A New Year's Eve Letter

31 December 2010

My dearest Lolo,

    I'm going to be straight out honest with you because I haven't been for the past seven years or so.  First, I owe it to you to be honest.  And second, no matter what I say, I will never get to see your lips droop into an upside down crescent moon in disappointment or your eyes make aim for some far off place I will never fully understand in my lifetime.

    All right, here goes.

    Some teeny weeny tiny part of me dreads the minute the clock strikes midnight on the 1st of January of every year.  This feeling began when I hit the age of twenty, when I realized I was actually starting to grow some semblance of maturity.  Ever since my sister and I were kids, you would have a new year package for the two of us consisting of a huge bundle wrapped in layers of newspaper and plastic.  As if we had built in X-ray eyes, we knew exactly what was inside that package: thick clumps upon thick clumps of colorful sparklers, all ready for lighting.  Oh boy, did we love those mini torches of color!  If they were candy instead of combustible powder, we wouldn't think twice about sticking them up our tongues with delight.

My sister bending over some of the sparklers (New Year's Eve 2007).

     When my sister and I were little children, you would sit by the front door and watch us run around the front yard with the sparklers in our hands, drawing all sorts of figures in the night air.  I liked to pretend my sparklers were the propulsion and combustion mechanisms of a rocket and I'd make them soar through the air like Voltes V spewing blue or green flame from its soles.  Sometimes, we would stick the sparklers in the ground in all sorts of configurations, light them with the embers in a piece of firewood from the kitchen stove and then dash through the entire length of the glowing sticks in the darkness, dancing and singing like tomorrow would never come as the sparklers were ignited one after the other. 

My grandfather - with his Einstein hair - checks
on our "sparkling" progress (New Year's Eve 2007).

     It was a fun and safe way to celebrate the coming of each new year until one day, I came to realize I was growing too old to be playing with them.  Of course, there was no way I could tell you that outright.  There was no way I could utilize that brutal frankness, not when you'd still call my sister and me to your room every new year's eve and proudly present us with the usual set of sparklers with excited eyes which seemed to say "I got you what you really wanted!"  I did not have the heart to tell you that maybe it was time to put an end to that literally sparkling tradition, even if I carefully rehearsed my speech year after year.  I could not do that, not when watching us run around the front yard gave you so much joy, even if you eventually had to do so from your bedroom window since all the smoke caused your weak lungs to act up in spasms and made you cough.  It now seems to me like we never grew up in your eyes and that to you, we would always be little girls carrying colorful little torches in the middle of the darkness, playing make-believe and tracing smoke through the air with our fingers.  So for the past seven years or so, I had to pretend that I was still seven years old and that I still loved to do that new year's game - all in the name of keeping your heart and your smile intact.

    This new year's eve, I was half-glad there were no sparklers.  There was no need to pretend anymore.  Or so I thought.  I laughed off that idea as I sat on the rattan sofa in the living room, watching my grandmother lug her pillow into your room for a quick nap before media noche - the very same room where we would claim our new year's gift annually with feigned surprise and excitement that could easily merit a grand slam acting award for my sister and me. No matter how much I denied it, there was still a need to pretend and play that game of make-believe that maybe, just maybe, there might be sparklers waiting inside that room because then that would mean you were alive and well and that everything that transpired within the last seven months was just a horrible nightmare.  Then again, no matter how palpable the need to pretend was, the truth remained that there was no room for such a game this new year's eve.  Much like Christmas, this New Year's eve was more than a mere reality slap.  It was like being pummeled relentlessly by a pugilist with fists as fast as the Flash and as solid as Mike Tyson's.  No one even dared to sit on your chair in the dinner table.  The poor wooden thing just stood there empty for the entirety of Christmas, much like a silent sentry staring at all of us mutely with unseen eyes.  That chair was akin to your shoes - cavities of leather with huge gaping mouths that were very difficult to fill.  The best anyone could do was perhaps waddle in them.  But then again, who in the world would ever take a duck (or anything that waddled, for that matter) seriously?

    When someone asks me what I miss most about you, my head starts spinning like a broken compass with an arrow that goes round and round endlessly in both directions in a rather crazy fashion.  I miss buying you little gifts that make you laugh, small things like the wobblehead ceramic basketball player which has your photograph for its face or the little toilet clock we bought for you in Hong Kong.  I miss watching so many movies with you.  You allowed me to watch silly flicks like the Problem Child series and Child's Play (with the occasional reminder to cover my eyes when Chuckie started waving his knife) and then you would chuckle when my mother would walk in, roll her eyes and tell you to stop exposing me to nonsense.  Little did she know that you also introduced me to a lot of pretty good films such as "Rocky," "The Godfather" and "Come, See the Paradise."

