Dear Jani

 

My last message to you was that I won’t sleep until I hear from you. I never did, so now, my heart and my soul are restless. I haven’t stopped crying since yesterday, Jani. I miss you so much. Even as I write this, the tears won’t stop.

When your sister called me to tell me you’re gone, the first thing I did was to attend a book review as part of my work. I think I was able to adequately articulate my thoughts. I shared similar sentiments on the National Security Policy and the National Security Strategy with other analysts and researchers. I was productive. This has been my coping mechanism towards devastating news, even before: compartmentalize it to remain functional… until all the emotions come, screaming and weeping, and inevitable, like a flood of water destroying what flimsy walls I erected to contain it.

Yesterday, when I finally saw you after this goddamn pandemic has kept us apart from more than a year, those walls shattered almost instantly. Heaven took away your pain and your anxiety, but it also took my heart and left me with a throbbing emptiness I doubt anything can fill. It does not long for comfort or compensation or glory or success. It does not care for the people who are expressing their condolences or love for me. I am thankful, but those are not you. This emptiness longs only for you. I am self -aware enough to admit that it is selfish but I’m longing for you. I would rather have you here, despite the many challenges of your health, than with you gone. 

September 2021 is a cruel month. We both began it with challenges to our mortality – you with your health emergency and me with COVID-19. I was trapped in the four walls of my room, unable to be with you. I relied on your family’s updates. I was spared from seeing your decline, but I was tortured by my helplessness. Even after my 14-day quarantine, I was still trapped here because of severe asthma. The day I was finally feeling better – 28 September 2021 – you left me. I can never forgive myself for not being there with you on your last days. I may even come to hate the world for it.

People say that you’re lucky to have me. Maybe because you were sick and I wasn’t. But what people don’t see is that you loved me to the very extent of how much you can love. That you gave me everything that you can, to the best that you can. That we talked every night even when speaking is difficult for you, even if it’s just an exchange of good nights and I love yous. Even if to just tell me “bukas nalang ulit”. That you shared your blessings with me and thought of my happiness when receiving gifts, even if you had so little for yourself. That you were proud of me, and I basked in your pride, because no one’s ever been proud of me the way you were. That whenever I was having crippling self-doubt, exhausted with schooling, exhausted with work, exhausted with life, you’re the one who pushed me and encouraged me and believed in me. Others only saw the accomplishment, the speeches, the awards. You saw the struggle, the sacrifice. You told me to rest when everyone else wanted me to hustle. Right now, I am in the middle of my masters, which you encouraged me to take despite us having less time and money because of it. You’re the one who sacrificed the most for me to get this far and I won’t even be able to celebrate it with you when I’m done.

People say that because I’m the nurse and the healthier one, I took good care of you. But you’ve taken care of my heart – the most fragile and and the most broken and the weakest part of me – better than any other person in my past. In fact, it took more than a year of being together for me to tell you that I loved you, and you said those words first. I was so afraid you didn’t feel the same way. I was so happy you did. I hope you knew this before you left – that by loving me the way you did, you’ve taken care of me in the way no one else has. With you, I can be weak, because, despite your sickness, you were so strong.

I told you when we first started talking on the phone that I hated good byes, which was by we only ever said goodnight. For almost 3 years, I said that to you every night. Even when I was able to finally see you and touch you one last time, when they opened your coffin, I still couldn’t say good bye to you. Because maybe somewhere, someplace, I’ll get to see you again.

Our song is The Ditch by David Hause. Your Top 1 song in 2019. We both know what it’s about: living with “shakes”, the anxiety which you experienced on a daily basis:

“'Cause I shake shake shake shake alone
I'm shaking every night and day
Will my shake, shake, shaking ever go away?”

 

 These lines from the song are precious to me:

 

“If you held me close and lock the door
We could kick against the current
And hope we find a shore”

            I’ve held you close for almost three years and we’ve survived this current together until you had to go. You’ve finally found a shore where there are no more “shakes” and no more pain. You’re finally able to rest. I’ll be treading these currents without your warmth for a bit, Jani. Pahinga ka ng mabuti. Bukas nalang ulit, kung kelan man ang bukas natin ulit.

I miss you so much.

I love you. I love you. I love you so much.