MRSVERGIEM

Have you ever experienced an unforeseen turn of events, a beautiful but unexpected?

December 2018. I received an email from our HR that our theme for that year’s Christmas party was scarlet and black. I scrolled down to the bottom of the email to look at the sample pictures that they sent. Black or scarlet or a combination of both. My face lit up, and I smiled from ear to ear. 

Red was my fave color, although I have nothing to wear yet, I got thrilled with the thought of dressing up with complete hair and makeup for an occasion. plus wearing my favorite color. 

I looked up online to see if I would see any dress that I liked. I saw a few, but the price did not fit my budget. 

I asked my mom to go with me to the mall to search for more options. We went to Glorietta and as we were going from store to store, I was chatting with my sister.

“I am here in Glorietta with Mamang,” I told her
“What are you doing there?” she replied
“I am looking for a dress for our party,”
“What kind of dress?”
“Our theme is scarlet and black,”
 

and then she gave me the most brilliant idea.

“Why don’t you use my maid of honor dress and simply put a lace over it?”
“OH MY! why didn’t I think of that? You’re a genius!” I messaged her back and locked my phone. 
I went to my mom, who was busy looking at the hanged dress in the corner of the store 

“Mang! We can use Grace’s maid of honor dress” I exclaimed, happy that I get to reuse a dress and save money.
“We just need to find a lace that we could cover the skirt part” I added.

And so our mission changed, from finding the perfect dress to finding a black lace that would match the dress.

Went to the second floor of the mall where the cloths were sold.
I saw a black lace with red butterflies patch on it.
Butterflies, in the old saying, are souls of your dead love ones. That is why, when I see butterflies, it reminds me of my Lola and Papang who left us and joined the Creator last 2015.
The lace was perfect for my maroon dress, as if it was meant to be. 

My mother worked on my dress immediately once we arrived home.
After a few days, I have my black and scarlet dress for our Christmas Party. We held it in Okada, one of the casino hotels in Pasay. A grand celebration with music, unlimited foods and drinks.
Then there was a raffle. I was never lucky with raffles; I won nothing from a company raffle, so I was not really interested in it. But something was bothering me, like a conscience whispering, that maybe I would win.

They say, pregnant people are lucky, and I was three months pregnant in a red dress. I was feeling a little lucky. They were calling out numbers on our ticket. I retrieved mine in my bag, not thinking about it, and I looked at the numbers written on the papers. And to my surprise, they called the numbers that I was staring at. I thought I was not seeing it correctly, that I asked the person beside to double check. And it was! I won a raffle. A15 thousand ticket to any domestic flight. Wow!

Since then, red or scarlet red with butterflies became my beautiful, lucky color and item 🙂

I used that trip to take my family to Boracay and also took our pregnancy photo shoot. It was a memorable and the best trip we had before our little one arrived.

An unexpected turn of events wherein I had already saved money for my dress, plus I also won a trip.
According to Faith Sullivan, sometimes the best things in life are unexpected.