baguio
may 31, 1944


my dear fely,

your letter came way up beyond all my expectations and i don't know how to thank you. i really didn't expect an answer, you know i have been very happy since i got it and i'm living in the sunshine once more. what you have written makes me feel as if i've known no sorrows or regrets throughout all the years, and it seems that it was only yesterday when i was last with you, laughing and happy.

you're the same old sweet fely, very understanding and very forgiving, and i'm thanking my stars that it has been my very good fortune to have known someone like you. you said that you didn't know what i meant by my "great mistake". well, what else could it be but getting married and wasting five of the best years of my live living with the wrong woman? lourdes thinks that i'm the wrong man too, and from her angle she's right- therefore, we have decided to do the only thing that is fair for both of us. we don't live together anymore and we're getting a divorce. what a big fool i was. all the time i could have married a very nice and decent girl and yet i had to choose someone whom even her own family predicted won't make a good wife. but that all belongs tot the past and it is best forgotten. it won't do any good crying over it. and besides, judging from your letter, you're still my friend so there's really not much that was lost. how very fortunate it is that you are the sort who can forgive and forget. if you must know, you have made it much easier for me by your attitude. i beg of you to please let me do something to make up for the past.

i'll tell charing to get in touch with you when i see her. then she may invite you up here and we can all see each other again. from what i gathered the last time i met her, she's doing fine. she asked me if i knew where you were, but i was in the same flight myself then. now, it's all different and it's like old times again.

i'm indeed glad to learn that life is treating you very kindly. your problem of how long we can keep it up is also everybody else's problem, and so i guess we shouldn't worry our heads off about it. we'll always find a way and we'll manage somehow. we only have to think of the people who are in the very midst of the war to feel reassured that we are still lucky. our troubles are not even half of theirs and yet they are still alive and kicking. all we need to do is to keep our faith in our God and do some hard honest work and we are sure to get by.

i guess this letter is lengthy enough and i'll talk some more next time. i'm dying to know what you've been doing all these years, and please write a chapter of your autobiography for me as your next letter, will you? i'm sure it will be very pleasant reading for me. regards to you and the family but keep most for yourself.

yours,
ely

P.S. thank the postman for me for delivering my letter inspite of the wrong address.