I Love You and Goodbye
One of the most painful things I've had to live through was losing Michael 8 years ago. We were classmates back in Kindergarten and even when his family left for the States, he & I kept close touch. Over the years, Michael dotted on me like any big brother, and though most of our interaction revolved around letters sent to each other and occasional phone calls, Michael to this day remains one of the very few people who really knows me -and that circle hasn't really gotten much bigger.
After more than 5 years, I saw him again that summer of '99. I don't think I can ever do justice to how those days we spent together made me feel so I'm not even going to try, but I do know this: Those weeks definitely holds an irreplaceable spot in my heart and while it ended in bittersweet fashion, it was in those days that I met myself, all thanks to my angel of a friend.
Towards the end of his stay, Michael told me he came home to see me and tell me he loved me, how he's always loved me. Then he told me he had Brain Cancer. He said in 3 days, he would have to head back to the US to have that one crucial surgery that would either make or take his life. I don't think I prayed as hard as I did on that day of his operation, praying that should God grant me one miracle in my life, I hoped this would be it.
I guess God still owes me a miracle. On June 4, 1999, Michael died in surgery.
I remember how hard the news hit me. I couldn't believe someone as lively and wonderful in every way could be robbed of a future. I think I bawled over the whole thing in just one day and decided for myself that I would need to numb myself because I knew the uncanny pain would just render me insane if I didn't. Good thing I did because 24 days later, my grandmother too, passed away.
That year was a particularly dark one for me. The death of my grandfather 3 years before tops the list of the year-I'd-rather-not-think-back-on but '99 was just as horrible and in certain levels, a lot more harder to get through. It was that year that I saw life for what it really was. Hard and most of the time, down right unfair. I realized that life doesn't get easier, or better for that matter. It's us who should aspire to be better and wield ourselves to become stronger. I realized I owed Michael (and everyone else close to me who have gone on) to give living my very best shot, to honor, not the life he could have had (because knowing Michael, being Up There is more than what he could ask for), but the one that he lived with such effortless kindness and compassion.
It's days of reminiscing about someone I have lost forever that I am reminded of the people I have lost but are still very much at an arm's length. People who have exited my life for different reasons, leaving me keloid-scarred which all came with and from very different hurts. They are those who have hurt me, enough to make me give up on them or those I have hurt, enough to make them give up on me. And I guess it's time to move past all the hurts, suck all the poison out and start living the life I foolishly allowed hurt and pain to take over of in all these years. It's time to get cracking on the What's Here Now and on What's Coming Soon than the What if's and the What Could Have Beens.
It's high time to forgiven myself and all those who have come in my life who taught me that love and friendship really does go hand in hand with pain. I have accepted and now I am going to deal. With all of it.
Today is Monday, the 4th of June and apart from this headache (and cough and colds and fever), there is nothing in my life I can really complain about. There are next to intolerable days but there are just far too amazing things in my life that can peel me away from celebrating. Celebrating the 21 colorful years I have had.. Celebrating the years I know will be just as colorful and, Celebrating the people who are, have and I hope to have continuously paint my life with the colors each of them represent. People who have given me every reason to wake up feeling blessed to be alive. People who continues to inspire me just for their very being, existence and the legacy they have left in my life with the most indelible kind of mark. People like my Mother, my best friend Coni, my Grandparents. People like Michael.
Today isn't just about Michael's death, but rejoicing the 8th year he has reunited with the One who loves him the most, and took him out of his misery (from his tumor) to experience the grand life only an angel, deserves. He, after all, deserved it more than anyone else.
And so, to Michael, to the one who's always made my heart smile and sing, Thank you. For Everything. I don't think I can ever fully transcribe how much you mean to me but I'll give it a shot and just say, I Love You.
Let me now share something I found in one of my journals, from circa 1999, written months after he died. He was one of the very few I allowed to have access in my journals; he always encouraged my writing. Even with my not-so-polished grammar back then, he always saw right through me and my words."It's your heart that makes your works so good, it has so much soul", he once said.
A poem for someone who was more than a friend, more than a brother.. Michael was my insides, the force that has kept me together all those years and now that I think back on the years he has blessed my life with his mere presence, I remember one of the very last things he told me before he left; "I'll be okay, I'll be back and who knows, after all this, I might be able to take care of you more".
And I know he's doing just that.
After more than 5 years, I saw him again that summer of '99. I don't think I can ever do justice to how those days we spent together made me feel so I'm not even going to try, but I do know this: Those weeks definitely holds an irreplaceable spot in my heart and while it ended in bittersweet fashion, it was in those days that I met myself, all thanks to my angel of a friend.
Towards the end of his stay, Michael told me he came home to see me and tell me he loved me, how he's always loved me. Then he told me he had Brain Cancer. He said in 3 days, he would have to head back to the US to have that one crucial surgery that would either make or take his life. I don't think I prayed as hard as I did on that day of his operation, praying that should God grant me one miracle in my life, I hoped this would be it.
