for hannah, ask and you shall receive. this chapter i wrote with the song 'angels on the moon' on my mind, for me that song represents Keith perfectly.
Chapter Twenty-Two
*Keith*
… Four months ago…
You never quite expect it no matter how much warning you get, the shock hits you, the disbelief. For a split segundo you think it's impossible, that there must be some mistake. And then it flows through you, the sad acceptance that it is in fact real and tomorrow you'll wake up again and forget for a segundo until it rushes back. It will happen madami than once, sometimes you'll remember half way through a thought or sentence and you stop and have to come to grips with it all over again. Grief is a never-ending circle. A darkness always there at the edge of your vision.
The thing that happens is you never get use to it; perhaps that is why it always hits so hard no matter how you pretend it doesn't.
They want you to have optimism, hope… they want you to believe you won't be susunod but each time someone else goes you wonder. Will it be me? Will it be my friend? You look at all the faces around you, you wonder which one will disappear, you wonder if it should be you, and always there are the ones around us. The ones with the fear in their eyes that someone they pag-ibig will be next, the hope that it won't come to that and as cruel as it may seem there is a relief that this time it wasn't the persons hand they are now holding.
For me I'm not sure how to feel, what to think, this time I was truly unprepared. Never have I Nawawala someone so close to me, it makes all the other times seem insignificant and no life should be that.
Going in and out of hospital I have watched others weaken until their bodies give out, I have noticed when someone stops returning for treatment, it is a part of my life. Never though have I called that person friend, never have I had to hold the grieving family in my arms unable to make the pain go away.
Zane was a part of Allie, he had her eyes, he had her laugh, I'd sat susunod to him, I had played games with him and now that small boy is just gone. How? How can he just be gone?
There are whispers, no one is talking too loudly about it, nobody wants to.
They all react slightly different but since we found out Abby has been even madami clingy than usual. She's been sleeping in my bed, which she hasn't done since I was diagnosed again and Mom is hovering madami too. I can barely find time to think sa pamamagitan ng myself.
Sawyer is talking to me more, she keeps asking me how I am feeling, and she looks at me like I may vanish at any moment too. They are all so careful, all so careful to avoid thinking let alone saying that it could have been me.
All I can think is, it shouldn't have been him.
…
I run a hand through my curls, I am still getting use to having them back, it feels strange, and smoothing them back into place I check my reflection. It looks too perfect, I look too perfect, I've managed to grow an inch over the summer, I'm no longer bone thin, colour is back in my face, and I'm dressed in a Clothes FOR Bro's suit that was literally designed for me. I abandon the tie and swap the white sando for the black one, after buttoning the cuffs I walk downstairs.
When my parents see me a small light appears in their eyes, that light is the part of them that is relieved, the part of them that is thanking god I am walking down the stairs alive and well.
"You ready?" Mom asks.
I can't speak so I nod and take the last few steps. Dad places a hand on my shoulder, silently telling me he's sorry and then Mom hugs me, when I am free from their touch they no longer have that light in their eyes. It has now been hidden dutifully behind all the other emotions.
This is a sad day; none of us can forget that because it could have been our family. And the biggest part of us wouldn't wish it on anybody.
…
It's a small service, the air is thick, the sun is high, and the church is filled with this suppressed tension. Everyone here feels it, they feel the wrongness. The only sound that interrupts the service is the cries. They are quiet and coming from Allie's mother, a woman who usually shows little emotion.
I sit with my family but my puso is with Allie, I keep my eyes on the back of her hair that is the same black as the dyaket she wears. The realisation makes me flinch, I don't need to think hard to know what that hides in this heat, and now my puso aches even more.
When they ilipat to the cemetery to lower the casket in Zane's final resting place I ilipat to the front to stand sa pamamagitan ng Allie, her head lowers and her eyes shut. Her expression reminds me of when my mother has one of her migraines only worse. My hand reaches for hers, I hold onto her but then she wiggles her hand and pulls it free snatching it back to her side. Allie doesn't look at me but she moves a step to the side, a step away from me.
