She belongs to a powerful circle of women?a woman of class who went beyond her class to reach out to the disadvantaged youth

MANILA, Philippines?Gathered in the private room at Carpaccio for lunch must be some of the most powerful mothers and wives in the country. Judy Araneta Roxas, Sari Cojuangco, Marivic Concepcion, Maribel Ongpin, Presy Lopez Psinakis?.the list goes on although it?s very short, for this is a private, special affair.

Yet the woman of the hour is none of the above. The room is a hive, each table a juicy chatter, but underlying this bustle is the women?s collective anticipation of the honoree?s arrival.

Finally, the honoree arrives. The women in the room are hushed. You see them tearing up, their faces a flood of emotions. The honoree looks beautiful, radiant even, in her signature black and white trouser ensemble, her hair the trademark ?boy cut? she?s become known for?a style identity ahead of its time. Your eyes are glued to that face aglow, its happy smile particularly, but when you let your gaze stray downward?you notice the wheelchair.

But to the gathering, the wheelchair is a minor detail. Everyone is just happy to welcome Aurora Silayan-Go to her first social outing in two years?her birthday, her second life?after suffering a serious stroke that affected a great part of her brain, leaving her speech and movement impaired. Indeed her doctors and mostly everyone else were guarded in their optimism about her recovery, even survival, early on.

But apparently her husband Henry and five children Kenneth, Rina, Jeff, Maggie and Francis weren?t about to give up and give up on Aurora. Bringing back the old Aurora, or at least a functioning Aurora, has become a diligent labor of love for her husband, children, and the friends who form a vast and diverse universe that cuts across social class, age and professional background.

Indeed it?s hard to imagine giving up on Aurora. She is the quintessential, compleat Filipina?a woman of high society (she?s godmother to Sen. Mar Roxas and Loren Legarda) whose world was never confined to high society; a wife and mother whose caring and attention went beyond her family to include the Filipino youth and the disadvantaged. Before her stroke, she would go daily to Quiapo, where the office of the Foundation for Adolescent Development (FAD), the NGO she helped found, was. She is a sociologist whose yearning to learn and make a difference in society persisted long after retirement age.

She was a regular on Manila?s Best Dressed List whose sense of style was both individual and ahead of its time. With close friend fashion designer Auggie Cordero, she cooked up in the ?90s an Audrey Hepburn-inspired wedding for eldest daughter Rina, herself a pioneer of ready-to-wear design. She would mix-and-match wardrobes (say, tunic with loose pants, vest), luxury brands with ?ukay-ukay? finds long before fashion glossies heralded the style formula. She herself would snip her hair spiky short and dye it an auburn glow, long before hair color became a style statement. She discovered the pearls of Greenhills tiangge way before Vogue wrote about it.

A woman of style and substance?in the case of many women, this tagline is no more than marketing hype. In Aurora?s case, however, it is really what she is.

At a critical time when the Filipino is hard put to find countrymen to emulate, Aurora?s story is a find: A woman of means who reached out to those without the means?a woman with the good heart to go with her privileged background, a woman of class who wasn?t stifled by her class.

Born to a family that was into the arts?legendary actor and National Artist Vic Silayan was her late brother and the late beauty queen/actress Chat Silayan was her niece?Aurora graduated with Liberal Arts at Assumption before she took her Master of Arts in Sociology, as a Fullbright scholar, at Fordham University in New York City. From high school to college at Assumption, she built a tight circle of friends that included Judy Araneta Roxas, who calls Aurora her ?dearest friend? to this day, which is why Judy?s son Mar, the senator-now-vice-presidential-candidate, is like a son to her. Mrs Roxas remembers Aurora as her seatmate ?with pigtails???She?s genuine, very warm and sincere.? Today, even if Aurora is hardly able to communicate, she and Mrs Roxas have breakfast every Friday at the Aranetas? Bahay na Puti in Cubao?the precious bonding of two lifelong friends that?s gone beyond oral communication.

