which most people would be interested in. Yet in it is a lesson which all could learn and gain wisdom from.

Marissa Abatayo was the only daughter of the five children born to Felix and Clarita. It was perhaps the over protection of the parents for their only girl that developed in her an early feeling of rebellion.

The excessively strict attitude became more intolerable for her as she grew up and reached high school. She was not allowed to go out with friends or at night or beyond specific hours. She naturally felt imprisoned at home and vowed retaliation, not only to her authoritarian father but also to her ever-conceding mother. 

It was on her sixteenth birthday that her repressed anger blew up. In front of her classmates that came to wish her well, she was scolded by her father for some inconsequential offense, and her mother simply did nothing.

Soon after, as soon as she found the opportunity on graduation day, Marissa escaped and ran away. She sought shelter in the house of her best friend, fully decided never to come home again, and to find a life on her own. Before long she got accepted to work as a saleslady in one of the downtown department stores.

Totally independent now, she tried to find comfort and tender love, emotions she missed in her own home, through the excitement of passion. She went from one relationship to another until eventually she got pregnant. Still, marriage was not part of her aspirations, mindful of the painful experience she had with her own family.

As her employment contract considered unwed pregnancy a ground for termination, the prospects of abortion and/or suicide loomed strongly over her. Only an innate spiritual faith in the Divine prevented her from taking the plunge in either direction. All the bitterness and misery in her life melted away when she gave birth to a baby girl, which she named Danica.

Twenty-two years quickly passed, happily for both Danica and her loving mother. Marissa, at forty-three, had been a model of a concerned and caring single parent, and had found forgiveness in her heart for those that brought her to life.

She even went back to her former home, to her now widowed mother afflicted with Alzheimer's disease. Unable to utter a word, and only her tears giving an indication that she still recognized her long lost daughter, she hugged her tight and whispered softly "I am sorry".