It feels like miles.
…
You can't help but wonder about it. What is death like? Where do you go? Can you feel or is it an eternity of thought? Are we judged, does that judgement lead to heaven or hell?
When you know you're dying what happens susunod can be your biggest fear or your biggest comfort. Years nakaraan my father read me Peter Pan, I remember thinking that I agreed with the immortal boy, to die would be an awfully big adventure. I tried not to be scared though a lot of the time I was. I was never ready to leave my family and my home, I wouldn't know anyone in heaven and it sounded lonely.
Other times I thought maybe death was like the end of the world, after all doesn't the universes existence rely on us? Every object, every person, animal, or plant we meet, are they not just a series of images, textures, smells, that we process. When we stop, when our bodies die and we no longer feel or think the world vanishes.
I guess it is a good thing none of us know what happens next.
…
The wake is slightly different to the burial, there are less tears and madami laughter, I've seen the switch happen before. It is when everyone remembers the good times and the alcohol helps numb the pain for most but still the grief is in everyone's eyes.
The shadow is darker in their parents eyes and in Allie's, she doesn't laugh, she doesn't cry, she just sits staring off into puwang with a blank expression on her face. We all sit around her but she doesn't seem to notice. Tyler looks at me and I just shake my head, we can't help her, we can't fix this.
I want to try, I want to balutin her up and take her far away from all the pain and confusion. She won't let me, Allie won't let me touch her and she won't look at me. I think a part of her has already escaped somewhere sa pamamagitan ng herself.
…
I'm the first to break away from the group, if it had been any other time I would go have a rest, I'm tired, I can't think properly and the dull pain in my abdomen is getting worse. I can't say anything, this isn't the time or place, and so I make my excuses and go to the bathroom. My steps quicken, I need to be alone now.
There is a bathroom upstairs away from the crowd, I know exactly how far it is and it is too far, I don't even have time to shut the door, I just run and barely make it to the toilet before I'm retching.
My breakfast is gone.
It's all I can hear, over and over again.
When it is over I close my eyes and rest against the cool tiles of the floor, right now I wish I could escape.
The outer door shutting gets my attention and I open my eyes to see Allie standing there, my mind flashes back to the araw I first asked Allie out. This time she's not helping me, she's looking at me with a fear I've never seen before.
"Allie" I say her name softly and get up but the moment I step towards her she steps backwards, when I go to touch her she flinches, "hey, just let me hold you" but when I say it she finally looks at me and tears fall from her eyes.
"Don't" the one word slashes through me.
"Al-"
"I c-c-can't do this again, I c-c-can't watch you die too"
It stings as if she has slapped me but I can feel her pain too, I just want to be there for her, I just want to tell her I pag-ibig her and I'm not going anywhere. She shakes her head and holds her hand up, Allie stumbles over her words "don't make promises you can't keep"
"I'm here now" I say instead.
She backs up again, "you're here now, you're here now that is the problem, you're here and I'm here and it's killing me, because one araw you're gonna go too and what do we do then?"
She's too busy yelling at me to notice I've walked to her, "you get to just go and we're left behind broken, don't you get it, losing Zane almost destroyed me!" and I pull her into my arms, her cries muffled against my chest. Her head starts shaking against me,
"NO", she pulls away but my hands are holding her wrist as she hits my chest "I won't watch you die" I pull her back to me and she breaks down in my arms, her body becomes a dead weight and we sink to the floor.
It always comes back to that one word, that one question. Why?
…
It wasn't until I was eight that I fully understood our situation – my situation. Death, what was that, when on TV people die all the time and come back. I didn't understand that it was unusual and not normal to spend so much time at a hospital.
