We may only cross paths a few times, but you will always be remembered with a smile.

Rest in peace, Miss Tara Santelices. May you finally have rest in the arms of our Lord.

Time sure flies pretty fast if you’re not keeping a close watch.

Case in point:

I went bowling with Pam and Michelle last Labor Day weekend. I kept on saying a few meetings back that our barkada should really adopt a sport (for more gimmick options other than eating and drinking coffee) and I picked that weekend to start the resolution. We went to the bowling lanes in Eastwood (oh, the irony!) since Megamall was having a mall-wide sale and Sta. Lucia might be crowded as well.

We didn’t realize that it would be a sort-of High School reunion as we coincidentally run into 4 High school batchmates (plus 1 that Michelle met earlier that day plus 2 that Pam and I met after seeing Michelle off). Seven might be a small number but in a class that only has ~170 students and still has its own subgroups, it was a big deal.

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Three funerals, two birthdays, and a wedding.

Some people go through these things in a span of a year or so. My family went through them in two months.

December: It was over breakfast when my mother told me that her oldest brother had past away. I knew he was hospitalized a few weeks before that but I never thought he would pass away just days before Christmas. Then again, who has the power to dictate when he/she would die anyway?

Less than two weeks later, my brother got married. His wedding was the first in the family so I guess my parents got too excited and went all out with the preparations and the gimmicks. The wedding wasn’t until 7 in the evening but honestly I felt it lasted for a whole day. Good thing, the Astoria Hotel rooms was rented for the night. My sister and I got to sleep in a swanky place not to mention the ample rest time I could get before the barkada gimmick the next day.

January went by just like any other new year. After all the new year anticipation and excitement had subsided, my aunt (father’s sister) passed away. News of her death greeted me and my sister while I was on my way to work and she to school. She never got married and had been living with us even before I was born. And since my father is the only surviving immediate family member she had, we were tasked to take care of all the funeral arrangements and be at the chapel for the wake.

February came and I celebrated my birthday. Then came valentines. And then, another news hit us on Tuesday night –  my aunt (mother’s sister) bid us farewell. It’s hard to meet your relatives again in the most depressing cirsumstances. It couldn’t be helped, though. I just had to applaud my mother and her siblings’ strength despite everything.

These series of celebrations and tragedies really made me ponder on my life and what have I been doing recently. I’m already 24 and I still feel I’ve got a long way to go before I could say I’ve had it made. Funny (and frustrating) how the last hurdle ended up being the the hardest and most exhausting struggle I have to overcome. I wish, though, that I make the right decisions and that lady luck wouldn’t leave me behind.