But when I tell Boots this, she smiles and says that the ever-jovial Pete would have said, “He’ll tell me to tell you he’ll have to think twice about it.”

The actress, host, one-time senatorial bet, Ateneo instructor and Mowelfund Executive Director knows her husband only too well. They laugh a lot together even if what they’ve been through can make grown people cry.

You see, Boots has been caring for husband Pete, a onetime TV producer and director, ever since half of his body was paralyzed from a stroke 10 years ago.

But that’s not half of the story. In 2003, as she continued to care for Pete, their son fell seriously ill. At the same time, Boots’s father, the revered actor Oscar Moreno, who was also in their home recuperating from a kidney transplant, died.

Her vaunted poise remained intact throughout those years. She paced her grief, reserving her tears for the sad scenes she had to enact on whatever movie she was filming at the time.

It is, she insists, a “true joke.”

Four babies in seven years

The unflappable Boots was born Maria Elisa Anson Roa. Anson Roa is actually her maiden name. It was just fate that she married a man with the surname Roa. She was an Assumptionista till high school and then took Speech and Drama at U.P. On her senior year she started work on TV and did not finish her thesis. “I did not march, I marched down the aisle,” she says.

Boots was 19 when she married Pete Roa on June 5, 1964. It was an Anson Roa-Roa nuptial. The following year, she became a mom. Within the next seven years she had four kids – Leah, now 41 and married, is the assistant to the Dean of Graduate School in Education of Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia; Joey, 40, is single and is into tourism and housing; 36-year-old Chiqui is married and works in television; and Ben, the youngest at 34, works as a marketing director for an I.T. company in Arlington, Virginia. While living in the U.S. in 1983, Boots had a miscarriage. That baby would have been 23 now.

Four babies in seven years sounds like a handful but even more so for Boots who never stopped working till the last months of her pregnancies. She likes it that way, she relates with some pride. Work is her thing.

“ In the case of my youngest, I was shooting a movie till a month before delivery because the role was that of a pregnant woman.”

With Boots in front of the cameras (TV and movies), Pete was busy behind them as TV producer, director and talent. He is the real management person in their house, Boots acknowledges.

“ Pete is laid back. ‘Don’t sweat the small stuff,’ he always says. Ako yung chronic worrier.”

Though they differ in management style, they are in sync when it comes to the stuff that matters.

“ By nature pareho kami ni Pete na hindi confrontational. ‘Pag galit kami, bumababa ang boses namin... It’s more effective to scold people with a lower voice. Our children were brought up that way. We would bring them somewhere and talk to them alone. They end up crying. Walang sigawan.”

Which is odd by showbiz standards. Boots and Pete’s lack of histrionics and wild drama in their lives may have been a tad too boring for the kind of career they chose but they were both too intelligent and too balanced to get into fits. That is, until the karmic plates shifted.

Change

On July 31, 1997, Pete’s blocked carotid glands triggered a massive stroke. The left side of his body was paralyzed. But his heart on his non-functioning left side continued to pump blood to the other half of the body. This is where perspective is important. The glass can be seen as half-empty or half-full. And in Pete’s case, his body can be viewed as half-dead or half-alive. It was their good marriage that gave Boots and Pete the perspective and tenacity to go through the ordeal.

Like a baby thrown into a swimming pool, Boots had to quickly learn the art of caregiving. Pete needed her to help him with everything. “He is not demanding naman,” she demurs, “but since paralyzed yung left arm and leg, you have to lift his left leg, help him get dressed, slice his food, feed him.” It also meant irregular sleeping hours, since she had to help Pete go to the toilet twice every night. Plus she had to go to work the next morning.

“ I go home for lunch everyday as much as possible.” The only times she goes out at night is for functions where she is the speaker or guest. Otherwise she sits with Pete in front of the TV at night while he updates her about world news.

For a while, Boots had help in the person of their second son, Joey, who flew back from the States to help take care of his father. But around 2003, he too became seriously ill. His kidneys were faltering. During this time, Boots’s father, actor Oscar Moreno, had also moved in with them as he was still in the process of recovering from his kidney transplant.

So Boots, the workaholic and mater dolorosa, found herself caring for three generations of men in her family living under one roof. She recalls telling them, “Huwag sabay-sabay (maging) grabe, ha, kasi mahina ang kalaban.”

In a weird if wicked way, her prayer was answered.

In July 2003, Boots’ dad died. By October of the same year, Joey started with his dialysis (a year later he had a kidney transplant). It was also in that same year when Pete, who was already able to walk short distances with a cane, slipped in the bathroom one morning and fractured his left hip.

“ Buti na lang yung left hip (which was already paralyzed),” Boots says, unimaginably looking at the bright side. “Imagine kung ‘yung right.”
Boy, what a year that was.