I also knew that the reason why I was alive was because my little sister had saved my life, I didn't understand it at first. It took a long time for me to figure everything out. I remember one night I got out of kama and stood susunod to Abby's and watched her sleep. We may not look alike but inside we were the same, it had to do with having the same Mom and Dad, and it meant that we could share things. Things I needed. I couldn't quite understand it all, how a part of her was inside of me and that parts of her were what kept me around. That they had her because of me, back then I couldn't tell if it was to save me or just in case they needed a replacement. Staring down at her I had been scared, angry, confused. What did this mean? Did it mean that without her I don't exist?
So I knew from an early age it all depended on Abby, that she had my very life in her hands. I never worried so much about that because there isn't anybody else I trust more, not then and not now. I can trust Abby because inside we're the same.
…
"I'm sorry" I say over and over again, Allie clings to me, and I am so sorry because I know that I'm causing her pain when that is the last thing I want. I am not blind.
Losing Zane almost destroyed Allie meanwhile I am slowly destroying my own family. Every one of them suffers because of me and now I'm hurting Allie too. I see it all and in return it eats away at me. There is so much guilt, they would be the first ones to tell me not to be so stupid but I can't stop feeling like I am the stormy ulap hovering above my family and they are all just waiting for me to break and fall on tuktok of them.
"I'm sorry" I squeeze my eyes shut and grip her hair into my fingers, I never want to let go, "I'm sorry"
She hiccups, her body jerks with the movement and slowly she pulls away and we look at one another. I would say she's calmer but I know from the look in her eyes she has just ibingiay up. Acceptance is not peace.
Gently she touches my cheek, I turn it into her palm so she cups my face and I close my eyes to get rid of that look, instead I focus on the feel of her fingers against my skin.
"No, I'm sorry" she whispers and then I feel her lips against my nose, the quick halik is over before it has began, "I can't do this anymore"
"Don't go" I choke out as I feel her fingers slip away from my face, when only cool air caresses me I open my eyes. Still on my knees I look up at her as she retreats from the room. Allie just shakes her head, "I can't do this anymore, I can't stand the waiting and not knowing, the false hope, smiling when all I want to do is cry… I pag-ibig you too much to watch you die" and her whole face crumples up.
Then why are you leaving me? My puso begs. If you pag-ibig me you won't walk away. She can't, I tell myself as I don't ilipat and even as she walks away I don't believe what she is doing.
And then she's gone and I'm alone, my legs give out and I fall back to sit on my legs.
No. But the command doesn't pass my lips; they part but just breath escapes.
I don't know how much time passes but when I look back up Abby is in the doorway where Allie had not long left me by, and she's looking at me with such sympathy. I wonder how much she heard, and as I look deeper into her eyes I know she heard everything.
Yet it's the other thing that grabs my attention, I see the truth in her eyes. The exact same look Allie gave me, but I knew that already. It just never really hit me how much I am destroying them. I use to wonder what my life would be like if Abby was never born, I now wonder what their lives would be like if I was never here.
Allie was right; it all was such false hope. Pleading with my sister I look at her, barely able to contain my pain, my hands hang limply beside me but I manage to say what I want to say.
"It never stops"
And I don't know how long any of us can keep going. I'm tired. So tired of hanging on, I've spent years going through the motions and on the days it gets too much, when I feel so sick every breath hurts I tell myself to keep going, just one madami day, and then the susunod and the next, I pull myself up, I force myself to eat, I weep in shame as my family is forced to care for me, because I tell myself no matter what, no matter how tired I am I have to keep going for them.
But it never stops, and it never will.
Abby's hand touches my shoulder, she grips onto me, and that touch joins us but we're already so entwined with each other. That is how it has always been for as long as either one of us can remember, there is an invisible cord tying us together, reminding us every araw without words that we only exist because of each other. Would it all stop if I cut it? What if I break the pattern?
I break it and things will change.
Out of the night that covers me, black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be for my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance my head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears looms but the horror of the shade, and yet the menace of the years finds and shall find me unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.
