How Soon Is Now?

It was my best friend’s 32nd birthday yesterday. She succumbed to cancer 13 years ago. She was 19.

We were in fourth grade when her family moved into my neighborhood. Although, it was only in high school that we became classmates, we spent most of our times playing in the “emburnal” in Santo Tomas Street.

She was always the silent type and I was the best opposite. We used to sneak out from home to gather seashells by the bay until we both reached the color of charcoal black. Sometimes, I'd climb a mansanitas at her request while she stayed in the ground catching the fruits I'd throw her. If she was the demure type, I was the never-mind-what type.

Although we have different friends in high school, we always walked home together talking about how our day went. After dinner we would sit by the "emburnal" and watch younger kids play the games we used to play. In school, she'd rummage my tornado-wrecked backpack to find my notebook and write our lessons in it while I was busy playing under the heat of the sun each noon break. We were happy then until graduation came.

We used to think that it was a harmless lump growing in her leg. A series of misdiagnoses by incompetent doctors killed her. Before that, her family lost most of their properties to finance her medication and her mother died before her, broken-hearted... unable to bear her daughter's agony.

I remember the day we buried my father. She cried like she was my father's daughter. It never crossed my mind that she would follow a year later and that I'd cry like crazy at her funeral. It was a nightmare one after the other.

I can't explain why it took me more than a decade to visit her grave. Distance was never an issue nor is time. But when I did it hurt like it's the first time I learned of her death. I still grieve over my loss. I guess it makes her uncomfortable.

There have been many best friends after her. One official best friend and a few unofficial best friends. Guess it would make her laugh to know that it took me 4 universities before I got my college degree. Probably I scared her out of her wits when I scourred the caves, climbed some mountains and dived to see some corals. She must have been smiling in heaven seeing I never changed and that I'm still the same person since the day she left until today.

Dear Annalyn,

My family and I still think of you. Very, very fondly. I'm still the same person you once played with in the "emburnal." Nothing has changed. The "emburnal" is still there. And I still looked at it like you were always there. The way we were always there. Wished you stayed a little longer, long enough to listen to me play this song.

THINK OF LAURA

Christopher Cross

Every once in a while I'd see her smile

And she'd turn my day around

A girl with those eyes

Could stare through the lies

And see what your heart was saying

Think of Laura but laugh don't cry

I know she'd want it that way

When you think of Laura laugh don't cry

I know she'd want it that way

A friend of a friend

A friend to the end

That's the kind of girl she was

Taken away so young

Taken away without a warning

Think of Laura but laugh don't cry

I know she'd want it that way

When you think of Laura laugh don't cry

I know she'd want it that way

I know you and you're here

In every day we live

I know her and she's here

I can feel her when I sing

Hey Laura, where are you now

Are you far away from here

I don't think so

I think you're here

Taking our tears away

Think of Laura but laugh don't cry

I know she'd want it that way

When you think of Laura laugh don't cry

I know she'd want it that way