Saddest story

I'm not the type to post someone else's story on my blog. I usually don't approve of putting someone else's work on your display. But this one story, made me feel like sharing it with the world.

Neruda Educates Me About Love and Goodbyes

I was never comfortable with goodbyes. If I could escape from it, I would but this wasn’t the time to run away. I had to act mature in facing the music: my friend Sum was leaving Manila for good to find his place under the sun. He just finished his two-year MBA and was heading for Singapore to hunt for his dream job. We have been friends for barely a year but the depth of our daily “sharing” made it seem like we have known each other since we were kids. I never saw it coming in our first few encounters because we were complete opposites. I was feisty while he was the epitome of calmness. Complexities attracted me whereas Sum felt that simplicity suited him just fine. I equated making a difference with conquering the world while he interpreted it as putting up a small preschool for children or a small, cozy music shop. I was Filipino, he was every inch an Indian. But we shared the same passions; we were both crazy about kids, loved watching movies, enjoyed long walks and listening to music.

If I was truly his friend, why couldn’t I be genuinely happy for him as he embarks on a new journey in his career? Deep down, I did not want Sum to leave. I got so used to spending every day of my life with him and I could not imagine what it was like not to be with him all of a sudden. He was the only man I ever imagined having a future with and now he was about to disappear from my midst.

After his departure for the Lion City , I found myself feeling emptiness settle in the core of my being. I lost interest in hanging out with my friends and taking part in their conversations which I used to find very interesting. I would listen to senti songs day-in and day-out and burn them on a CD for nobody in particular. I never left my bed on weekends. I would lose myself inside a theatre and watch a movie alone without even remembering the title afterwards. I would go to Starbucks, buy coffee but could never let the cup touch my lips. There were times my inner strength could no longer contain the loss I was feeling that I would just break into tears and repeatedly ask myself: “Why did Sum have to leave?” I could still remember the day before he left. We spent the whole evening talking about our lives, discussing our future and ended our eight-hour discussion by having breakfast at McDonald’s at 5:00 in the morning. No goodbyes were muttered that whole time. Our conversation was filled with so much optimism. But we both understood. It was going to be our last breakfast together. And I could still recall the taste of the salt from my tears when we finally parted. The world ended right there and then.

Nicnic, my roommate, understood how difficult it was to say goodbye to somebody you love but she knew better than to let depression overtake my sanity. She knew I needed a distraction to forget what my heart was aching for. She tried to restore my love for books by bringing me to a bookstore nearby. It was through this visit that I stumbled upon “The Essential Neruda Selected Poems”. Pablo Neruda was no stranger to me. I was introduced to his “Poet’s Obligation” back in college and felt an instant connection to him. I even downloaded “There’s No Forgetting (Sonata)” and “October Fullness” from the Net to inspire me whenever I felt like my Muse wasn’t whispering in my ear. I thought that reading Neruda’s fifty poems would stir me to start writing poems again. I was mistaken. There was no way of forgetting that Sum was gone and was never coming back.

Leaning into evenings I toss my sad nets

To that sea which stirs your ocean eyes

The night birds peck at the first stars

That twinkle like my soul as I love you.

“The Essential Neruda Selected Poems” seemed to have a mind of its own. Every poem I read reminded me of Sum and felt that Neruda was forcing me to walk down memory lane once more.

The first time Sum asked me out was during a Christmas party. I was surrounded by my girlfriends but he was man enough to approach me and even muster enough courage to sit beside me and talk to me for ten minutes in their presence. He did not beat around the bush. He had a purpose. He told me he was leaving for India in a few days and asked if we could go out before he left. “There should be absolutely no formalities between us. Can you tell me what I can get you from India so I am sure that you will like it?” I managed to give him a weak smile while wondering why my heart was beating faster than usual. Sure, he was goodlooking but I barely knew him. And even if I couldn’t admit it to myself, I knew right there and then that I was attracted to Sum. I agreed. I discovered on the night I went out with him that earl grey tea was the best beverage in the world. Being in his mere presence was surprisingly soothing and I wouldn’t have exchanged that evening for anything else in the world.

