Not your Typical Love Story

By: Anonymous

Love always starts happily. Yet an ending, as what others think, is nothing but a beginning positioned at the last part of every life — he or she does not know what reclines ahead of that ending. And truly, only the happiest are blind enough not to see the stripe which separates the two…

* * *

It was an afternoon. The entire place was enclosed by yellow balloons. There were flowers, with faintly sunny petals and ribbons of lemon colors. As you proceed to his finality, a part of you wanted to set back. Your feet were frail as a weedy twig; your tired eyes were clouded by the inevitable vagueness from your hot, burning tears. You made your last contact to him…as you gradually touched the cold, sad mirror of his coffin.

“In the name of the father…”

And so, it ended. You could always heave a sigh, after all. At all times, it has been your sole prayer. And for worldly reasons, it has been your most depressing wish to bring his pain to an end. It was, as you wanted to believe, the sheer answer to cease the agony you constantly see in his very eyes — pair of tired circles that spoke so much aches and fears. You hated yourself, though. Certainly, hoping for someone’s death could sound totally wrong. Yet, as for you, it was indeed the good thing to happen.

“and of the Son…”

You did it. You have proved to them that despite your discrepancy, you could own the world and turn your dreams in reality. Since then, you were always different from the other kids. You were undoubtedly distinct from them as you always prefer to play ‘bahay-bahayan’ with your girl neighbors or put a pink gumamela on your right ear and act as if you were Jasmine Trias…only in a body of a six-year old ‘boy’.

Of course, you learned to be used to all the negativities in your life. Difference, on the other hand, also served as your pavement to be distinguished. And difference, in so many ways, had taught you how to feel this fantastic feeling of descending…of falling in love so deeply that even the law of gravity couldn’t validate.

“and of the Holy Spirit…”

Your tears were unstoppable — so inevitable that your eyes seemed to build up a reservoir. Loving him caused so much pain and so much joy in your being. And if there was one thing that you hated the most, it was this feeling — this sensitivity of being insensitive. Perhaps it was too metaphorical. But all you knew was you were being too profound that even profoundness had made you feel shallow and small-minded at the rarest of moments. You wouldn’t stop loving him. And you knew, from the very beginning of your story together, that you couldn’t stop loving him as well.

“Amen.”

Little by little, as your weary feet stride on the bright green Bermuda blades of this lonely graveyard, you also walked away from this actual moment of grief. You departed from it. You knew that this would be really hard…but this was your only option.

* * *

The sky represented darkness.

Unlike the other Thursday evenings of your life, no stars were visible that night. It has been your escape to reality by gaping at the glowing diamonds hanging up in the misty heavens. Well, looking at them made you feel safe and sound in some ways — away from jeopardy and not to mention, away from the harm of being lonely.

But in a sense, you love him more than there are stars in the sky. The thought of him always excites you. It was, as you wanted to believe, an upset. But for some irrefutable reason, you also have a tendency to believe that accidents were nothing but intended fortunes that just happen out of the blue.

It was a special Thursday to everyone’s life…at least, not for you. Heart’s day, it was. Yet, seeing yourself alone in this actual spot of swarming couples is such a very gloomy sketch. If truth be told, you looked so damned and hopeless. Sitting alone in a pool of love birds was indeed a bad idea.

But in this very place, you met him. At the town park — a common destination for lovers or for people who could not pay for a date on fanciful restaurants or well-appointed eating places. You were sitting by yourself on a rock bench when ‘someone’ asked if he could borrow your mobile phone for a moment to text somebody since his phone was already emptied. You agreed. He said ‘thank you’ in the deepest and frostiest voice you've ever heard.

You thought he was cute. But more than that, he was attracted to you…and you could just feel it. This boy was interested. This boy was interested to you! Well, you thought that it was the important thing to happen — that being interested is fundamental as it always fires up affiliations and bonds. He returned your phone and an eleven-digit number flashed on the faintly-dented screen. Both of you smiled at the very instant he walked away. He saved his number — and you knew from that very moment, it was also the point in time when the attraction began to amplify and started to grow in the vein of affection.