Learn

“ That which doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger,” Nietzsche said. Well, that only holds true if the person learns from the poison he survives.

For his Ateneo alumni homecomings, some of Pete’s classmates offered to carry him in his wheelchair just to convince him to go, but he always declined, saying, “I don’t want to get in the way.” Publicly, Pete owns up to his bad karma. He smoked three packs of cigarettes a day, drank, stayed up late and soaked up the pressures of his job at ABS-CBN. Ergo, the stroke. Now he knows he had it coming but didn’t pay attention then.

In her side career as caregiver, Boots also learned to intuit Pete’s wishes.

“ He is naturally self-effacing, hindi mareklamo,” she explains. “Yun nga, kung minsan you have to read his mind to find out what his other needs are, aside from the essentials. Yung emotional and psychological, medyo titimplahin mo kasi hindi siya nagsasalita.”

She also learned when and how to cry. “Minsan I was out in the kitchen, he was (in bed) trying to reach the bell, he fell. When I returned 15 minutes later, wala siya sa kama. He was on the side of the bed, nakaganyan (sitting still, staring). Di mo alam kung patay na ba yan. At that moment I wanted to blurt out in tears, but I can’t, I have to be strong. When I do my crying, it’s when I’m alone. Or when Pete is sleeping, I would caress him and whisper ‘Mahal kita. I love you. I’ll take care of you.’”

But lately, she has found a better way to cry. “I have this joke, which is true, when I want to break down (in) tears. (It’s) teka muna, hihintayin ko na lang next shooting day ko where I have a dramatic scene na iiyak ako. Ibubuhos ko na lang dun. I can vent it out, may talent fee pa ko.”

Laugh and live

For Pete’s birthday last January 16, they went out on a date. They attended a 7 a.m. Mass and had breakfast in a restaurant. “O sino magbabayad nito?” Boots asked. Pete replied, “’Ba ikaw, e bertdey ko e.” A fortnight later, on January 30, Boots celebrated her 62nd birthday. She probably asked the same question during their breakfast date, just for kicks. And for Valentine’s, yes they always go out.

Boots is presently the Executive Director of Mowelfund, teaches production and broadcasting subjects at U.P and Ateneo, and works as a talent on TV. At her age, she is not slowing down.

“ First, I can’t afford to retire and I don’t see myself not doing anything. ‘Pag nag-retire ako, not rendering any service, I think I’m going to deteriorate.”

Pete undergoes physical therapy in a hospital and reflexology at home twice a week and mahjong therapy with his siblings every Saturday. His doctors say the latter appears to be the best therapy because it engages his mind fully.

Be ready

In the 2004 elections, the late Fernando Poe, Jr., who ran for president against Gloria Arroyo, asked Boots to run for senator under his ticket. She declined, primarily because she doesn’t like politics, and needed to spend time with Pete. So FPJ took the cue and went to talk directly with Pete. The two men agreed Boots would throw her hat into the political ring with Pete working from their home as her campaign manager. Their chances were slim but they were working together so everything was okay.

We all know how the 2004 elections turned out. It was a morbid experience for many. Now Boots can only smile and shake her head when asked if she would run again this May.

Right now, some of her conversations with Pete run to what some consider another morbid topic – funeral arrangements.

Boots: “O ano ka ba, cremation ka ba? You want to use our lot in Loyola or our slot in the Columbarium? Where do you want your wake?”

Pete: “I don’t want to know the details kasi mauuna ko sa ‘yo.”

Boots: “Wow, how sweet naman, you’re willing to go ahead.”

Pete: “Yeah, because I don’t want to fix your funeral details. You fix my funeral details; I can’t fix your funeral details, hindi ko alam ‘yang mga ‘yan.”

Boots: “Ako, my wake is at U.P. or Assumption and now since I work here at Mowelfund, dito rin.”

The repartée, both funny and perverse, says a lot about the relationship Boots and Pete share: candid, open, droll and enviably connected.

When asked if she would go through it all over again with Pete the answer was quick.

“ Oh yeah! Think of the nurses who do this everyday for people they don’t know, they don’t love, who are not part of their lives. E ito, mahal mo ito e. ‘Pag mahal mo, hindi sakripisyo yan. I always tell Pete, ‘Don’t feel bad about us taking care of you, kasi para sa amin, the caring that we give you is not a sacrifice, it’s an act of giving, it has its own joys. Bawi na kami du’n.’”

So is Pete the luckiest guy on earth? Wrong question. Though he may have harvested bad karma, he surely must have planted seeds of good karma as well to have a woman like Boots with him in this journey. For in a universe ruled by cause and effect, everything that happens in our lives is deserved. Even the truest love.