The words of Invictus come to me as I make up my mind, the poem whispered from a long nakaraan memory.
I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul.
Chapter Twenty-Two
*Keith*
… Four months ago…
You never quite expect it no matter how much warning you get, the shock hits you, the disbelief. For a split segundo you think it's impossible, that there must be some mistake. And then it flows through you, the sad acceptance that it is in fact real and tomorrow you'll wake up again and forget for a segundo until it rushes back. It will happen madami than once, sometimes you'll remember half way through a thought or sentence and you stop and have to come to grips with it all over again. Grief is a never-ending circle. A darkness always there at the edge of your vision.
The thing that happens is you never get use to it; perhaps that is why it always hits so hard no matter how you pretend it doesn't.
They want you to have optimism, hope… they want you to believe you won't be susunod but each time someone else goes you wonder. Will it be me? Will it be my friend? You look at all the faces around you, you wonder which one will disappear, you wonder if it should be you, and always there are the ones around us. The ones with the fear in their eyes that someone they pag-ibig will be next, the hope that it won't come to that and as cruel as it may seem there is a relief that this time it wasn't the persons hand they are now holding.
For me I'm not sure how to feel, what to think, this time I was truly unprepared. Never have I Nawawala someone so close to me, it makes all the other times seem insignificant and no life should be that.
Going in and out of hospital I have watched others weaken until their bodies give out, I have noticed when someone stops returning for treatment, it is a part of my life. Never though have I called that person friend, never have I had to hold the grieving family in my arms unable to make the pain go away.
Zane was a part of Allie, he had her eyes, he had her laugh, I'd sat susunod to him, I had played games with him and now that small boy is just gone. How? How can he just be gone?
There are whispers, no one is talking too loudly about it, nobody wants to.
They all react slightly different but since we found out Abby has been even madami clingy than usual. She's been sleeping in my bed, which she hasn't done since I was diagnosed again and Mom is hovering madami too. I can barely find time to think sa pamamagitan ng myself.
Sawyer is talking to me more, she keeps asking me how I am feeling, and she looks at me like I may vanish at any moment too. They are all so careful, all so careful to avoid thinking let alone saying that it could have been me.
All I can think is, it shouldn't have been him.
…
I run a hand through my curls, I am still getting use to having them back, it feels strange, and smoothing them back into place I check my reflection. It looks too perfect, I look too perfect, I've managed to grow an inch over the summer, I'm no longer bone thin, colour is back in my face, and I'm dressed in a Clothes FOR Bro's suit that was literally designed for me. I abandon the tie and swap the white sando for the black one, after buttoning the cuffs I walk downstairs.
When my parents see me a small light appears in their eyes, that light is the part of them that is relieved, the part of them that is thanking god I am walking down the stairs alive and well.
"You ready?" Mom asks.
I can't speak so I nod and take the last few steps. Dad places a hand on my shoulder, silently telling me he's sorry and then Mom hugs me, when I am free from their touch they no longer have that light in their eyes. It has now been hidden dutifully behind all the other emotions.
This is a sad day; none of us can forget that because it could have been our family. And the biggest part of us wouldn't wish it on anybody.
…
It's a small service, the air is thick, the sun is high, and the church is filled with this suppressed tension. Everyone here feels it, they feel the wrongness. The only sound that interrupts the service is the cries. They are quiet and coming from Allie's mother, a woman who usually shows little emotion.
I sit with my family but my puso is with Allie, I keep my eyes on the back of her hair that is the same black as the dyaket she wears. The realisation makes me flinch, I don't need to think hard to know what that hides in this heat, and now my puso aches even more.
When they ilipat to the cemetery to lower the casket in Zane's final resting place I ilipat to the front to stand sa pamamagitan ng Allie, her head lowers and her eyes shut. Her expression reminds me of when my mother has one of her migraines only worse. My hand reaches for hers, I hold onto her but then she wiggles her hand and pulls it free snatching it back to her side. Allie doesn't look at me but she moves a step to the side, a step away from me.
