On a cold night

26^th, September 2011

11:29pm

The rain is pouring really hard. I went downstairs to take a bath but the cold made me decide to just brush my teeth and wash up a bit without really wetting my entire body. Call me a goat if you want to but, it’s really just so chilly tonight.

I would have turned off my light had I not realized that with this kind of fear I have in my heart right now, I wouldn’t be able to sleep immediately. So instead of spending hours wide awake on my bed and in the dark, I thought that maybe I could ooze my fears out by typing them in here.

So it’s been like what, a week? A week since I first felt it. That hard, freaky thing I have in my left breast.

I asked several people I know if there’s a possibility that this is cancer but all they could tell me are words of comfort. They tell me this might just be nothing, they tell me they know someone who has this too but it wasn’t really cancer.. blablablablabla.

Those people who try to comfort me are the people whom I call my friends but I don’t really feel consoled. I wish they are right, that this is just nothing but I can’t seem to have peace. And the whole time, I try to ask myself what those people would do if I really have the Big C. Would they be sad, would they feel sorry for me, would they hate the heavens for inflicting me with such agony? Would they cry for me?

 I don’t know. And I guess, I am now undergoing that phase in life where you get to doubt the kind of affection your friends have for you.

But I don’t really care if they won’t cry for me because I am hoping no one’s going to die at a young age anyway. I am hoping I’d live. Oh gawsh. Now I’m being a total paranoid here but, can you blame me?

It’s cold. I just had dinner alone. The rain is so depressing and worst of all, I still have this lump on my chest.

I pray to Daddy Lord that even before I had this checked by a physician, the lump is already gone. Benign or malignant, I don’t want this lump.

I don’t want any reason to worry about dying so early. I just want to focus on the things that I have to work on in school and I have a lot, mind you.

Right now, what I’m truly wishing for is my mother telling me all will be well. My mother telling me that I am not sick and even if I am, she’ll be there to help me stay strong and fight off whatever disease I have.

Maybe that is just it. I just want someone who could make me feel that he/she really worries about me. Someone who can feel the same fear that I have; me fearing that I’d lose my life and him/ her fearing that he/she will lose me.

And that reminds me, just when I opened my laptop a few minutes ago… I saw the photos I’ve had with Elpijay and I felt sad even more.

Goodness. I have so many plans, so many dreams. I know I sort of stop believing in dreams for quite some time but there are still those dreams which I have kept somewhere in the corners of my heart, hoping that I could still make use of them when the time comes that I have enough strength to dream again.

Seeing those photos reminds me of that dream I’ve hold on to for so long. That dream of going home to a home (not just a house) where my loving husband waits for me and that no matter how bad my day was, he could make everything okay.

How beautiful would that be.

I promised myself I will never make the same mistakes my parents did. I’ll never go wrong in choosing the person I’d love. But why is it that I feel like I am dying already? What about my dreams, my aspirations in life? Would I just leave them in this world?

And what about Elpijay, my best friend and probably the only person in this world who truly cares for me and understands my pain, would I leave him too?

I can’t imagine leaving my best friend that way. I even told myself once, “Someday, I’m gonna marry that guy.”

But if this lump on my chest is really something, what would I do then? Videotape my birthday, Christmas, and Valentine’s day messages for all the people close to me?

Dear Lord, I am so scared. Please, let this be nothing. Please.

.....And it’s not raining that hard anymore. Might as well go to sleep.

END- 12:01am, 9/27/11

How different can we be?

I remember the first time I tried to work on my column for the next issue of the newspaper, it was two weeks ago. And for two weeks, I’ve been trying to open the document that I have saved in my laptop but all I ever really did was stare at the blinking cursor, tire my eyes, type a few sentences and then delete them.

I don’t understand why suddenly, I don’t know what to say, let alone what to think.

I just am not in touch with my emotions anymore. I am now equivalent to a book with empty pages, a bucket without water, a body without soul.

I wanted so bad to identify the root of this sudden numbness and that’s when I figured out that for quite some time, I’ve seen and heard much from my surroundings and my little brain has had enough. My little heart has felt so much, I am now disillusioned.

My thoughts may be hazy but there are a couple of faces I’ve seen not too long ago that seem to haunt me.

Pepe’s eyes

I remember my trip to Iloilo about two months ago. I left the city along with my fellow student writers early in the morning and on my way to the port, I chanced upon a young boy who was carrying his younger sister on his back while holding out a rusty can to passersby. I wondered if he and his sister have had breakfast but I didn’t bother to ask. When I got to Iloilo, I saw another kid whom I thought looked so much like the boy I passed by at the port. I looked closely but then I realized that they don’t actually look alike, they just have the same history of hunger written in their eyes. I knew I’ll eventually just forget about those kids, and I did. But only for a while.

Tatay Ben

He is an old man who first worked as gardener in the high school I went to but then he got sick and for some time, I didn’t see him. When I got to college, that’s when I saw him in the university where I go, picking plastic bottles from the garbage cans around the campus. When he retired, he was given an amount of money as retirement fee. This would have been a great help for Tatay Ben had a relative of his not tricked him and stolen his money. The last time I saw him, he was standing outside the second gate, I found out he is only allowed to enter the campus to attend the morning mass but he is not allowed to linger after some people reported to the school administration that he’s been begging money from students. Now, this is something that I couldn't really seem to accept as a fact for I am a 'friend' to the old man and yet he doesn't even asks for anything from me, so why would he from the others? And if indeed he is begging, and though mendicacy laws disallow us to give alms to, well, of course, mendicants, I however understand that for someone like him who does not have a family of his own and who is too old and sickly to be accepted even as a gardener somewhere, begging might be a more convenient resort.

The Innocent Bek-Bek

She is this carefree, bubbly, and ‘eternally innocent’ lady who can sometimes be seen begging money or playing with younger children in the streets near the University. She was featured in one of the school publication's magazine issues years back. Just reading about her, I thought she is the kind who will someday just grow old physically but would always remain a child by heart forever. 

Bek-Bek happens to manifest a certain delusion of grandeur. She believes herself to be a student of a prestigious university in the city, has several kids and is currently pregnant. She is usually the butt of jokes of passers by who have already considered her as nothing more than a laughing stock. It's a good thing that despite every insult and mockery she gets from people, our Bek-Bek is still strong enough to defend herself. 

But the point is, she is sick and due to her status in the society, she will remain as nothing more but an amusement for many of us who fail to see the rub beyond the joke. 

________________________________________________________________________________

True enough.

Three stories of unknown struggles and three faces of people that represent the sad realities suffered by many other little Pepes who can barely eat one meal a day, many other Tatay Bens who grow old without anyone to take care of them, and many other Bek-Beks whose ignorance serve as amusement for the mean ones.

Now, we could all just pretend these people don’t exist and go on living our lives. But if we do, how different can we be from those crocodiles in the government who enjoy comfort, power and prestige while millions of people starve every day?