I'm sorry Inang

I'm never really good at moving on. I have formulated the right mix of emotional attachment for survival purposes. One more drop and it's a trap. I'd be stuck there forever, unable to move on.

I keep myself in the balance of my friends. I don't do relationships because I haven't found someone worthy of that entrapment. But there are times I am choiceless. Like losing a family member. 

One year ago, they told me to say Goodbye to you. But I find myself saying goodbye to you every single day, Inang. I miss you. I really really really do. Too much that sometimes I think it's abnormal. I can't help but think about you at random hours of everyday. Is that how it's supposed to work? If so, how do people handle it?

January 16, 2016 is still vivid in my head. I hate the version of me that day. I was being a bitch, avoiding a trip to your place because I believed it is "wasting my day". I was preoccupied by the concept of work life that I put it up on a pedestal. I let it control me. I understood nothing of its gravity. I just remember thinking I was too busy and too tired for anything; too busy and too tired for you. I never saw you walk past me to the edge of the cliff. I let you take a walk but you ended up reaching for death. I didn't see it coming. I wasn't prepared to say Goodbye. I have underestimated its meaning and didn't realize Goodbye is a permanent thing. 

There's this song that hit me every time I hear it. A song called "There You'll Be" by Faith Hill. A line from that song goes like this:

When I think back on these times

And the dreams we left behind

I'm sorry Inang. I'm sorry for neglecting you; for avoiding you. The little kid you nurtured got lost along the way. She had forgotten the dreams, the promises she made for you.

I'm sorry I didn't get you that trip to Jerusalem Inang, when I have said I will. I didn't save enough, and the money came too late. Sometimes I'd like to think your resistance to me entering law school is equated to this dream; this promise. Maybe you knew death is on its way to you. Maybe you knew your body can no longer wait. But I started working and I realized it was much harder than I thought. 

You are a pillar to my being Inang. With you gone, and Mom and little brother away, I find myself crippling my way to sanity.