Little Twilight Girl: a short story September 26, 2008

Writer’s note: I wrote this story based on true events almost a year ago. As I was going over my posts, I decided to publish this again at a more recent date. This is for all of you who never got around to reading it. I shall forever remember the little twilight girl in my heart, especially on late, chilly afternoons.

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It was right after office hours.

I was walking down a slanted road as the sun was beginning its descent. There were a few uniformed students ambling on the other side of the street, and a man pedaling on an old bicycle at a comfortable pace. To my right farther down below, ran a narrow spring surrounded by thick palm and pine trees, and bordered with overgrown grass.

At half past five, Malaybalay was already dark, and there was a nippy quality to the air reminiscent of Christmas midnights. I was going to a friend’s house for dinner, and already I was looking forward to the menu planned that evening: pineapple adobo, cucumber and tomato salad, warm organic rice, and ice-cold tea.

Some minutes into my walk, I noticed a little girl toddling ahead of me, carrying a small umbrella, and a plastic bag. She was a little more than a feet tall, and was wearing a floral-printed dress, only I realized a little later that the prints really were brown smudges brought about by years of worn out use.

I also observed a middle-aged man further ahead, turning his head to check on the little girl every few seconds. “Why can’t he wait for his little daughter to keep pace with him?” I muttered to myself, “If she stumbled on a rock, and hit her head on the pavement, he wouldn’t sleep another night in his lifetime.”

But the man soon entered a narrow walkway, looking back only once, while the girl walked on ahead of me. There were not too many pedestrians on that part of the street, and now I was already climbing a small slope. It wasn’t hard catching up with the little girl.

“Hello.” I said.

She turned her head to look up at me, and smiled slightly. She had chocolate brown skin, and black round eyes. Her hair was short and curly at the tips.

“Kinsa imong kauban? (Who are you with?),” I asked her.

“Wala. Akong lang isa. (No one. I’m walking alone)”

“Asa diay inyong balay? Layo pa inyong balay? (Where do you live? Do you live far?)”

“Didto sa Heights. Duol ra man. (I live in Heights. It’s not too far.)

We were walking on Springsite Street, and to get to Heights, you still had to pass a row of vacant lots, and a stretch of bumpy roads.

“Pila diay imong edad? Ga eskuwela na ka? (How old are you? Are you in school already?)

She then attempted to count with her fingers, though quite awkwardly because she was holding a dirty umbrella with one hand, and a plastic bag with the other.

“Seven. Oo, ga eskwela na ko. (Seven. Yes I go to school.)”

If she was telling me the truth, I’d still find it hard to believe her. My three-year old godchildren were actually taller. She looked so small that the plastic bag she was carrying almost touched the ground.

Suddenly, she bent down to pick up something. She giggled at me, and continued examining her loot.

“Unsa man na? Tan-aw ko beh. (What’s that? Can I take a look?)”

She stretched one tiny arm towards me.

“Dulaan. (It’s a toy.)”

It was a black plastic cell phone casing. It was dusty and scratched in all places, perhaps tossed away by someone who found it useless. But she held it as if it were gold. Then I remembered all the toys I had when I was this young; the beautiful Japanese doll, my blond Barbie, my stuffed bears, and all my precious cookware play sets. And even at this twenty-something age, I still sleep with a pink stuffed pig beside my headboard, and a furry bear sitting on my bedside table.

“Nag eskwela ka karon? Nganong naglakaw ka na gabii naman? (Did you go to school today? If so, why are you still out at this hour?)”

“Wala man ko nag eskwela ganina. Kay masuko si mama, primi ko mangayo baon. (I didn’t go to school today. Mother usually gets angry, because I always ask for allowance)”

I was already at my friend’s house. But I walked a bit farther to listen to the little girl with the dirty dress and old umbrella, wanting to walk her home. It was already dark, and I could hardly make out the houses and trees up ahead, for the streetlights have not yet come to life. She told me her house was already near. So I said goodbye.

“Sige, bye-bye (Okay, goodbye).” I half-whispered.

“Bye, bye”

As I stepped inside, I stole one glance at her. She was now walking comfortably, as if she had done these twilight walks a thousand times. I knew her house was still far, that she still had to walk through rock-strewn grounds under her tiny, callused feet, in the burgeoning darkness. She tucked her diminutive umbrella under one arm, while she continued to study her new plaything, laughing I know because she could hardly make out what it was.