I like it when you’re quiet. It’s as if you’d gone away now.

And you’d become the keening, the butterfly’s insistence.

And you heard me from a distance and my voice didn’t reach you:

It’s then that what I want is to be quiet with your silence.

When he came back from his month-long vacation in his Motherland, we started to see each other more often. We had dinner at the Embassy Cuisine. I watched him devour his chicken over lunch. Coffee became a habit. We started studying together at the second floor of the library. And even if we were often together, Sum still managed to surprise me by putting a box of chocolates in my locker or buying me an aqua blue keychain (he knew I was crazy about the color). People started to talk but we didn’t care. We were living in our own little bubble having the time of our lives. I enjoyed hanging out with Sum more than any guy friend I have ever known because he was unassuming and his silent nature was an aphrodisiac. His silence always made me feel secure, protected and important. Every time I opened my mouth to speak, his eyes would look at me with such intensity making me feel like I was the only person who existed at that moment. He never laughed at my dreams and never doubted my capability to achieve them. Sum was indeed Prince Charming made flesh.

One day, Sum invited me to join him and his friends for an outreach. It was for the kids from the Virlanie orphanage. I agreed to go because I loved being with kids. I would secretly observe him from a distance and witnessed how he gave the children 100% of his unwavering attention. He played and teased them all day, oblivious to everything else around him. It was in that moment I knew that this was the man I was looking for my entire life. It went beyond his physique. I listened to my heart and it felt so right. Sum was the man I wanted to grow old with. I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz, or arrow of carnations that propogate fire: I love you as one loves certain obscure things, secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I never brought up what I felt about him. I was happy and content. Whenever I was with him, my cup of happiness runneth over.

One night, while he was watching me finish my cup of tea, he told me: “I like you a lot because you have so much life in you. I also like the fact that you are very close to your family. Not to mention that your spiritual consciousness is very inspiring.” In the poem “Oneness” Neruda wrote: There something dense, united, sitting in the background, repeating its number, its identical signal. How clear it is that stones have handled time, in their fine substance there’s the smell of age, and water the sea brings, salty and sleepy.” That was the perfect night in my 24 years of existence because that was the night both our hearts and minds were one.

Somebody once told me that since I was an artist, I felt and expressed emotions differently from everybody else. I can write the saddest verses tonight. To think that I don’t have her. To feel that I have lost her. To hear that the immense night, more immense without her. And the verse falls onto my soul like dew onto grass. What difference that my love could not keep her. The night is shattered, full of stars, and she is not with me. That’s all. In the distance, someone sings. In the distance. My soul is not at peace with having lost her. And going through Neruda’s fifty poems made me a witness to that. I thought of finding solace in his work hoping that somehow, the grief of losing Sum would be more bearable. But Neruda never made my sorrow dissipate. His poems made me re-live those moments I felt truly happy. He made me reminisce what it felt to lose yourself over somebody that you love. The colossal rush. The unexplainable craziness it entailed. I may not have the storybook ending that I longed for but “The Essential Neruda Selected Poems” reminded me that amidst the heartaches loving can bring, it was undeniable: I was worthy of love.

Whenever I receive an email or text message from Sum, I am no longer bitter. I feel elated whenever he tells me how much he is enjoying his new job. I have come to terms with ephemeral things in this life but often remember how love has the capacity to transcend my life into another level of happiness.

I also discovered that I shouldn’t fret too much about saying goodbye. There is always a purpose why a person brings love your way and then takes it with him when he leaves. Goodbyes should never signify an end. It is life’s way of telling you it is time to turn the page and to start a new chapter.

Now the earth goes on,

Slackening its interrogation,

The skin of its silence stretched out.

I’ve grown taciturn,

Pitched here from a distance,

Wrapped in cold rain and bells:

I owe to the earth’s pure death

My fervor to germinate.