The Man on the Sketch

I saw a sketch I did of you.  It is still unfinished...of course.  Looking at it now, it could pass for someone else's who I do not know. Yes...a stranger.  Then I checked your very last message and found myself frown.  Could they be the same man? I heard myself asked.  No one...not even me, has the answer.  Watching the sketch closely, I tried to search through myself for little clues of who you are...or rather, who you were.  And then I saw a glimpse of that afternoon when I happily sat on one of the steps of our Nipa Cottage at home, with my newly-bought sketch pad on my lap, my favorite picture of you and my cellphone against my ear...giddily telling you how it was hard to sketch your eyes... You said you couldn't wait to see it done.  That was just one of the countless happy moments I knew I had.  And just like few of the untold fairy tales, mine ended...just a little later after I was almost done with that sketch...which I never finished.

It's been months since I last heard your voice.  I still have little hints of how you sound.  Only now, they don't give the same chimes I always get just by hearing you say "Hello".  People who may read this would probably wonder why on earth am I still writing about this...about you?  I could only answer, why not? Have they ever heard me talk about it?  I did to some...to some who didn't ask for explanation...to the few who never really asked at all...but understood...and cared...and now, are the first persons who smiled at the new home I am in.

Thank you so much.  


That is what I really want to say to you.  After all that has happened...and all the cruelest emotions that possessed me for days, months...and longer...I can never thank you enough for the three years of self explorations, sweetest surprises, simple thoughts that meant so much and all those that you may have long forgotten and buried.

I do not know if you were hurting, too, but know in your heart that what I had for you was what could be the rarest of love you can ever have.  You had a girl who, without blinking, chose you over everything else...someone who lived everyday for your sake and happiness.  Someone who believed in forever because forever was you.  You made her suddenly want a family of her own...with you.  Someone who never saw herself with anyone but one man, YOU.  Someone who waited for so long...and was willing to wait forever...you know she would.  Do you know what makes her smile after all this time?  The love you showed her and the kind she gave back made her not stop loving.  The pain she bore was nameless...extremely beyond her, yet the most beautiful memories carried her through.  Painful words constantly gave her nightmares but she lived on the fields of dreams you made her create and she would not leave.  For so many days and months she waited...she held on to your words that you will never leave her. Not for any kind of reasons...especially not for something she never did...because you know in your heart she is not capable of doing so.  And yet she still loved you more.  She thought she can never move forward without you, something only those who healed their broken hearts will understand.  You did not come back...nor looked back one bit. You left her with knives that kept her from healing...the scars are still here.  You were the sweetest pain she was breathing every single day....

Whatever your true reasons for leaving, I may wonder, but won't ask anymore.  I will never be bitter...not ever.  I do care for you still...you were the man I once loved. You were my first love who I just thought would last...but it won't...anymore.  It was tough at the denial stage.  Well, except for me, who would really think we would last, when for most, if not all, there really never were US in the first place.  In spite of all these, I believed in what we had...or what I had, at least.   I realized just how big I can love and the extent of what I can do for it and it alone.  That even after the death of it from the other, it can still empower me to deserve bigger love.


If it were not for you, I would not have known how to love completely.  With you, I learned how important it is to let your beloved know just how much you love her...how it can give her courage and strength.  You showed me what it was like to care so much, like the way you did.  Every day, you were never away.  This is my last curtain call in this stage of ours.  It's actually been a few months since I rose from my death.  Since then, I lived again.  I had my heart beating again.  I never gave up on love.  Love never failed me.... It's just some people doesn't know how to own it the way it should.  My heart didn't push you out. It simply made a special room for you. It's a place where the beating does not happen.  It is where a  reminder lives on to guide my heart to whom it is beating for now.


Thank you for the bedtime stories about orcs and elves and even about Napoleon.  Thank you for keeping me company whenever I was on the road.  You never skipped tucking me into bed and would not forget to say goodnight before closing your eyes.  I am happy to have loved you.  And I am happier that it is over.  Your words may still hurt...but that is all it can do now.  This home I am in now is my heaven and there will be no death, no more.  Thank you...because you had led me to him.  And I am willing to go back in time, love you and be hurt...just so I can still have him like I do now.  I hope you get to meet him one day...and you'll see how good you have molded me and deserve someone like him.


I pray to see you with someone, too...and see you smiling the way I had loved in you.  A smile that will tell me, "Thank you, Ella. We were right to not make it.  Thank you Ella, for loving me too.  Thank you, for not hurting me back the way I might have hurt you.  Thank you for the same reasons you thank me for, too."


And just like our memories together, the sketch of you shall find a friend.  With a last look, I gave in to a smile. A smile that leaves no trace of what ifs  and nots.  A smile that knows I am where I deserve to be.