“There’s a Cebuano spirit in me,” she said. “Carefree, grounded, always smiling even in the face of life’s challenges.”
For Michelle, those early years were shaped by the tenderness of Lola’s voice, Lolo’s steady hand during morning Mass and a home where prayers were not rituals, but lifelines. “The family that prays together, stays together,” she said. “It wasn’t just a phrase, it was our truth.”
Alcantara didn’t just give Michelle her values. It gave her an unshakable connection to nature and to life’s fleeting, beautiful moments.
“Tinugdan, a spring pool in town, is where I learned to swim and to trust in myself,” she recalled. It was also where she discovered a love for diving, a passion that still lives in her today. “Nature in Alcantara was my first teacher. It taught me presence, simplicity, and the sacredness of connection.”
Years later, it would be in the bustling city of Cebu where her life would change again, this time through an unexpected encounter with the man who would become her husband, Jerry.
“I wasn’t looking for love. I was looking for a job,” she laughed. But destiny had other plans. Jerry was the one who interviewed her, and soon, what began as a professional connection blossomed into a partnership that would define them both.
Their love story, as told in Michelle’s memoir “A Love Like Ours,” is a tapestry of resilience, faith and unwavering commitment. “When our friendship turned into something deeper, I chose to resign,” she said. “It was a decision rooted in respect. And it was the first of many sacrifices we made for each other.”
Together, they built a life, not without hardships, but filled with the kind of love that chooses, day after day, to endure. “We faced financial struggles, immigration hurdles and all the ups and downs of starting from scratch. But through it all, we held on to each other,” she said.
Then came the diagnosis that changed everything: Jerry had stage 4 esophageal cancer. “My first thought was, ‘Our life will never be the same,’” Michelle shared. But rather than surrender to despair, they chose to face it together. “From the beginning, it was always us. Never I or you. We made every decision as a team.”
Even as Michelle was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer herself, their love only deepened. “The vow ‘in sickness and in health’ became real,” she says. “We lived it.” Through every treatment, every sleepless night in the hospital, every quiet moment of fear — they stood as one.
As grief crept closer, so did grace. “Especially in the last seven days of Jerry’s life, our love became something sacred,” she recalled. In his final moments, she whispered, “You can go now, Sweetie. It’s okay.” Words that broke her heart to speak, but came from the purest form of love.
Writing “A Love Like Ours” was both painful and healing. “In the beginning, it felt like reopening wounds,” Michelle admitted. “But by the end, it became an act of healing. Each word helped stitch together fragments of grief with threads of love.”
The hardest chapters to write were those filled with uncertainty like doctor visits, treatment plans and the unspoken countdown of time. But peace came in writing about Jerry’s final days, days spent at home, as he wished, with Michelle and their dog Spike by his side.
Today, grief still comes in waves. “Some days are calm, others crash without warning,” she said. But Michelle chooses to move forward by remembering the love they built. She finds strength in community, in her Cebuano family’s prayers and in the comforting presence of Spike, her loyal Jack Russell Terrier. “His love is unconditional. He reminds me of the blessings that still surround me.”
Michelle’s story is about a love that continues to live: guiding, strengthening and inspiring her each day. “Gratitude doesn’t erase the pain,” she said. “But it softens the edges.”
“A Love Like Ours” is a tribute, not only to Jerry, but to the life they built together, and to the enduring power of love, faith and the human spirit. Through heartbreak and healing, Michelle Ferguson reminds readers that while life may be fleeting, love — real love — never ends. S