That night, I half-heartedly ate my dinner. Later, I went to bed after a prayer that was longer than usual. But I didn’t sleep for several hours. The little girl always came back to me; the round eyes, the earthy skin, the washed-out dress.

I didn’t even ask for her name.

FLIRT February 3, 2008

This so-called month of love, I might as well make an admission. I was a flirty toddler. My parents sent me to nursery school at the age of four, and while my pig-tailed and snot-nosed classmates amused themselves with colored clay and plastic animals, I had my eyes set on a third-grader who had unbelievably thick lashes and the most perfect smile. Mother was of course shocked when I told her I had a crush at school, thinking that I was just emulating what I saw on television. But I was the only one in my age group who had a crush back then, whenever I asked my milk-sucking friends who their crushes were they would simply stare at me over their strawed tumblers and go, “What’s a crush?”

My days at nursery were spent with sighs at the gwapo student next door, giggling at the sight of his shoes outside the school grounds. Imagine the fact that I was able to recognize his shod feet anywhere, when I was supposed to be mastering my ABC’s! Moreover, I did not have any concept of shame or mortification at that time because I always made an obvious point to the boy’s face that I liked him. Even at this age I am always appalled at the brazen way I had acted at the mere age of four, staring at the boy and smiling at him as if I knew him since birth. He was always courteous, perhaps thinking I was just a playful four-year old in black mary janes and beribboned ponytails. Little did he know there were actual butterflies fluttering inside my lactose-filled tummy.

It’s a sad thing that when I began to get older, I also lost my seeming confidence with boys and men. I couldn’t even speak sensible sentences in front of the attractive ones at school or at parties. Well, it’s a good thing still, at least I learned to exercise caution to a respectable degree. The parents did not allow me to date even in college (yeah, seriously), but it was fine, because hilariously enough I already had my fair share at early nursery school.

When I have a daughter in the future, I’ll tell her that crushes don’t exist in preschool, and it’s better she sticks to colored clay, pigtails, and ABC’s. Hope she doesn’t inherit my erstwhile gall, or my disgusting infantile confidence. The recollection however makes me laugh, every time.

Romanticism of the Old Pen January 21, 2008

These days, I find myself missing the long, handwritten letters era, when the only thing that connected you to a distant old friend was the old, reliable postal office. Snail air mails have never been too reliable but we did not mind it back then. Whenever the smiling and wrinkly post man would drop something inside our fence mailboxes or stick between the grilles of our rusty house gates, there was always that feeling of unmistakable excitement and apprehension. Excited that someone from miles away might have remembered us, yet apprehensive all the same that the letter might in fact be for someone else.

Two nights ago, I spent my midnight browsing through old letters from friends. Nope, there weren’t any love letters, though I was wishing to find that there was one which I didn’t get to open. But there weren’t any, I had the most lackluster love life during my student days, and even when I am perfectly happy with my love right know, the scented letters still do not come that very often. The letters were from ten years ago, dusty and yellowed and forgotten. An old classmate who flew to New York wrote me on more than a few occasions. A dear high school friend who went to live in General Santos City and later settled down in Hawaii wrote how much she missed school and the rest of us. And then one of my dearest friends with whom I still remain in constant contact most insomniac nights actually wrote me a letter one Christmas and cheesy Valentine’s. I just wonder, how many letters did I actually get to write these past years, and did any of them survive dust, discoloration, and oblivion?

I wish I could draft more handwritten letters these days, even if I don’t get to send them. The keyboard is an amazing thing, but it only speaks of speed and convenience, nothing else. Maybe I’m just an old soul who relishes in everything antiquated and romantic. Maybe facing the monitor for long hours has made me realize the elegance of the old years. Days when writing was a task and an effort, but also something that you would really find the time for even on evenings when you’d rather read a book or go to bed.

Endless Puddles November 19, 2007

-Raining, raining, raining for three straight days-

 

I grew up thinking that the rain is a beautiful thing. And it still is. But when you’re stuck inside the house, alone on a Monday, with a hoarse throat, a running fever, and the winds are singing a depressing tune outside, the rain could be anything, except beautiful.

One of my guilty pleasures as a child, and even as a blundering adolescent, was frolicking under the rain. No, I don’t mean just standing under the leaking gutters, and bathing in murky rainwater and slimy dead leaves (gross!), but waiting until the downpour gets to a slashing degree, then happily hopping unto the green lawn, shrieking and dancing like crazy, completely soaked to my underwear. As if the rain was not enough, I would open the garden faucets, then using a watering hose, or a balde and tabo, rinse myself entirely, the warm faucet water surprisingly delicious against the cold rain. My siblings would almost always join me in these wet excursions, and whether they took pleasure with these things as much as I did, I can never be certain. I was always the last one to dry myself with the towels, looking the other way when my mother begins throwing disapproving glances at me.