Another in Aurora?s lifetime circle of friends was Bessie Legarda, the late mother of Loren, with whom Aurora shared a passion for collecting art. Bessie and Aurora were good friends of National Artist Vicente Manansala, so it was no surprise that the two had had the most interesting works of the master. Aurora is also a close friend of Bencab.

Also in that circle are Sari Cojuangco, the sister-in-law of Cory Aquino, married to Cory?s brother Pete, Maridol Mabanta, Cecile Ongsiako, Dely Ongsiako.

Aurora has the grace of nurturing friendships through the decades, thoughtful about birthdays and personal milestones.

With an Associate Degree in Music (she loves to play the piano) and a brother who loomed large in theater, Aurora is also a trustee of the Philippine Educational Theater Association (Peta).

She tapped that gem of social network for her profession in the NGO, which spanned 33 years, from 1975 to early 2008 when she suffered a stroke. Before NGO work, she was into research as research director of the Institute of Philippine Culture at Ateneo de Manila University, and sociology teacher at Assumption, Maryknoll, St. Scholastica, FEU.

Shortly after years of teaching, she joined the Commission on Population, then the Population Center Foundation. It was in NGO, however, that she devoted much of her profession, her projects benefiting a wide swath of the disadvantaged society, from street children to adolescents. In all these, her concern was adolescent sexuality and reproductive health.

Her advocacy had always been to guide the development of the young in sexuality and development. In 1988, she helped found FAD, an NGO that has tapped the likes of Lea Salonga (Lea?s mother Ligaya is another good friend) to reach out to the young.

FAD is into the formation of values among teens. It addresses the teen?s concerns such as self-esteem, parent-child relationship, boy-girl relationship, sexuality. Over the decades it initiated projects such as Dial-a-Friend, the first phone hotline counseling for the young; the E-mail-a-Friend, web-based counseling; franchising of Teens Healthquarters in municipalities and cities, a one-stop medical-educational counseling youth facility with the local government.

On top of developing these projects, she was raising funds for them. That was why at socials, Aurora was known to be always bringing up the topic of ?sex? if only to marshal support for her advocacy of adolescent development.

Today, her work in FAD is needing support and is being continued by her daughter Rina, friends like Tessie Sierra as president, Rosie Dy-Go, and the friends of her daughters like Karen Santos and Lizette Cojuangco.

Indeed Aurora led a packed?but very purposeful?life. Atop this is her being a wife to Henry, a businessman who?s been so fiercely devoted to her, his introvert personality the opposite of hers?and a mother.

?She?s always been a working mom. We grew up watching her multi-task,? says daughter Maggie, an Architecture graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design in New York (Kenny Roast is among her work). ?She?s been quite strict about basic value formation. She wanted us to be well-rounded and exposed to the arts, so growing up, when we traveled to New York, she?d bring us to watch Broadway plays...She wanted us to be always groomed. She?d say: ?Please fix yourself before you go out! Who do you think you are leaving the house without makeup, Audrey Hepburn???

Aurora the mother went through serious trials, but the most severe yet was when Maggie was diagnosed with melanoma five years ago. ?Being the ?always in control? type, she tried to organize and move mountains, did all the research on melanoma,? Maggie recalls. ?She wrote her doctor friends in the US so she could understand better the disease and try all the best options. She accompanied me to every surgery, wanted the entire family involved in the process...Only when the work is done does the emotional side get the better of her. I?d find her just crying sometimes.?

Maggie and her siblings treasure the bond of her parents: ?My mom would not be who she is today were it not for my dad. They go hand in hand like a complete package. She is the accomplished woman because of the way my dad treated her, and what they have are shared values?of family, hard work, dignity and self-respect.?

It was almost midnight two years ago. Henry awoke from a light sleep to discover that Aurora hadn?t yet joined him in bed. Could she be up text-messaging again, Henry must have wondered about his hyperactive wife. On impulse, he walked to the bathroom, and there on the floor, found her slumped.

Today, Aurora, the bedrock of her family and wide community of friends, has defied the initial sad prognosis, enough to celebrate her birthday last August 24. This is thanks to the care and affection of family and friends.

The woman who?s always loved to give of herself is also receiving her gift of love?a heartwarming story on a rainy day.