It feels like miles.
…
You can't help but wonder about it. What is death like? Where do you go? Can you feel or is it an eternity of thought? Are we judged, does that judgement lead to heaven or hell?
When you know you're dying what happens susunod can be your biggest fear or your biggest comfort. Years nakaraan my father read me Peter Pan, I remember thinking that I agreed with the immortal boy, to die would be an awfully big adventure. I tried not to be scared though a lot of the time I was. I was never ready to leave my family and my home, I wouldn't know anyone in heaven and it sounded lonely.
Other times I thought maybe death was like the end of the world, after all doesn't the universes existence rely on us? Every object, every person, animal, or plant we meet, are they not just a series of images, textures, smells, that we process. When we stop, when our bodies die and we no longer feel or think the world vanishes.
I guess it is a good thing none of us know what happens next.
…
The wake is slightly different to the burial, there are less tears and madami laughter, I've seen the switch happen before. It is when everyone remembers the good times and the alcohol helps numb the pain for most but still the grief is in everyone's eyes.
The shadow is darker in their parents eyes and in Allie's, she doesn't laugh, she doesn't cry, she just sits staring off into puwang with a blank expression on her face. We all sit around her but she doesn't seem to notice. Tyler looks at me and I just shake my head, we can't help her, we can't fix this.
I want to try, I want to balutin her up and take her far away from all the pain and confusion. She won't let me, Allie won't let me touch her and she won't look at me. I think a part of her has already escaped somewhere sa pamamagitan ng herself.
…
I'm the first to break away from the group, if it had been any other time I would go have a rest, I'm tired, I can't think properly and the dull pain in my abdomen is getting worse. I can't say anything, this isn't the time or place, and so I make my excuses and go to the bathroom. My steps quicken, I need to be alone now.
There is a bathroom upstairs away from the crowd, I know exactly how far it is and it is too far, I don't even have time to shut the door, I just run and barely make it to the toilet before I'm retching.
My breakfast is gone.
It's all I can hear, over and over again.
When it is over I close my eyes and rest against the cool tiles of the floor, right now I wish I could escape.
The outer door shutting gets my attention and I open my eyes to see Allie standing there, my mind flashes back to the araw I first asked Allie out. This time she's not helping me, she's looking at me with a fear I've never seen before.
"Allie" I say her name softly and get up but the moment I step towards her she steps backwards, when I go to touch her she flinches, "hey, just let me hold you" but when I say it she finally looks at me and tears fall from her eyes.
"Don't" the one word slashes through me.
"Al-"
"I c-c-can't do this again, I c-c-can't watch you die too"
It stings as if she has slapped me but I can feel her pain too, I just want to be there for her, I just want to tell her I pag-ibig her and I'm not going anywhere. She shakes her head and holds her hand up, Allie stumbles over her words "don't make promises you can't keep"
"I'm here now" I say instead.
She backs up again, "you're here now, you're here now that is the problem, you're here and I'm here and it's killing me, because one araw you're gonna go too and what do we do then?"
She's too busy yelling at me to notice I've walked to her, "you get to just go and we're left behind broken, don't you get it, losing Zane almost destroyed me!" and I pull her into my arms, her cries muffled against my chest. Her head starts shaking against me,
"NO", she pulls away but my hands are holding her wrist as she hits my chest "I won't watch you die" I pull her back to me and she breaks down in my arms, her body becomes a dead weight and we sink to the floor.
It always comes back to that one word, that one question. Why?
…
It wasn't until I was eight that I fully understood our situation – my situation. Death, what was that, when on TV people die all the time and come back. I didn't understand that it was unusual and not normal to spend so much time at a hospital.
