Closure

I turned a year older yesterday. Was it good news or bad news? Depends. My cellphone was slowly flooded by text messages greeting me, from the wee hours in the morning until late last night. I have to admit, I was kinda wishful thinking that I get a greeting from him. Fate was probably good to me, that around 2PM, I got an SMS from an unregistered number - "Hi chris. Happy birthday po. May God bless u always -- 'his name'". My face lighted up. The final closure. It doesn't really matter whether he was still thinking of me. I do, too. But now I realized that I should not resent what happened to us. I was directing my anger to him and what he did all this time, when in fact, I was really angry at myself for allowing such event to come to pass. It is true that our greatest enemy is ourselves. From day one, I had the choice to say no and spare myself of the pain and hurt that stemmed from the break-up. I forced myself to make it happen without seeing the repercusions. I have built a fantasy world to conform to what I thought was a trend. The pain was unbelievable at first. Thank God I came back to my senses early.

I'd like you to meet...

Sam is our very first niece. She is truly a bundle of joy when she was added to our family. However, the announcement of her arrival brought both happiness and disappointment. Trust was broken. Everyone felt betrayed, especially me. I was shattered to pieces. I felt that my ties with my sister was slowly melting away. We drifted apart, or rather I chose to shut her off my life.
Time eventually healed the hurt I was feeling. Sam's presence hastened the process. Early last year, I found myself laughing with my sister just like the way we were before. But the healing was not really complete. Sam's dad is out of the picture. He was truly the object of my resentment. From the time that we had a confrontation when they told us the news about Sam, our paths never crossed. We tried to avoid each other, because both of us reminds us of the hurt we caused each other. Every family member makes a conscious effort so that we won't bump into each other. There came a point that my sister disclosed to me that her husband doesn't want me to step in their home.
The healing process was long but there are signs of progress. We passed a lot of opportuities to finally meet and build bridges. Last Christmas, it was nothing special but at the back of my mind, if ever he drops by, I will try to make the first move. Unfortunately, he didn' came.
On New Year's eve, the whole family had lunch at my sister's house before heading back to Laguna to welcome the New Year --- for the sake of family tradition. My parents & brother went ahead and I was left to drive my sister & Sam. Little did I know that they intentionally left me because Sam's dad will be coming over to have dinner with them before we head off to Laguna. To make the long story short, he came but went upstairs to the master's bedroom. I was at the dirty kitchen finishing the barbeque. When dinner time came, Sam was bugging me to join her on the table and meet her dad. It was inevitable. With Sam dragging me to the dinner table, she called to her dad then we found ourselves shaking hands, "Papa, I'd like you to meet tito Tope..." The rest is history.