I guess God still owes me a miracle. On June 4, 1999, Michael died in surgery.
I remember how hard the news hit me. I couldn't believe someone as lively and wonderful in every way could be robbed of a future. I think I bawled over the whole thing in just one day and decided for myself that I would need to numb myself because I knew the uncanny pain would just render me insane if I didn't. Good thing I did because 24 days later, my grandmother too, passed away.
That year was a particularly dark one for me. The death of my grandfather 3 years before tops the list of the year-I'd-rather-not-think-back-on but '99 was just as horrible and in certain levels, a lot more harder to get through. It was that year that I saw life for what it really was. Hard and most of the time, down right unfair. I realized that life doesn't get easier, or better for that matter. It's us who should aspire to be better and wield ourselves to become stronger. I realized I owed Michael (and everyone else close to me who have gone on) to give living my very best shot, to honor, not the life he could have had (because knowing Michael, being Up There is more than what he could ask for), but the one that he lived with such effortless kindness and compassion.
It's days of reminiscing about someone I have lost forever that I am reminded of the people I have lost but are still very much at an arm's length. People who have exited my life for different reasons, leaving me keloid-scarred which all came with and from very different hurts. They are those who have hurt me, enough to make me give up on them or those I have hurt, enough to make them give up on me. And I guess it's time to move past all the hurts, suck all the poison out and start living the life I foolishly allowed hurt and pain to take over of in all these years. It's time to get cracking on the What's Here Now and on What's Coming Soon than the What if's and the What Could Have Beens.
It's high time to forgiven myself and all those who have come in my life who taught me that love and friendship really does go hand in hand with pain. I have accepted and now I am going to deal. With all of it.
Today is Monday, the 4th of June and apart from this headache (and cough and colds and fever), there is nothing in my life I can really complain about. There are next to intolerable days but there are just far too amazing things in my life that can peel me away from celebrating. Celebrating the 21 colorful years I have had.. Celebrating the years I know will be just as colorful and, Celebrating the people who are, have and I hope to have continuously paint my life with the colors each of them represent. People who have given me every reason to wake up feeling blessed to be alive. People who continues to inspire me just for their very being, existence and the legacy they have left in my life with the most indelible kind of mark. People like my Mother, my best friend Coni, my Grandparents. People like Michael.
Today isn't just about Michael's death, but rejoicing the 8th year he has reunited with the One who loves him the most, and took him out of his misery (from his tumor) to experience the grand life only an angel, deserves. He, after all, deserved it more than anyone else.
And so, to Michael, to the one who's always made my heart smile and sing, Thank you. For Everything. I don't think I can ever fully transcribe how much you mean to me but I'll give it a shot and just say, I Love You.
Let me now share something I found in one of my journals, from circa 1999, written months after he died. He was one of the very few I allowed to have access in my journals; he always encouraged my writing. Even with my not-so-polished grammar back then, he always saw right through me and my words."It's your heart that makes your works so good, it has so much soul", he once said.
A poem for someone who was more than a friend, more than a brother.. Michael was my insides, the force that has kept me together all those years and now that I think back on the years he has blessed my life with his mere presence, I remember one of the very last things he told me before he left; "I'll be okay, I'll be back and who knows, after all this, I might be able to take care of you more".
And I know he's doing just that.
I Love You and Goodbye
I knew you all my life but I didn't really care
You loved me all the way I know I haven't been fair
And as you lie there, just waiting for your time to die
All I can do is stand here and watch you as I cry
I have been so heartless, so selfish and so vain
Yet you took care of me, so why are you in pain?
Why are you the one who's hurt? Why couldn't it be me?
Why did God had to let you suffer? Really can't he see?
That i'm the one with all the faults, I'm the one who's wrong
And on that bed of sorrow and death, it is I who really belong
But nothing else can be done now, this is how our fate's to be
I'm to live my life alone, while you're headed to eternity
And as you breathe your last breath..
I cannot help but cry
I never said I loved you
But now I must say Goodbye.
I knew you all my life but I didn't really care
You loved me all the way I know I haven't been fair
And as you lie there, just waiting for your time to die
All I can do is stand here and watch you as I cry
I have been so heartless, so selfish and so vain
Yet you took care of me, so why are you in pain?
Why are you the one who's hurt? Why couldn't it be me?
Why did God had to let you suffer? Really can't he see?
That i'm the one with all the faults, I'm the one who's wrong
And on that bed of sorrow and death, it is I who really belong
But nothing else can be done now, this is how our fate's to be
I'm to live my life alone, while you're headed to eternity
And as you breathe your last breath..
I cannot help but cry
I never said I loved you
But now I must say Goodbye.
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