A Misty-Eyed Confession

Posted on Feb 06, 2010 12:18 AM

I get a little misty eyed as I bid her goodbye yesterday, and tried to avoid staring at her misty eyes, too. We are grown up, and we are women, so we had to be strong for each other, and for our families. She is going back to the Middle East where her husband is based,newly promoted as a manager, while she briefly spent a month here with the kids to process her papers for a new job at a hospital. The kids have to go back by March so they can still catch up with summer class and not waste over P90,000 worth of tuition. Their Papa will take a leave and get them all back together.

So it's all good. After all, families should be together. Children should be with their parents.

Except we both know she won't be here for my wedding, and that crushes both our hearts, but we have to go on with our real lives. I tell her everyday we are grateful that we are loved, and that we have each other. Her kids adore me. But I miss her already,and the kids, we have a date tomorrow, and have a lot of happy memories, but Ysa and Miguel not being my flower girl and ring bearer brings pain to my heart.

I do know that when we love, we get many chances, and there will be other happy moments for us to savor, my dear sister.

In the meantime, I leave you with this birthday blogpost I did for her which first appeared on my original and personal blog in 2007. http://hellotigerkitty.blogspot.com/2007/07/happy-birthday-et.html







She is four inches taller than me, and on hindsight, the only reason I think that is, is because she kept sleeping during our childhood. I mean, that's what I remember mostly about her. She would eat like a bird and would be asleep most of the time. While I played patintero and teks, was bitten by a dog, got accelerated in grade school (I was only 11 when I entered high school), and had a weird encounter with an old tree and an albularyo during elementary, she just played with Barbie and had a pretty uneventful childhood.

While I learned the household chores (my favorite task was cleaning the house and polishing off our wooden parquet floor with bunot- a dried coconut husk) and learned how to manage my time, she was probably watching Sesame Street (where we learned our english). I'm intense, she's relaxed. That's why when we play badminton, she keeps laughing while I shake my head for my errors (hah!). In the end, I just watched and learned how to keep calm and stay relaxed by being with her.

One day she digs up this old photo and I almost kill her for it. What an ugly face (mine, not hers), oh, but look at that smile (mine, not hers)- so earnest and totally unaware of vanity. This was taken when I was still taller than her, and by fourth grade she was already taller, and I knew I was going to be the shorter ate. She bluetooths this to my phone while giggling, mostly because she looked normal while I looked err..funny. I realize that eventhough I had teeth, then braces after this photo was taken, I still have the same smile. (The smile that can eat your heart out, yes!).

To be an ate, to have siblings, is like being a mother. You worry about their future, and every happy moment they have you feel is yours,too. And her kids, I feel like they're my extension and lugi negosyo when you have a nephew and a niece. And so eventhough we're sad that you will leave us (on my birthday pa), we're happy you will be together again as one family with Ronald in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Really, choose another continent because I have no plans of visiting the middle east, and Ysabel should get a college education (there's basically none for women there).

Still I keep wondering how we even became sisters when we look and are so different from one another. But you know what, we both have a good heart. Naks. Uy, yung gold bracelet ko from saudi. Harharhar.