Time had been so swift. After your meeting together, a friendship flowered. You dated him for a couple of months; no formal courting happened because your feelings were mutual. Damn. You were so joyous that you couldn’t even identify reality from a dream.

For two years, a lot of things had changed. The two of you didn’t agree on much. In fact, you didn’t agree on almost all the things. You fought all the time and dared each other every day. But despite your differences, the two of you have one central thing in common: You were crazy about each other.

It was on a Valentine’s Day, the second anniversary of your meeting, when he had surprised you.

“Hey. Have you ever thought about leaving?” you asked him as both of you lazed on the grassy meadow of the park; watching the sky as it gradually embraced darkness.

“Leaving? Perhaps. You know, every relationship is stained. Leaving is different from letting go. Letting go is coming to a realization that some people are a part of you, but not a part of your entirety,” he said as his hands grabbed yours, disregarding how sweaty it was or how other people would think about the two of you.

“But what if we’re not right for each other?” you asked him again, challenging whatever intelligence he might have.

“Why did you ask that? Don't think we're not right for each other because the way I see it, we might not be right for anyone else,” he said. You smiled. He was the only person in the world who could make you smile inside and out. Though you hated him sometimes, you always ended up kissing those tender lips and embracing him so unyielding that he could not even take breaths. Truly, the thought of losing him would damage you. It would kill you in so many ways.

“Enough of it. I love you so much — so much that I could even sing to you your favorite song right now though my voice is too horrible,” he laughed as he grabbed a guitar and gave you a bouquet of yellow roses with a message ‘I love you, Happy Valentine’s Day.’

You were so happy. It was your first time to experience such things — to feel so much happiness as if everything was fine. He sang your favorite song despite his lack of aptitude in singing. You loved how out-of-tune he was. You wished it was forever and your soul prayed it was eternal.

Sometimes you imagined that everything could have been different for you, that if only you had gone right one day when you chose to go left, you would be living a life you could never have anticipated. But at other times you think there was no other way forward — that you were always bound to end up exactly where you were…with him. You always read his very first letter to you. You wouldn’t fail to remember it. It was the sweetest letter you’ve ever read and not to mention, received — a letter from him, a letter from the love of your life:

To my dearest,

Are you a drug? This is new for my part. The thought of us makes me feel edgy and happy at the same time. I’m not that type of person who constantly expresses his affection and do stuffs like this. I’m just a guy who badly likes black and one who watches eerie movies without so much lovability and cuteness in his system to carry out tasks like: writing love letters, kissing someone, holding hands, saying things like ‘I love you’ or ‘I miss you’. Nevertheless, when I met you…everything seemed to change.

I know that most of the people living in this kind of society think that our love is immoral. I care. I always say to you that I don’t mind about what others say about us — but in a larger sense, I do. I don’t want us to be put down by those people just because their beliefs contradict to ours. If we are able to respect their beliefs, why couldn’t they?

Real love, sometimes, would crush you whole and gobble down every fraction of your fairy-tale-like-conviction. Nevertheless, genuine love is merely not about how elevated your pride is or how you measure the times you made yourself down — for love dictates us to be always forgiving because even love unreturned has its own light. I do hope that every day it would be just like the very first time we met or the very first time we uttered the words ‘I love you’.

Everytime we meet, a blend of excitement and anxiety joggles within my core. I want it to be endless. I want the two of us to remain just like that forever. But forever, on the other hand, is painful. For years, I think, we would remain like that…just like that — happy and contented. But as for me, finding you is enough. Every now and then, I drown myself into picturing scenarios that will never happen — things that usually don’t happen in reality. I don’t want to push my luck. I can’t talk about a painful, terrifying, and disheartening break up. So everything will be fine. Perfect is boring.

I’ve always been looking for the meaning of life and happiness. But in my search, I understand that life is not a matter of chasing for happiness. Let happiness chase you. Let yourself define who you are — because honestly, you will never be able to live if you will remain looking for the meaning of life. I really trust you and I love you so much. And I’m hoping that you wouldn’t dare to break this grave reliance I have for you. Thank you for loving me too. And before I go, I conclude that you really are a drug.