I also knew that the reason why I was alive was because my little sister had saved my life, I didn't understand it at first. It took a long time for me to figure everything out. I remember one night I got out of kama and stood susunod to Abby's and watched her sleep. We may not look alike but inside we were the same, it had to do with having the same Mom and Dad, and it meant that we could share things. Things I needed. I couldn't quite understand it all, how a part of her was inside of me and that parts of her were what kept me around. That they had her because of me, back then I couldn't tell if it was to save me or just in case they needed a replacement. Staring down at her I had been scared, angry, confused. What did this mean? Did it mean that without her I don't exist?
So I knew from an early age it all depended on Abby, that she had my very life in her hands. I never worried so much about that because there isn't anybody else I trust more, not then and not now. I can trust Abby because inside we're the same.
…
"I'm sorry" I say over and over again, Allie clings to me, and I am so sorry because I know that I'm causing her pain when that is the last thing I want. I am not blind.
Losing Zane almost destroyed Allie meanwhile I am slowly destroying my own family. Every one of them suffers because of me and now I'm hurting Allie too. I see it all and in return it eats away at me. There is so much guilt, they would be the first ones to tell me not to be so stupid but I can't stop feeling like I am the stormy ulap hovering above my family and they are all just waiting for me to break and fall on tuktok of them.
"I'm sorry" I squeeze my eyes shut and grip her hair into my fingers, I never want to let go, "I'm sorry"
She hiccups, her body jerks with the movement and slowly she pulls away and we look at one another. I would say she's calmer but I know from the look in her eyes she has just ibingiay up. Acceptance is not peace.
Gently she touches my cheek, I turn it into her palm so she cups my face and I close my eyes to get rid of that look, instead I focus on the feel of her fingers against my skin.
"No, I'm sorry" she whispers and then I feel her lips against my nose, the quick halik is over before it has began, "I can't do this anymore"
"Don't go" I choke out as I feel her fingers slip away from my face, when only cool air caresses me I open my eyes. Still on my knees I look up at her as she retreats from the room. Allie just shakes her head, "I can't do this anymore, I can't stand the waiting and not knowing, the false hope, smiling when all I want to do is cry… I pag-ibig you too much to watch you die" and her whole face crumples up.
Then why are you leaving me? My puso begs. If you pag-ibig me you won't walk away. She can't, I tell myself as I don't ilipat and even as she walks away I don't believe what she is doing.
And then she's gone and I'm alone, my legs give out and I fall back to sit on my legs.
No. But the command doesn't pass my lips; they part but just breath escapes.
I don't know how much time passes but when I look back up Abby is in the doorway where Allie had not long left me by, and she's looking at me with such sympathy. I wonder how much she heard, and as I look deeper into her eyes I know she heard everything.
Yet it's the other thing that grabs my attention, I see the truth in her eyes. The exact same look Allie gave me, but I knew that already. It just never really hit me how much I am destroying them. I use to wonder what my life would be like if Abby was never born, I now wonder what their lives would be like if I was never here.
Allie was right; it all was such false hope. Pleading with my sister I look at her, barely able to contain my pain, my hands hang limply beside me but I manage to say what I want to say.
"It never stops"
And I don't know how long any of us can keep going. I'm tired. So tired of hanging on, I've spent years going through the motions and on the days it gets too much, when I feel so sick every breath hurts I tell myself to keep going, just one madami day, and then the susunod and the next, I pull myself up, I force myself to eat, I weep in shame as my family is forced to care for me, because I tell myself no matter what, no matter how tired I am I have to keep going for them.
But it never stops, and it never will.
Abby's hand touches my shoulder, she grips onto me, and that touch joins us but we're already so entwined with each other. That is how it has always been for as long as either one of us can remember, there is an invisible cord tying us together, reminding us every araw without words that we only exist because of each other. Would it all stop if I cut it? What if I break the pattern?
I break it and things will change.
Out of the night that covers me, black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be for my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance my head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears looms but the horror of the shade, and yet the menace of the years finds and shall find me unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.
The words of Invictus come to me as I make up my mind, the poem whispered from a long nakaraan memory.
I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul.