Then, when I am no longer allowed to dance under the rain because I am already told to please, please grow up, I began to associate the rain with anything romantic, of cool dreamy nights, perhaps the stuff of distant fairytales. Everything romantic, everything dramatic happens when it’s raining. An old couple sharing a tiny umbrella, reunited friends having espresso in a café, and a toddler in a yellow raincoat, holding tight to her mommy’s hand. Or strangers conversing under the same shade, and people finally having the time to pick up that novel, and begin reading because there’s nothing else left to do. And the way those dead, brown leaves fall carelessly to the ground, when the rain is about to start and before the winds get impatient, like little parachutes dancing in mid-air, is always a thing of beauty. Of course, weathers like these could get merciless, and there is nothing dreamy with overflowing rivers, and people getting stuck in traffic because a ten-wheeler has skidded on the slippery highway. Or even that time when I was caught inside a bus for hours because a landslide threatened to throw people, cars, and buses off the ravine. But the rain is still a beautiful thing, because everything is washed with color— the leaves look greener, those red roofs look like shiny carpets, and the earth always smells luscious and heady after the wet spells.

Except that today I have a terrible throat, unwashed hair, and still have to travel to those melancholic mountains for work, in this cold, cold weather. And the house is deserted, so I can hear the sound of the radio, my own breathing, and the rain slapping the ground simultaneously. For once, as much as I worship it, I hope that it stops so I can travel in comfort, and our laundry can dry out in the sun.

 

Little Bandits October 23, 2007

I can’t say I had a perfect childhood, but indeed mine was a happy one. My two siblings and I were allowed to play house, tear some leaves and stems from Mom’s garden for our “culinary” sessions, fashion mud cakes from brown soil and gray sand, skip rope and play piko, place newborn kittens in a wicker basket and pretend we were selling them, dig a hole in a corner of our lawn for a makeshift swimming pool for my dolls, and make chocolate ice cubes out of frozen Ovaltine and milk. Children have the weirdest of imaginations, and whenever we would play house, I’d usually pretend I was some successful professional living in her luxurious apartment, while my sister imagined herself a store cashier and our defunct piano as her cash register. My brother meanwhile would either be a bus driver (the living room sofa was the bus), a debt collector, an annoying someone from the electric company, or somewhere along those parts.

Father and mother were often away because of work, so whenever school was out, the three of us would be locked inside the house and forbidden to play outside until Mom would return between four and five in the afternoon. We were always instructed to take naps after lunch, wake up at three, and watch cartoons while having our merienda. Then when Mom finally gets home, we can leave the house and play with our neighbors until suppertime. But we were too much of a restless bunch to think that a nap would do us any good. By the time we had the house to ourselves (Mom would leave soon after we’d feigned sleep), we were already plotting the roles we wanted to play that day and if I remember correctly, some days I was a schoolteacher or a Muslim princess draped in a malong and long strands of plastic pearls, or even a sick somebody who was perhaps dying on her hospital deathbed, complete with makeshift oxygen tubes (little beverage straws that I’ve managed to breathe into), dextrose needles (a plastic bottle ingeniously turned upside down and hung just beside the window jamb, taped with a pair of long threads at the end of which two needles were attached and taped again onto my wrist). My younger sister was the nurse, and was immaculately dressed in her white shirt and white jogging pants, carrying a clipboard which she had salvaged from my father’s office stuff, a shiny ball pen, and a small cup filled with white candies for my medication. My younger brother at that point would either be a family visitor, or someone who did not care at all if anyone in the house was dying because he was busy with some other little schemes all by himself.

Sometimes, if we were feeling more adventurous, we would plead with Mom to allow us out of the house after our naps. And if she was feeling really generous, she would acquiesce but only upon the condition that by the time she gets home, we would have had showered already and freshly drizzled with baby powder. We’d troop straight away to the empty lot facing our house where the rest of the neighbors’ kids busy themselves with their usual tricks. That was the time I had learned to ride a bicycle and even mastered riding it with one hand quite impressively, and when I attempted to manipulate it without the use of both hands, however, I hurt myself so grotesquely that I could not stand straight naked in front of my mother for weeks.

