Death

Song of the moment: The Best Deceptions by Dashboard Confessional

I just found out today that my ex-nextdoor neighbor died while in combat at Falluja last Sunday night (Click here to read the story). I heard yesterday that someone died at the war from Harbor, but I didn't know it was him. I visited my school's website as I do everyday during Computer Graphics, and I saw his face on the front page. I felt shock and was overwhelmed with the news. He was like a second brother to me... I grew up with him, and he was always teasing and making fun of me like brothers do. He was the first to call me "Mildew" and the first to tell me what April Fool's was about and the first to play a practical joke on me. And now I have found out that he is dead.

It's still unreal. Everything to me right now is unreal. Like my grandmother's current health status back in the Philippines--my aunt called last night and told my mom that Lola (Filipino term for "grandma") was hospitalized. She had diabetes, high-blood pressure (runs in the family), and there was even blood in her urine. I wrote about what I was feeling last night as I layed in bed, thinking about the heart-breaking news:

---
"My thoughts as they are"
Tuesday, November 16, 2004

My tears are made of ice.
As I lay in my bed and think of the precious
memories I have with my Lola, all that
comes to mind are her jubilant and lovable characteristics
that I am proud to have inherited.

Her lively spirit had withered into
a hopeless soul obsessed with the sweet release of death.
She refuses medical help
for she proclaims that only God can stop
the inevitable and that she would rather
carry out her last days on Earth as
natural as possible.

My mother informed me that when she talked with
my Lola, that Lola was in tears. Yet she is too
stubborn to accept further help from the doctors.
Her urine transformed into blood.
Her thoughts completely cynical.
Yet her emotions make her
show her only weakness:
that she is human.

My Lola and I are a lot a like. We both act
tough, strong and extremely independant. Yet
on the inside, we are merely as weak and innocent as
a newborn child. Our insecurities and fear of the outside
world created an outer shell--a mask of pure deception--
that allowed us to survive the cruel world
of reality.
We lived, breathed, and worse--believed the lies
that we use to our advantage.
Lies that mislead us into thinking we belonged.

Neverending secrets lay amongst us that eat us
inside while we bear it with a smile that has people
thinking we're okay. As if we're happily content
with our lives--when often, it is the opposite.

These are my thoughts. Thoughts that have emerged
from my head as I lay in my bed, when my
icy cold tears have subdued and dried
into a thin, white layer of cold crystals.
But I do wonder--why is it that even though
I have said what there is to be said, my feelings
confessed and for anyone to read and judge me as
they like, that I still feel cold and empty to
a point where I feel as if someone has stolen my heart
and I am left, once again, with my icy tears that
are as hollow as my heart?

Why must this cycle be so vicious?

---

I talked to her earlier today, and listened to her converse with my mom about how she was feeling fine and for us to not worry. Stubborn as usual--but I love her for her efforts. She works so hard, asks for nothing in return, loves her family to death (hopefully not soon), and she tries so hard not to let other people worry about her. Even though she's in pain, she still had the strength to ask me how I was. If I was doing okay in school. If I was treating my mother right. Etcetera.

My mom is planning on going to the Philippines next week to see how my Lola really is in person. She was crying when she spoke with my mom last night. Her pain must have been unbearable, because she never cries. She also would have been too conscious to have asked my mom to come home and see her, but she wasn't. She wants her youngest daughter to go see her..... a request that my mother thinks is a premonition for her death. We're all really scared about her fate. Whether or not any of us will ever see her again outside of a coffin.

---

I shed frozen tears of sadness
That seems to eat away at my heart.
My heart is now empty
For it has dried away to
A withered pulp.