The One I Called Brother - Episode 1: The First Encounter

🎬 EPISODE 1: “THE FIRST ENCOUNTER”

Confession Series #2 – The Stories of Us

📍 San Juan & Lunao, Gingoog City | Year: 1997

> There are moments when forgetting something leads you to what you were meant to find.

It was 1997.

I was a Marine Transportation student at SJIT-Butuan, and every weekend I’d go home to San Juan, Gingoog City to help my parents in our coconut trading business.

I drove our Isuzu Forward truck, buying coconuts from agents in nearby barangays — one of them was Lunao.

That’s where I first met her — Janice Jamisola.

Her family owned a small coconut store where we usually bought supplies.

That day, I was exhausted from travel and, for the first time, I forgot to bring payment.

Her father sent Janice to ride with us to collect it from my mother in San Juan.

I still remember that short ride home — the warm wind through the cab window, the sound of the truck engine, and her quiet laughter.

My mother paid her, and as Janice was about to leave, there were no more rides going back.

So my mother said,

“Chris, take her home. It’s getting dark.”

I didn’t know that drive back to Lunao would be the first chapter of something that would change my life.

What started as a small debt became the beginning of a love I would carry across oceans.

TO BE CONTINUED...