We also participated in pointless fights with the other kids, usually nothing more than name calling, territorial disputes, and nonsensical kiddie gossip. Being the cry baby that I was, I would go home crying sometimes, but that did not deter me from my resentful machinations. One time, a little kid from the other group did not allow me access on their part of the street while I was on my bike, and when she was still undaunted with my threats of squashing her with my wheels, I delivered my threat without any further ceremony and left her bawling and lying on her pathetic side on the ground. I immediately regretted what I had done, but she dared me, didn’t she? She dared me; I took it, and that was it.

We would often look for signs of Mom up the street while we were playing, and when already visible, the three of us would scamper towards the house, prudishly sit on the sofa all sweaty and grimy, and give our poor mother an apologizing look. She would reproach us for being dirty and reeking of earth, but we would simply look at each other with foolish smiles and start finger pointing. That was how the day would usually end: we would take our afternoon baths, father would soon get home from the office, and he and mother would talk of things we could not care less about. We only cared for our play houses, bicycles, street fights; endless running and playing catch, and dreamt of them too, in the darkest part of our sleep.

After a few summers, I was unlucky to get my first period and was soon prohibited to join my siblings for childish games; behave like a proper lady I must. Where was the justice in my young life when I was no more than eleven then? How I resented my mother for all her rebukes, and how I yearned to skip rope and ride a bicycle as I used to. Truthfully, I never wanted my childhood to end, never appreciated my developing chest, and loathed the disgusting bleeding each month. I was miserable for a long time, praying for that day when my mother would assure me that my menstruation had stopped for good and that I can finally go back to my sweet, carefree, messy ways.

Fifteen or so years later, the three of us have finally earned our degrees on time, gotten ourselves jobs, and lived our lives as any young twenty-somethings would. Amusingly, my sister is now living out one of her childhood roles; she is one of the tellers in a big private bank, handling money as she had done on her make-believe cash register. My brother works in a private bank too as an accounting assistant and I am just thankful he did not turn out to be the bus driver of his childhood games, though I have nothing against bus drivers, really.

Well, I’m still far from the successful professional living in her luxurious apartment, but I do have plans of getting there very, very soon. I know I can’t be crowned a Muslim princess in one of the far-off islands in my native Mindanao unless I marry a Muslim datu, but thank heavens my health is doing fine, which means I am not about to die (knock on wood) in a freaking hospital, or freaking anywhere, either.

Of Heroes and Santas September 12, 2007

-Originally created early 2007-

I know we all have heroes. But there is one hero in my life who perhaps never knew I saw him as one. And it is simply because he left me too soon.

Being a self confessed Daddy’s girl, I grew up thinking my Dad was some kind of a superhero. My father was a gentle fellow, and he always reminded me of Santa Claus because of his thick beard and moustache (which was his standard accessory) and a full, rotund belly. He also had this full-mouthed laughter that used to flush his cheeks red and make his round eyes disappear. I guess children will always have this idea of their parents as some kind of superhuman but mine was always different. I thought my dad was invincible, my super hero who will always be around for a long, long time, and to my young mind years back, perhaps someone who will still be standing by my bedroom door saying goodnight each bed time, even when I was already a married woman with grown-up kids.

As a spoiler, he was the generous type, and I do not mean by saying this that he spoiled us with merely material things. As far as I can recall, he was always the one who carefully covered all our new schoolbooks with acetate to keep them from looking dog-eared, the one who hung a “ Congratulations” banner on the wall to surprise me on the day of my elementary graduation, the one who would get up in the middle of the night to check on me when I was slaving over a math exam due the next day, the patient one who would carry me like a baby, even at ten years old and suffering from a simple fever, from my bedroom to the dining table just to make me eat my dinner.

As a young child, I was quite shy and unsure of myself, but he always had this way of appreciating the little achievements that I earned from time to time that made me believe I was indeed, a pretty, smart, and talented girl. Whenever I would make an effort to dress up for some occasion, he always had these precious compliments reserved for her eldest princess, accompanied with a wide smile of genuine approval. When I was about ten to twelve years old, I remember having penned my first poem entitled “My Father”, and seeing him read my humble composition with an unbelieving look in his eyes, gave me a calm sense of pride. At fifteen, when I was trying my hand at painting, I once showed him my colorful renditions of art, however humble they were at the time, and I could sense how he loved my careless creations all the same, saying that with a few strokes more, I could become quite good at it. And during the course of my fleeting childhood, I remember having nightmares for weeks on end and keeping mum about it for fear of being teased as a scaredy-cat, but during those nights when I could not sleep, just hearing my Dad cough audibly in his sleep was enough to calm my restlessness. I would begin to drift off, safe and happy as a clam, realizing that my Santa Claus was just one bedroom away.

