When you know it’s drawing near

Before I left for Hong Kong and Macau, I still managed to go home to my parents’ house to visit Nanay.

Although I don’t get to visit every day, I make it a point to go have dinner with her and spend time with her at least twice a week.

Last night, I went home to see her again.

And she’s very different.

I know about the late-night episodes when she couldn’t breathe and she couldn’t sleep.

Her breast cancer is not painful but it’s making her lungs weak. It’s filling her lungs up with water that she has this wheezing sound whenever she breathes. Her stroke last year also hampers her motor skills.

Knowing about it is very different from actually seeing it.

When I saw her, she was pale. She still held my hand, but her grip is weaker. Her eyes are sad. And she looks very tired.

I don’t want to see her suffer. I don’t want her to feel any pain.

Over the weekend, I prayed that if the Universe is taking her away, then take her away happily and peacefully. Please don’t make her suffer.

She has served the family all her life. She doesn’t deserve it.

Nanay, I love you. You are the essence of who I am right now – my courage, my strength, my spirit. A large part of me, you made me who I am.

If you need to go, then you shouldn’t worry about us who will be left. We can manage and we will take care of the family.

But when you go, I hope you will remember.

I hope you won’t forget me.

Lost as I was

Back then, things were so much simpler.

I had fine things in life. We can travel to places whenever we see fit.

I can shop whenever I want to. I had an emotional connection with someone.

I had love.

I had sense of security.

Now, things are different.

I have finer things. I can go anywhere, shop for anything.

Not because this was the path I chose for material reasons or motivations. I had the material things even before this. I can even buy the blings myself. It’s just that more is given now. Purely incidental.

I still have love. More intense, more passionate.

But I lost my sense of security. My sense of place in the relationship. Even my sense of self.

How very ironic --- I have never felt most loved yet I have never felt this unsafe, this insecure.

If you ask me, I don’t know if I’m better off.

I’m just as lost as I was.

I am not an insecure girlfriend. Yet, he managed to make me feel the most insecure – like in a snap of a finger, I can lose him. And I can lose everything that exists between us.

It hurts too much that I can’t even say it. Friends have been asking me what’s going on --- why these writings, why this sadness. Yet I can’t find the explanation.

Perhaps when the pain is too much, words will never be enough to capture the misery of it.

And I write here because I can’t exactly tell him.

To friends who have expressed concern, to those who openly ask --- Gemma, Charo, Arlene --- thank you.

To the women out there who carry the same burden and feel the heart-wrenching pain --- we all have reasons to grieve, to secretly shed those tears at night when nobody else can see or hear. We all have different kinds of crosses to bear.

Inner peace. Unrelenting strength. Inexorable courage.

We have them in us. May we keep them --- along with our faith.

Never too sure, never too complacent

- Starworld Hotel, Macau
3:53 am, April 9, 2007

The Universe sure has a way of sending her message.

Amidst all things being seemingly grounded, she has a way of reminding me to never be too sure of anything.

I tried to appease her in the entire time that I was here.

Yet the message remains the same.

Never be quite sure of what is shown, nor what is said.

There are things hidden, words never spoken, circumstances left unexplained.

Yet they have a way of unfolding.

To get to me. To tell me something.

As I mourn, out of nowhere, the sky turned gray.

The rain fell as tears were falling.

She definitely has a way of reflecting all the emotions that have been welling inside.

But to the Universe, I can never be ungrateful.

Thank you for the signs.

And thank you for teaching me what I should learn.

How I should deal.

Let all of her continue to conspire in my favor to see this one through.