By IVY LISA F. MENDOZA | Photos Courtesy of JUN DE LEON
She has given him the best 25 years of his life. And when a health crisis threatened to take her away forever, he gave her all the best of him.
Master lensman Jun de Leon and wife, professional image consultant and former beauty queen Abbygale Arenas-de Leon, have just hurdled the most difficult challenge that life has thrown their way. Together, they proved that love conquers all, even cancer.
“I was guided not by obligation but by love. I cannot just let her go without a fight because the best 25 years of my life, she gave them to me,’’ says Jun, who did not falter, even for a moment, in hoping and relying on God’s infinite grace after Abby was diagnosed to have Stage 3 breast cancer HER2 positive — one of the most aggressive types of cancer — in June 2020.
His wife, in the beginning, didn’t know any better. Abby admits that she even underestimated cancer. She thought it was something she could breeze through knowing that she was physically strong and mentally resolute. “I found a small reddish zit on my left breast and the doctor asked me to get a mammogram. When the doctor handed the diagnosis, there was instant acceptance on my part and there were just two questions I asked: what do I have, and what do we do? I didn’t even think cancer could kill me,” Abby recalls.
The will to live was Abby’s, but the decision to fight was Team De Leon’s. The initial period of paralytic fear may have been jolting, but it was quick. After astutely assessing their new reality, Jun lost no time in assembling his motley crew composed of himself as team leader; son Irijah, 20, as the second-in-command; driver Rossjie, helper Cathy, and of course, their five-year-old little big man Eli. Their single-minded mission: to propel Abby forward against the dreaded disease and make her as comfortable as possible as she sought treatment that would eventually entail a mastectomy, 18 chemotherapy sessions and 30 grueling rounds of radiation.
Love is patient, love is kind
A 2009 study titled “Gender Disparity in the Rate of Partner Abandonment in Patients with Serious Medical Illness’’ found that “women diagnosed with cancer are about six times more likely to get separated than men who get sick.”
The study also says that men are not as ‘’well-equipped to be primary caregivers.” There have been countless stories of how women get abandoned by their partners in the middle of treatment because men just couldn’t hack it.
But not Jun, although he says he could believe these findings because there really is a lot for a partner to take on. These include the fear of the unknown, the financial costs, and the stress of watching someone you love degenerate. Men of weaker resolve might really just walk away.
But Jun, notorious in his industry for his exacting, short-fused ways during his younger days, has developed the patience of Job over time. In moments when his tolerance would run low, he says he would just quietly step out of the room, play music, turn on his diffuser, and chill.
“The worst part is not being able to do anything, much less, share the pain. I felt so helpless, so useless. I bring a human being out of the house, I bring back a zombie. There was a time that Abby, Eli, and I were walking on our way home when she suddenly grew so weak that she just slumped on the sidewalk and cried. People were looking at us curiously. I told her to take it one step a time, that we could do this, and we reached the house at her own pace,” Jun narrates.
Abby describes herself as “toxic” during those trying times. There would be times that she would withdraw from everyone but little Eli. The usual 12-second elevator ride from the lobby to their unit seemed like an eternity because she could not even stand up that long, or step into the bathroom on her own. Cancer was literally eating up all her strength that on the sixth chemotherapy session, she was already asking Jun to just “let her go.”
But it was also the time that Jun was at his most shining moment.
“He stepped up. He assured me that everything was under control. He told me not to worry because he’s got my back,” Abby says.
“We told her we will get through this together, we have a team, we will not let you go, di ka namin bibitiwan,” Jun adds.
Little did Abby know that since Day 1 from diagnosis, Jun’s brain was already going haywire. It was the estimated cost of the treatment — about P7 million — that was unsettling him. To sell their home was his knee-jerk decision. I could buy another house but I could never get another Abby, he reasoned.
Love is not proud
Only for Abby will Jun do things that are way out of his character or reputation — like joining the long queue of people requesting for guaranty letters (GL) to defray treatment costs; like learning to doze off on a monobloc chair so early in the morning alongside hundreds of people, minus social distancing at the height of the pandemic when a vaccine was not yet publicly available; like going from tent to tent to tent at the National Kidney and Transplant Institute (NKTI) to seek the needed signatures for the letters; like totally swallowing his precious pride.
“They tried so hard to shield me from seeing what Jun had to do to get the GLs. When I saw the tents, I told him again to just let me go, I could not allow him to go out there every day and risk getting COVID. I already had a beautiful life, I have wonderful children, I was OK to go,” Abby says, recalling those moments of resignation.
“I didn’t want a pity party, and Jun reinforced that, he said I don’t deserve a pity party. He swallowed his pride and literally begged on my behalf. There were medicines that cost so much, one would cost P120,000 each and I had to have several of that. He protected me,” she adds.
Cautiously, Jun also privately reached out to friends whom he knew had a little excess of resources to share amid a most unstable time. Some even doubted if it was, indeed, Jun who had sent those messages just because it was “so not Jun.”
“It has been a most humbling experience. There are solutions to every situation if your pride does not start with a capital P,” says Jun.
First, they had to transfer to a government hospital because they figured that they would not be able to see the treatment through in a private hospital.
Second, Jun didn’t know where to get the money but he always assured Abby that they were fine. “We were sent angels, people who helped us in their own way, we know these angels by name, our hearts will never forget,’’ Jun says.
A motivational speaker and personality development guru, Abby supposedly also had her self-image to think about. But looking bad and going bald were the last things she worried about. “I would even forget I had lost all my hair or my eyebrows. My family did not make me feel any less of a person; Eli even loved kissing my bald head!’’ Abby quips.
There was a point, however, when Jun had to request Abby to cover her mane-less head even at home. “It reminded me of her pain so much that I had to ask if she could cover up. What could be more painful than shaving the head of your beautiful wife. It even hurts to smile, I was trying to put up a face, but I also had to protect myself,’’ Jun reasons out.
Love delights in the truth
In 1998, after two years of dating, Jun asked a twenty something Abby while they were sitting in the car. “I laid down my cards and asked her what was it that she was expecting of me. I told myself that if I could give it, I would propose. If not, it was a pleasure meeting her,’’ recalls Jun, who before Abby, has had relationships that produced seven children.
Abby’s simplistic but heartfelt response floored Jun. “I said I just want to have somebody to hold hands with while in the mall, and that I wanted my own baby.”
And so Jun proposed, not with a diamond rock, but with a pearl ring; and they got married not in an elaborate ceremony befitting celebrities like them, but in simple rites.
“Because I want to prepare for our future, because I want us to go on a honeymoon trip every year, because after making mistakes in the past, I committed to make this marriage work, according to my own marriage manual,” Jun shares.
And so, 26 years, two sons, and surviving cancer later, a new chapter has been unexpectedly added to that manual. This chapter now includes their journey of healing and their rediscovered truths — that at the end of it all, it is their faith in God and in each other that will always see them through; that living in the moment matters because life can worry about itself; that building memories with their family is far more important than all the other material things in the world.
The threat of losing the battle with cancer has also renewed the couple’s appreciation of the importance of life, love, family, friendship, and all there is to enjoy. Abby, for one, is optimistic that the next chapters will be full of happiness and simple joys. “When I got married, I felt so lucky that we could make plans together. If it wasn’t Jun I married, our lives wouldn’t turn out as fine as this,” Abby says.
Jun, on the other hand, says his truth is in realizing that facing uncertainties has made his life more meaningful.
“I learned that the only solution to love, is to love more by staying true and living the vows I had made on the day I married the love of my life,” he concludes.