But when I reached adolescence, I no longer saw my Dad as an adorable Santa but more of a stern parent. He began to lay down rules and I was not too happy about it, thinking that I deserved to have my own freedom. I was ordered to go home straight after school, no buts and ifs and the class schedules should be posted on the fridge door for easy reference. No television after primetime news during school nights. No phone calls from guy friends or if there were any, one would be subject to a string of interrogations. No late night partying, only parties with formal invitations would be allowed. Preferably no grade below 85, and definitely no failing grades. No dating, no suitors, no boyfriends before college graduation. It’s either you follow the rules strictly by heart or you leave the house.

And as an adolescent born in the generation of MTV and pop culture, I had a hard time acceding to all the rules, and when I did, I did so religiously but not without resentment in my heart. I followed their orders and through my high school and the onset of my college years, I never had a life outside the sheltered little life I had at home. But I was not happy with this and was silently wishing I were somewhere else, or were someone else’s daughter. My parents sent me to a private high school, possibly the best in our city, but I cannot even say if at that point, I had the best time in my life. For one, when I began to cultivate feelings of admiration for the opposite sex, as is normal for teenage girls at the time of their blissful youth, I could not talk openly about it for fear that my parents would think I wanted a boyfriend. I had wanted to spend time socializing at school with my friends and mentors, and join organizations which I believed would hone whatever God given talents I had, but my parents would hear none of it, stating that extra-curricular activities were simply a waste of time and hard-earned money. Going to the movies with friends was a rare event and so was my attendance at weekend project meetings, acquaintance and farewell parties. Perhaps, it was in my nature to be fairly competitive and outgoing and the manner with which both my parents brought me up had stifled this very nature.

My father and I began talking less and less each day, conscious of the widening generation gap and the little antipathies that I had amassed over the years. He would still get up in the middle of the night to check on me while laboring over my notes, but it was either that I would ignore him, or I would simply utter a perfunctory greeting without much interest. He would joke about something but finding nothing funny with what he said, I would just fake a laugh and busy myself with something else. There were fewer and fewer topics that we could talk about each passing day, for I knew that he would barely be interested with the things that concerned me during that confusing period of my adolescence. Oftentimes I saw him as nothing more than a nuisance since, ironically enough, he was always poking his nose at things I’d rather deal with alone. Perhaps it was because I knew he will always be there, and I meant always, that made me confident at what I was doing, knowing that there will always be time in the future, when my teenage angst had finally dissipated, that I will see him as my adorable Santa once more.

But that time never came. Soon, and sooner than we all had expected, he developed kidney complications from his diabetes and was eventually unable to do much physical work. He soon retired from his job at a government firm and stayed more and more at home. I was already a sophomore in college when he began to weaken physically, but the gap between us was finally too ominous to repair all at once and I, on my part had a hard time bridging whatever was left of our relationship. And of course I denied too loudly within me that that something was wrong with his health. I thought to myself, ” Maybe it’s just the flu”, and instinctively push away thoughts of fear in my subconscious, repeating to myself like a mantra that my father was, is, and always will be invincible. And hey, he was never hospitalized even once in his four decades of existence, and what is diabetes anyway? My family always knew my father has had it for roughly twenty years already but we never saw manifestations of ill health on him. For all my arrogant ignorance, I had chosen to believe that diabetes was no worse than a simple flu.

One weekend morning, the summer of 2001, I woke up and I saw my father in our living room, his features clearly illuminated by the harsh sunlight. That, I recall, was the first time I looked at him closely in a long time, or chose to look more closely, after my episodes of denial. He looked like he had aged in days. He was losing a lot of weight due to dieting and I could clearly see the outline of his shoulder blades through the thin shirt he was wearing. He still had his belly, the one I was so fond of as a little girl, but it was no longer round and full but soft and flabby. His skin was beginning to show signs of wrinkling and had slightly dark pigmentations due to his disease. And his beard, his once thick and well groomed beard, was now growing jaggedly across his jaw and his moustache almost covered the tip of his upper lip. He was staring blankly at the television barely taking in what was showing on the screen. His eyes were sad, almost nostalgic, and he appeared to be in very deep thoughts. I recalled at that point that he had been behaving very oddly the past months, and not talking much to anyone at home. “Maybe he misses his work and his friends”, I simply rationalized. At that point, I had wanted to sit on his lap once more, kiss him with butterfly kisses and tell him how much I love him but I could not move. It had felt absurd being too distant all this time and at that instant, to act like my Santa’s lovingly spoiled daughter once more. But more so, I was afraid that I would break down and give in to tears even before I can stop myself.

