It was the dawn of Saturday when I caught sight of it. My grandma's quaint bedroom door ajar with the breeze blowing inside, If I had known any better I would've run straight to Mammita and tell her about the ghost in the room but my kid self had been frozen in either terror or awe, I couldn't remember. His eyes had been the most beautiful shades of Amber, his skin the color of firewood— ones he’d often use to cook us delicacies, too good to share with neighbors. My eyes drifted to his hair, it wasn't white like the ones my eyes had grown used to, It was dark and everything seemed like a 90's movie where he was a soldier returning lovingly from the battle field to carry me back in his arms where I belonged. He let out a small smile, “Your Mammita doesn't like it when her door is left open, the dogs might come in.”
As if regaining my composure, I ran, my little hands closing her door before walking back. I cried.
I don’t know, wala tayong taga luto.
This is the first time I have ever written of you and I wish pain and absence didn't take the place of a person. He was supposed to be here. I was supposed to know him and take care of him.
—external part of essay (will not be submitted)
I’ve read a poem on Pinterest, it says ‘poetry does not cure grief--but it understands’ and perhaps this goes the same for you as well. These letters will not accomplish anything, this will not bring you back and I am ashamed to confess that I have written literature for people who have not earned it and yet I couldn’t offer even a single comma for you. Forgive me, I was too young, too young to joke about death but naive enough to carry the gravity of it. Forgive me, forgive me for seemingly turning blind eye to your encased body in need of warm embraces. Forgive my childish eyes, for looking unfeeling. I love you so much.
Grief is different. Grief has no distance. It comes in waves, paroxysm, sudden apprehension that weakens the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailiness of life. But does grief come in all forms? Was it grief when my adolescence wept without cognizance of what was truly happening, was it grief to be numb from the absolute agony of death right in front of my eyes? Was it grief to take years before my brain had processed what had happened? Facing grief is tough, I had not expected it to take the shape of an English essay on a random Thursday night. I miss you more than I remember you and I do not know what that says about me, if that is such a bad thing as all I wanted is to embrace you.
—internal part of essay (will be submitted)
In another universe, your soft fatherly eyes gazed at me with fondness while you handed me the piso I've been asking for since yesterday. In another universe, we had an ulam that is not sunny side up.
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