“Time will heal your wounds.” but hey, Isn’t 62 days long enough?

It has been 62 days since Angelo died, but nothing has changed. His memories are still fresh, lingering through me every minuet of my every day and my heart still shouts for his name, for his presence, for his tangible love.

I miss him.
I miss our sleepless nights.
I miss his comforting messages, his corny jokes, his sarcastic complements, his sometimes funny advices, our endless conversations; I miss every word he speaks.
Have you not missed him?
Have you not missed his “kakuriputan”, his pangdedeadma because he is reading his new book or seeing him all day long in front of the computer playing online games or him scribbling through his keyboard forming sentences for his blog or making new music videos for his silver screen page in multiply?
Have you not longed for his loud funny laughter or his katakawan every fiesta or his craziness over siomai or chicharon?

I do.
Do you?

I have learned more about him when he died, different things about him that came from different people who mingled with angelo when he was still, here on earth, nanggugulo sa buhay natin.. It’s like they are giving me every bit of my “dude” little by little.

A friend told me that when a person dies, one doesn’t go straight to heaven or hell; instead he goes to purgatory and stay there for a while to be purified from his sins.. I did not believe that friend, I believed in myself, that Angelo just passed by purgatory, for technicality sake or maybe he just said hello to a couple of his palls there, and then went to heaven at the same night he left us here on earth. My dude is a great person, yes he has sins, all of us does, but his was lighter than feather. (if you don’t believe me, just shut up! haha)

Angelo is just somewhere far having his extra long vacation and will come back soon – that is what I think of just to stop my tears from pouring over him again and again. Try it, sometimes its effective, and then I would still text his old cell phone number things I want to tell him and things I want him to know.

For the past two months, nights had gone by that I really wanted to talk to a person who will understand me and tell me something that would really ease me from the pain I’m enduring because of my long lasting and never ending f. problems. That person used to be Angelo and nobody else. He was my knight in shining armor that would fight with me through the battles I need a companion. I tried talking to someone, but she is either sleepy or busy about something, so there I was left alone. No Gelo, no anybody. This is one thing I’m so guilty about our relationship because I can’t return back the favor. He does not have problems like I do. In fact, he doesn’t really have problems except for his hungry stomach or his noisy neighbor who sells ice whom he is very furious about.

Some people tell me “Time will heal your wounds.” Isn’t two months long enough? Why do my wounds have not yet been healed by that “time”? Why does everything feels like the same day when Angelo died?

I hate myself and nagtatampo na din ako kay Gelo, kasi naman, why doesn’t he told me the thing that I wanted to hear from him four years ago. And that thing which I found out only a week after his death is something I do not actually sought to know now because I don’t want to feel what burdens me now the most: it pains me that “it” did not happen between us before. Now, it feels like waiting for a falling star on a sunny afternoon.

I felt I needed to write again because it is only in writing where I can tell what I really wanted to say.

Some people ask me “Why do you always go to Gelo’s resting place? Is he there?” I would answer them “No, Angelo is not there, he is in my heart. Nagpapahinga.” And then they would ask me the same question again..
Yes, I often go to Gelo’s place. That is my new tambayan in Bataan. You can find me there if you think that I’m missing. Why? Because I feel comfort, silence, love and most of all Angelo’s presence there. That is one of the two last places where I can touch Angelo by heart (the other is at his home in Kaparangan). May picture pa sya dun! Feeling ko talaga kaharap ko sya pag nagkukuento ako sakanya doon. :D Try nyo din doon! Relaxing.

When Gelo died, have you not realized that you found a whole new lot of friends? If you are his college friends, have you not met his 3KC Barkada? Or if you are his 3KC Barkada, have you not met his college friends and even Angelo’s family? Wonderful isn’t it. Gelo left but he gifted us with new found family and friends.
As for me, I met everybody; I met his college friends, his whole 3KC barkada, some of his online friends and most of all his family.

Since Gelo left me with nothing but a book entitled “Para Kay B” by Ricky Lee, I’ve been imagining and trying crazy things on how to get to him, on how to feel him in a way. One afternoon, while I was sitting and talking with him in his resting place, the wind blew so hard that it left me with a chill and I thought “Oooohhh. Gelo!.” And I said to myself: from now on, the wind will be like my Angelo’s hug. I’ve been trying that “thing” that I thought of a couple of times. I would tell Gelo “Pahug naman” and the wind would really blow so hard. I would always try that every time it’s scourging hot especially whenever I’m at his place.

Yes, just like what his father told us, “Only the physical Gelo will be gone but not the memories he left us with.” And that truth is the most burdensome isn’t it? His memories with us, the same memories that keep from me remembering a guy named Angelo Martin Espano, memories that keep my tears from falling and the memories that keep my heart from falling apart over and over again.

I know you feel the same way that I do, that’s why you are reading this until the end, don’t you?