Keep on keeping on

This has been a tough week. Difficult. Exhausting...


Heartbreaking.


This past week, I've watched someone I love, lose someone who was dearly beloved. I've watched friends and family hold each other up as their sorrow reverberates to the skies; pouring in pain of the bereaved. I've watched the woman who was a mother, wife, best friend - clutching her chest as if it could keep her heart from breaking to pieces. I've watched the love of my life, looking for answers that will never come.


I've watched, while listening to my own grief knocking at my door. Because when you get down to it, you can't comfort your loved ones from grief without splitting scars and reopening wounds that's been buried deep in the crevices of your core. I want to tell him that there's nothing wrong of letting go, to cry until there's nothing left. I want to tell him that there will be times where he thinks he's come to acceptance, only to be reminded of that one thing that will turn him inside out and start falling apart all over again. I wish I could wipe it all away - I wish I could do more. When Genette left, I could barely stand hearing her name while I searched relentlessly for someone to tell me this is all a bad dream; for her to come around the corner to tell me that this was a joke. I wish that she would. I wish, I wish, I wish.


But there's no hope in looking back. I can't offer any comforting words to say - I'm as bad in dealing with grief as anyone. So while it hurts, and the darkness seem to close in, I can tell you one thing I know for certain. You ready?


We just keep on breathing. 
Keep on keeping on.
Hope will come, love will mend, life will move on. They're not left behind - they're with us; they're with us in the miracle of life so that we can share and impart our fondest of memories of them and our footprints for the generations to come.


All I know is that they're there. In spirit, in heart. This is what keeps me going so I can be the support he can lean on at this most difficult time. So that one day I can celebrate and watch him conquer his demons, to accept, love, and find peace within himself.


PS: Kuya Pogz, say hi to Genette for me up there.

While We Weep....

One year, one month, two weeks, three days, and five hours.

685 days.

And the sound of your name still leaves an echo; proof of the gap you've left behind.
I thought that I could be the strong one, but the sight of you leaves a tightness in my chest I could barely breathe.
If I could trade my soul and make a deal with the devil, I'd do it, if it means seeing you for a second, a minute... a lifetime; Maybe to make up 685 days of your absence of the hollow space of where you used to be.
I have not recovered from the trauma of losing you, may never heal completely. Even though 685 days turns to a thousand, there is still the scar that binds a broken heart that could never mend.
I know what you'll say if you've seen me walking down the street. "Move on," with that perfect smile of yours. But don't you see? Life is meaningless without the twinkle of your eyes and the brightness of a smile that could light up a thousand suns.
But I carry on the legacy of your beauty on my shoulder. It just gets so hard at times. I work to the bone to numb my mind from thinking too much. I find the comfort of friends, lover, strangers to see if they could fill in as much space there is. Yet there are times I wake up in the morning and I want to cry so hard until there's nothing left.
It just gets harder. I've moved on, I believe. I've strongly adviced myself to let go...
But baby, you had been the one to release your hand and let go in the torrent of what we call life.
I stood over you today, babe. I know it's only an empty commemoration of you but I find comfort of something solid so I can anchor myself here. Without you, don't you know, I float away?
But I see our family hurting the same way... because you have profound presence over us. You are a beacon that guides us away from the world, ourselves.
With you I understand now what it means, babe. With you, I know that even though you've only been here for a little while, you've taught me... to be me. You've taught me to appreciate. So even though it hurts to hear your name, it kills to see your picture or anywhere, I am always going to love you, my baby girl.

This is what it means to have a big family--
That they will never give you the time of day for yourself; you have to do your equal part on the billion things of errands; they will constantly test your patience; being the only single girl in the family you take part in becoming the surrogate mother to the younger ones; that even though you get back to the real world you still miss them anyway; and no matter how many there are, they can still feel the loss of a loved one, hurting just as much as you are.

2009-- The Remaining Days.

I don't want to face the music. I don't want to dance in the rain. Truth be told is that my heart aches. It is a lingering sting between laughter and smiles; a silence that seems to be louder than the earth splitting in half. It always seems to come back and haunt me when I am alone, even though I keep telling myself that I am happy. However, I am a walking contradiction because I am happy... most of the time. But the ache is also the other half of that happiness that never seems to go away. At first, maybe it was a phase or a depression that can be drowned with medications prescribed by people who knows nothing of the heartache that fills the being at times even when the sun is at its peak in the sky.

But it has been two decades. I have lived with this heartache for awhile, even when I was a little, even before I could fathom the depth of life and what had yet to come. But in this journey, these last remaining days of 2009 and into the moment 2010 begins, I will try my best to understand.

Let the adventure begin.