    I miss talking to you everyday.  After all, you were the first person I'd call when I woke up in the morning and among the last ones I'd talk to at night.  You were the best at conversations.  Period.  Everyone else pales in comparison.  There was always that depth of understanding and the insights that came out of nowhere.  You always listened intently with your hands folded above your belly and whenever something either amused you or peeved you, you would always let out a naughty snicker before giving out a piece of your mind.  You had the ability to talk and listen to me like an adult and yet treat me like a child all at the same time without ever casting the net of antagonism or causing me to feel like a pre-schooler wearing my mother's heels.  You taught me the value of listening, of breathing in everything I hear, holding it in for a couple of seconds and then exhaling only those which needed to be healthily expelled.  I have lost count of the many things I wanted to tell you about long after you had gone.  I sometimes find it unfair that you had to leave just at that precise moment when we had more relevant things to talk about and discuss.  When I write my papers for class or my pleadings for the clinical program I'm enrolled in, I sometimes vividly imagine how butchered and bleeding my written work would look when they passed your scrutiny.  I used to always ask you, "What do you think, Lolo?" and you never failed to tell me exactly what went on in your mind by drawing lines, tracing circles and making word changes with your red Pilot pen, leaving crimson blots which looked like gunshot wounds scattered all over the paper.  Seven months and counting, I still find myself reaching for the phone, dialing your number and stopping midway, knowing I will never hear you at the other end of the line.  As much as I miss enjoying every conversation with you, I also miss sharing the comfortable silence, usually while we're waiting for the sun to set, watching the sky turn to smoldering gold and the mountains to royal plum.  Then when the sun's descent is complete, you turn to my sister and me and ask "Let's go home?"  Why you kept on asking a question to which you knew the answer is something I cannot quite put my finger on.  Perhaps it was to emphasize that the day had finally come to close, no matter how much we did not want it to end, and that there was nowhere else to go but home.  Or maybe, just maybe, there was a faint hope in that question - the belief that seeing the sun set meant that you would definitely see its resplendent glory in the morrow.

    I miss your sense of humor, your eternally optimistic spirit and your ability to find joy even in the worst of circumstances.  I miss watching your face and eyes light up when you're planning to spring another naughty prank on my grandmother or when you're thinking of the best gift to give her on special occasions.  I miss the sweetness of your smile when she kisses you or when she has fits of jealousy which you find completely unbelievable given your age and the length of time you have been married to each other.  I miss your adamance at forbidding me to drive a motorcycle or a truck because of your perception of the supposed inappropriateness for a girl to exhibit a tough, masculine side.  I can still see the pleasant surprise in your face when you realized I could actually handle your truck despite its size and your eventual warming up to the notion of me being your occasional driver and you being the passenger.  It felt good to be trusted by you, to know that you had faith in my ability to handle the wheel, the clutch and anything that could spring out from the road that stretched out before me all on my own, although you sometimes gave the reminder to watch out for a pothole or to be less of Speed Racer.   I miss seeing the incredulity in your eyes when I half-coerced you to wear pink and the sheer glee in your face when you realized you actually looked good in the color.  Among so many things, I miss listening to you attempt to apologize. 

    I am being straight out honest when I say I really did not want to play with sparklers again this new year's eve but I am not going to deny I will miss going out into the darkness of the night with those little torches of color, waving them around the air as the skies literally explode into the threshold of a new set of 365 days.  Those were moments when I felt most carefree, most fearless and most confident that I could conquer the entire world with just my little set of flame-emitting wands.  Perhaps it was because I was aware you were watching from the front door or from your bedroom window and that the moment the sparklers go out, I knew exactly where to go to despite being swallowed by darkness, smoke and the deafening sound of the pla-plas and piccolos. 

    This new year's eve, the sparklers are conspicuously missing.  I do not need to run around outside anymore and do my awkward smoke-and-fire gymnastics.  The front yard lies empty and dark a full half an hour before midnight.  I stand for a while in the muddy grass and walk a bit.  In the pitch black night, in the absence of someone keeping an eye out for me from the front door or from the bedroom window, I still know where to head back to.  And I know, Lolo, that this is one honest revelation which, in no way, will make your lips droop like an upside-down crescent moon or your eyes make aim for some far-off place.

All my love now and forever,
Albutra