it's has been several months already. but i still cannot bear the fact that she' gone forever. today is supposedly her 12th birthday. i can still remember her first birthday with us last year.
from the day she stepped in our home, i already accepted her as part of the family. i have decided to help her fulfill her dreams. she wanted to be a nurse. i'd provide her with a better life with us because i know it has been difficult for her as a child. she never really had the family she wanted and i know i can give it to her.
she is jerelyn. we call her "hunny". she is my cousin's daughter. she could have already been in the 6th grade this year. their family story is a bit complicated. and i never really heard her complain. i know that she is a very nice girl. she passed away may 1, 2008. she died of
ITP. it was a sudden death. it was only less than a month since we let her checked up by a doctor.
she had been with us for almost two years. she came to live with us through her mother's request may 2006. but even with our short time together, she already had become part of the family. she had helped us a lot in our home. doing some chores and helping me out with rain. i never neglected her with anything that she needs. i treated her like my own child. i've always shown her that i care for her. and i feel really sorry because i feel that what i have shown her was not enough to make her life better. that i never really reached out to her and let her feel that i do love her as my own child. i know i still have so much to give her, more than material things. i know she still needed so much more. i never expected she'd be away that soon. i had plans for her future. i thought she'd always be with us. i have so many regrets on how i treated her. i feel that i was too wicked on her specially during my pregnancy. she was afraid to make mistakes because she knew i'd scold her. it was like i took life's negativities on her and yet she never complained. she stood by me. and helped me all throughout. she knew i wasn't in my right state, she knew i had difficulties, she knew i needed her. and i can't stand the fact that it's all gone now. she's gone now. and never to return. and i've nothing to do with it. and i'd spend my whole life regretting every bad word i've said to her. i feel i was so evil. like i'm the villain in her story. like i never loved her that much. but i do. i always will. i don't know if she knows it. there's no way that i can tell or show her now. she is gone. she's gone.
i have promised her one time when i visited her that it's going to be different when she comes home from the hospital. i will not scold her anymore and that she still had to fulfill her dreams to go to college and i'll help her. i also told her that she has to get well so that she can go home because rain is already asking about her, that they're going to attend "flores de mayo", and the school year is about to begin. eventhough she was in comatose, i knew she heard me. my cousin(her aunt) was also there and we both were crying and i saw hunny getting teary-eyed also. when i asked her if she understood me, she moved and nodded a bit. right then, i thought, everything's gonna be just fine. her being gone never really occurred in my mind.
my 14-year old sister-in-law who also comes in the house everyday to do the housekeeping told me on hunny's wake that hunny has been feeling not well since february this year. she had been complaining on her headache and that she didn't want me to know it. so it was only then that my sis-in-law told me. i was frozen when i heard that. i blamed everything on me.why haven't she told me? why? was i not that deserving to know the truth? am i that scary? i really could not get it.
and i wasn't able to be with her on her deathbed because i was helping out at my parents' house during the Tagbilaran feast day. i was planning to go that day as i've always visited her everyday since she was admitted at the hospital. though her mother and my other cousin(her aunt) was taking charge of her at the hospital --also in finding for blood donors and buying medicines and other things she needed, i've always been keeping track of things, how she's doing and finding funds to finance her medicines and expenses. i had to do my part even just through texting and contacting people because i can't run off that easily because i just gave birth (april 9) with my second child. i would hear people saying to just give up because we'd just be wasting our effort and money because her sickness has a very little chance of cure. upon hearing this kind of things, at first, i'd get weak and would cry really hard, but i can't just give up because they said so. i will do whatever it takes to save her. i can't imagine loosing her. it never really occurred to me because i've always thought that she'd get well soon. i never accepted the possibility that she'd be gone. that day (may 1) in the afternoon, when i was about to visit her (after planning to do so all day), i received a text message stating the saddest news in my entire life. i cried really hard. everybody was asking me why? but i assume they already know why. i never experienced crying that way ever before. i never have felt that kind of pain and sorrow. but when rain saw me crying, she cried as well. so i tried to relax and kept calm. though, i can felt really painful inside. but when i see my kids, i just can't breakdown and cry. i know they still need me, so i decided to stay firm. though, there are times when i can't help it, i just cry for a while and then hold back.
after few months, i still cannot get over the fact that she's gone. and i believe i never will. i just can't understand the fact of death. it has always been my greatest fear. though, i know the place where she is right now is much much better than what we have here. my sorrows and regrets are not for her, but for myself. my life is now blended with sorrow. i know there will be so much more to come, more pains and still more joys, but never will this sorrow ever leave. i will always be sorrowful for the rest of my life. i may smile or laugh out loud facing the whole world. but deep inside of me there is a very dark room wondering the occurrences in my life. and i never will discover the mystery of it.
Starring Will Smith, Thandie Newton and Jaden Smith
