Life As We Know It

One of my favorite titas was just diagnosed with lung cancer. I'm still in a state of denial and the news has not hit me like it should. I should be feeling an overwhelming sense of sadness or, at the very least, fear that someone I admire and love is in the "pre-departure area".

I am writing down my thoughts now in an effort to understand why I don't feel that way...yet. My brain cannot fathom life as I know it without her elegantly put-together self, her well-coiffured hair, her genuinely pleased smile that crinkles at the corner of her eyes when she sees me, her hoots of laughter when she hears something funny or the impassioned way she would recount stories of the less than savory kind especially when it pertains to politics and the sorry state of our government today. Even now as I write this, I can hear her voice, the shake of her head and how her hands would move in time to emphasize a point.

I am not sad when I recall how she took good care of me when both of us were partnered in overseeing C-Cimpel volunteers during the elections of 1998. We were assigned to the western part of Cebu (Balamban, Barili, Aloguinsan, Pinamungajan, etc.) and I remember how totally uncomplicated she was despite our very spartan accommodations at a convent right next to a church. We slept in a bunk bed, me on top, she at the bottom. Our alarm clock was the pealing of church bells at 5am and despite our having had only a few hours of sleep (we had poll watched until a little past midnight at a school in Balamban), I remember her waking up bright and cheerful. Seeing her like that made me forget that I was lacking sleep and usually dead in the mornings. She has that kind of effect on me and I am sure, everyone else.

I met her through my mom. They were friends through some organizations that they were both members of and for years, I was just this young girl, the daughter of a friend. We would meet and greet whenever we chanced upon each other but it was not until I became an attorney and had joined C-Cimpel that she became my very own friend.

She is the kind of person who listens with her heart and mind. She treats me as an equal, as someone who had something to contribute to the organization. Because she is well-read, conversations with her are invariably interesting. Her quick wit and sense of humor also define her and even my son enjoys peeking into my mom's cellphone just to look for the jokes that she sends from time to time.

I had the chance to talk to her recently, just before she started her chemo sessions, and I asked her what she felt. She said that if she had not seen the x-rays and results that said she had cancer, she would never have thought something was wrong with her. But there it was and it needed to be met head on. Even after her chemo session, she described it to me, through text, as something totally routinary, and that people receiving treatment there also bantered and talked to each other like people in a beauty salon would.

When I spoke to her recently, her voice was strong and her tone pragmatic, totally devoid of self-pity. It emboldened me to not feel sad for her. It made me see that life goes on and while she's here, she will continue to face life as she always has--with candor, humor, pragmatism and with a whole lot of love. I can do no less.