During the following days that summer, I was falling apart. I saw my beloved superhero reduced to the poor stature of an ailing old man at the age of forty seven. He had developed complications on his right ear early on, and now had difficulty balancing his walk. His legs would wobble without warning, and he would immediately clasp on to anything- a chair, the edge of a table, or anyone nearby- for support. His hair had now thinned and his smile had become less genuine. He spent most of his time staring blankly at space, or playing solitaire by himself. Since we weren’t really well-off, my mom had to work in order to support his medications, and most of the time it was just the two of us left at the house. I took care of his meals and gave him snacks twice a day, religiously following doctors’ orders that he should be fed regularly. I would attempt to start an animated discussion with him and had resorted to all sorts of techniques at sparking his interest, but sadly, gone was the lively storyteller of my childhood. Perhaps he was in a lot of pain at that time and was keeping silent about it. But I never dared to ask him anything about his illness, or what he was really feeling, or if he was going to leave me soon. I just could not bring myself to ask the last question, or bring myself to even think about it. Nobody in the family talked about the possibility of his leaving us. For all of us, the idea was absurd, even impossible. My Santa is and always will be invincible.

I would cry for hours in my room, when my father was taking his afternoon nap in the master’s bedroom, asking God why this had to happen to the most gentle of his servants. I implored Him not to take my Daddy from me, my adorable Santa, arguing with the heavens that I still had so many dreams for him and my mom. Sobbing silently, I even asked God to take me away instead, to just magically transfer my father’s disease unto my young, healthy body, thinking that perhaps I could endure the pain of the disease more than a middle-aged man could. And because I could not talk about my fears to my siblings or my mom, I would read the Bible, looking for verses that talked about faith and not losing it. The events of my father’s illness had caught me off guard, and I no longer saw meaning in all of my plans, in my dreams of sharing stories with him again, or visiting our relatives in Cebu, throwing him and my mom a lavish silver wedding anniversary party, or buying him his dream car. My fears gave me nightmares in my sleep and every morning I was scared even more for fear that I would wake up and find out that my Santa would never wake up to see the day.

And so he finally left us more than a month after his first hospitalization. He was admitted to the hospital and subsequently checked out four times in less than two months. And during the times when we would leave the hospital because his condition had somehow stabilized, we celebrated his homecoming with joy in our hearts because this offered us a glimpse of the same laughter-loving fellow without the oxygen tubes, the dextrose needles, and the blood transfusion tubes amidst the blinding hospital walls. We had come to accept the delicate condition of his health and clung to nothing else but our faith, no matter how flimsy it may become from time to time. Every morning, I would kiss him all over his face, hug his flabby tummy, and play with his beard like the Daddy’s girl I always had been. I would comb his thinning hair and link my arm with him and lean my head on his bony shoulder while watching TV. Something in my heart was telling me I will never hold him, or touch his face, or smell the very essence of him ever this way again. But none of us talked about death or dying or him leaving us. Nobody started the topic and childish as I was, even when I saw how ill he had become, I still felt that as long as my Dad would not tell me to my face that he was dying, I would never believe he was actually dying. He was my adorable Santa, my Mom’s sweetest teddy bear. He could not die. He is invincible.

But I guess, superheroes do not live forever. And it is simply because they give so much of themselves, so much of their own strength that in the end, they just fade with the wind, immortal in their own oblivion. And that same night my beloved Santa breathed his last; I held his hand, pressed my face to his heart, and felt his heartbeat. The hospital room was cold and it smelled of medication, disinfectant, and of subdued tears. I was cold myself and the finality of the moment stopped all emotion. I knew life will never be same again. Nobody will spoil all of us as he always had, nobody will cough in the middle of the night and reassure me out of my nightmares, and nobody will take pleasure in my artistic leanings and encourage me at them. Nobody will be giving my Mom sweet nothings on Valentine’s Day, as he had faithfully done all of their married years, and yes, nobody will walk me and my sister to the altar on our wedding days, and give us our last waltzes.

In my dream of dreams and heart of hearts, I shall see him again one day, at a time and place my imagination cannot reach. Then I shall tell him affectionately, and not without profound love in my soul; “Papa, you’re really just like Santa on Christmas Eve, you left all of us as silently as you came.”