This is my story. These are the memories that remain etched in my brain, and made my pen struggle to keep up with what is left in my heart. This is me with my pride down to the soles of my feet, and my tough skin peeled off layer by layer until I am nothing but honest. I am unveiling myself raw and vulnerable like the scars I was left with, and the wounds I am enduring because I have chosen not to plaster an old band aid on something so hard to heal. This was me at my worst.
It began last 2014, while I was in the middle of my usual academic chaos, home responsibilities, and other stressful things. That one day felt like the beginning of the end for me. It became the prologue of a novel that had me hooked ever since my eyes first laid on the first word. Cancer.
Saying the word felt like tasting something so bitter; something like poison. The aftertaste resided in my tongue no matter how I much I try to smile. I always knew what it was but never how it felt like. It had always been that dramatic plot twist in books or movies that I never gave too much thought of, or that incurable disease that a lot of people die from. Was it wrong of me not to expect that she was next in line?
Chapter 2015, she asked me if she had gotten thinner. It was weeks after her chemotherapy.
I answered with, “No, you look okay.”
She did not like it when I lie, and I knew that she knew I did.
I could only imagine how hard it must have been, to be stripped off of something that made her used to feel more like woman rather than someone dying. She could have cried. She could have told me how painful it was for her. But she didn’t. Even though she saw me through my lies, she just smiled and asked me how I was in school.
Chapter 2016, she asked me if I was sad to spend Christmas and New Year’s Eve alone. Again.
I answered with, “No, it’s okay,” as the sound of fireworks crackling and my dog barking emerged in the background.
She did not want to show her face during our calls anymore. It was only her voice that accompanied me while I was in denial of my lonely disposition. It was her same voice that quivered through my phone’s receiver and told me that Death had found solace in her bones and started to **** them slowly part by part. But despite how utterly impossible it was at that time, she assured me that she would come home soon.
Chapter 2017, I told her to get well soon when she told me she had a fever for a few days from then.
She answered with, “Thank you, I’ll be okay.”
And as if it weren’t enough, Death also decided to clamber inside her brain.
It was then decided that she’ll be flying back here in the Philippines. If life was easier, I would have seen her at home when I just arrived from school. But it wasn’t, so I had to skip school and meet her at the hospital.
I stayed with her as much as I could. I tried to make things easier for her so she could recover faster. She often stressed about the smallest things because she wanted everything to go perfectly. I often told her to tell me or my dad if she was uncomfortable or in pain because I wanted her to feel okay. I wanted her to be the real okay, and not the ones we used to lie about.
On the first day of October, I knew that the One up there heard me because now, she is okay. It was not what I meant at first, but I’m okay with it.
That was not and will not be the end of my story. That was not me trying to ask for sympathy or attention. That was me sending a message out to all of you, to hold on to whatever and whoever you have with you right now. If you’re not in good terms, settle it. If you’re holding back something you’ve always wanted to say, say it. And if ever things don’t work out like they planned, I want you to know that it will not be the ending of your story if you don’t let it be.
That was me at my worst. But I’m thankful for it, because it made me become the best I could be today and hopefully for more days to come. I know I will have more of these dramatic plot twists in the upcoming chapters, but once I get through all of them just like I did the first time, I know that she’ll be proud, like she always has been of me.
I was supposed to originally deliver this in front of the class at school. I figured it was too long so I had to revise it. I felt so proud of writing this and I didn't want it to go to waste, that's why I've posted the original one here :)