December 10

I woke up today at 6:04 AM. It's a bright Friday morning, but I got out of bed with a heavy heart. As I tried to pull myself up to face another day, I told myself, "This was exactly the same time three years ago." And I never wanted to get up.

It's December 10. For the past two years, as if by some unknown ritual, I get up at the exact same time, I feel the exact same way, and I tell myself the exact same thing. Then, flashes of memories of this day, but way back in 2007, come rushing in.

As I slowly inch my way throughout my room, preparing for the day ahead, I can still hear the loud knocks on my bedroom door; it was my Tita Liz telling me to go down immediately because my Tita Lyn just got into an accident. I can still remember her panic-stricken voice and intermitent sobs. And I thought that something must have gotten terribly wrong.

I tried to return to my senses and hurriedly got ready for work. But I guess memories are really the most difficult to erase. I got into my workstation and turned on my PC as I used to. I got a glance of her pictures posted on my cubicle wall. There she was on my mom's 50th bday. Then, there were the two of us on her last Xmas alive; it was Xmas 2006. And there was yet another picture of her and me; it was an old photo, still in sepia tone, of her in her teens as she was carrying the baby me. And what followed was a well of tears.

Has it really been three years since she left? Then, why does it feel like it was just yesterday?

Miss na kita Tita Lyn. Sana nandito ka.