Love, guru

* * *

Perfect is indeed boring. But truly, the love that lasts the longest is the love that can never be. Like what he said to you, forever is completely painful…and really it is.

It was six months after your Valentine’s date when you found out that your boyfriend was suffering from a brain cancer, stage three. He didn’t tell you immediately because he didn’t want you to endure the pain as well. It made you cry the entire night. It made you feel as if you were also suffering from the disease. You couldn’t sleep or even eat sometimes and you started to get flimsy…little by little.

“God, please forgive me for all the wrong things I’ve done. Please forgive me for being not a good person. But now I’m here kneeling before you — asking for only one certain thing…please, please let him survive…please give him another chance to live a normal life. I know this is too much. But please God, don’t let him die in pain…it would make me pass away as well. I love him so much. I couldn’t…I just couldn’t see him suffering like this.”

Those words have been the gist of your everyday and every night prayer. At times, you found it ironical that when happiness had already cocooned within you, the moment would come that it would soon fly off like a winged insect.

“We always long for the forbidden things, and desire what denies us,” he said to you one day on the hospital after a session of his chemotherapy.

“Why is that?” you asked him, forcing to smile.

“I don’t know. Perhaps forbidden fabricates pleasure; when legal, they do not excite craving,” he recited, poking your cheeks.

“So, is our love forbidden?” you asked him again, managing to express the words between the gaps of his tickling gestures.

“It is forbidden to kill. It is not always forbidden to love another person just because it follows an abnormal path,” he explained.

He was indeed a trivia king of ideas about life, love, and many more that’s why you loved him. He taught you things in different perspectives and not to mention, he taught you things in ways that you never thought it would suit. He was your ‘guru’ — he was your spiritual head as well as a best friend and lover. You shared thoughts together and eventually, fought about it. But nobody could stand not to pay any heed to anybody.

For almost a year and a half, you struggled as he also fought back. The disease was spreading out and began to aggravate his once lithe body. But love cures people — both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it. He said to you that love does not die — it's only beaten down to a secret place where it hides, curled and wounded…but you must not let a stone sit within your heart.

For almost a year and a half, you learned that love is never lost. You shed a lot of tears every night and every day. But you also learned how to be strong and how to hold it back despite the weakness in your eyes. And as you remembered his last message to you, a light of hope shined within the dimness of your spirit:

“I want you to be happy. Dear, life has to end but love doesn’t. Finding you is enough. Yes, I’m lucky to have found you. You, who I have hoped to meet; and you who I have hoped to love. And yes, though I wasn’t sure what this is, I would decide that it is love that I feel towards this guy who stayed by my side when everything collapsed. I love you… so much. This isn’t the end…this couldn’t be the end baby. I’m always here by your side…and I will always be by your side…”

On the night he died, the sky represented darkness. It was a Thursday but unlike the other Thursday evenings of your life, no stars were visible that night. You knew, given the strangely vague and formless sting within your core, that everything was not just a figment of your imagination. You walked away — as if leaving was parallel to letting go. All else receded and thrust, like a wall of dark water pushing you out. But the feeling wouldn’t just head off like an innocent child when you scared him away. It was a tattoo stamped within the inmost of your depth — a tunnel so profound which would fade you away to ethereal worlds of despair…

February 14, 2013

A kiss of sadness and delight tapped your soul. It was three years ago but the memories were still as fresh as those yellow roses of Baguio. It was a Thursday again. But this time, a brighter and clearer Thursday — full of promises that spoke so much joy and positive thoughts. You have achieved your dreams in life. You graduated with honors — and now respected by those who called you ‘immoral’ some time ago. You continued living and tried to still wear a curve of smile on your lips.

Perhaps, loving him caused so much pain and so much joy in your being. But for some worldly reason, death is not the end of everything. We think it is. But what happens on earth is only the beginning. Separation is a part of life. You feel it…you hold it…and you dance with it. True love will always find its way to be united again. And when you have reached that kind of summit, infinity would surely fly with you...

END