How does friendship start with just a humble smile of two random persons walking along the corridors? What does it take for these two people to treat each other as brothers? How does a great relationship end without the opportunity of saying farewell?
High school—the time where ideas and feelings start to make sense and when time begins to fly as one counts the schooldays, sembreaks, and summer trips. At first, just like anyone who is alien to a new world, I find it hard to adjust regarding my performance if it would give me great results. I was unaware of these people that could later on become my great companions. It was not too late before I learned that as I mature older, I grow with these people—connected and intertwined.
It was June of 2008 when I asked CK to become our forth year representative for our party in the upcoming student council elections. Though he was part of a different class, he was our first choice because his sociable nature and a drive to lead our fellow batch mates. The group became closer and enthusiastic with each others company throughout as the campaign week went on. Then, the day of election came and, later that day, the results were in. The candidate from the other party won as our forth year representative. However, CK prudently accepted his loss and gave his congratulatory handshake to the winning candidate. I felt he was full of confidence to take the results toughly and in a positive way.
From that day on, a new barkada was formed—concerned with one another yet strong with our principles; diverse in character yet united in ideas. We all have our own dilemmas balancing out our academic performance and our varsity training.We were concerned about pulling our grades up for we were not one of the best students in our batch. I was the one who tutored them for different subjects for they all thought I was that intelligent. I remembered staying up late—injectingcaffeine into my veins—teaching CK about the computation of taxes and revenues at his house.
I keep on reminding them that we should all leave this school in a same time, no one should get left behind. Consequently, it was not that difficult for us to find time to hang out in one of our barkada’s place, or a recreation and sports bar, or even just around the corner eating street foods; for we always thought of this was our last year to be in one school. He constantly says that we should make the most out of it.
How can I forget April of 2009? We share the same birthdate on the 17th of that month. I separately planned to treat my other barkadaa swimming party at Laguna. On the other hand, CK’s friends gave him a surprise birthday party just outside their house. I was only informed that night of what was going on. Later that night, he asked me, “Why didn’t we just have one big celebration, after all we have the same birthday?” I answered him, “If you want, we could throw an inumantogether that weekend.” And so we did.
The night was all about us being adults now. The house music was striking our ears and the bass was pounding our chests. People were grinding on the dance floor and the lights were twirling above us. The smoke was blurring our visionand the alcoholic drinks were jamming our livers.“Shot! Shot! Shot!” CK kept on chanting. We were all having thebest time of our lives.
That was the time where I could say that our brotherhood received the chance to becomeecstatic after everything that tested us. It was the culminating activity after a long awaited planning and numerous rehearsals. Everything that happened after that incident made us better individuals and responsible adults.
We were now to enter our own preferred course in college. It will be like the first day of school again, scared of how we will be interacting to a new set of people. However, he said that if we could recall that night, we would gain a confidence to start a conversation.
I got a text message last 13th February 2010 from one of our girl friends. The last line read. “CK we will miss you. I love you.” I didn’t know what it meant; for awhile, I thought he left the country for good. Later, I got bad news that he met an accident early that morning. The tricycle that he was in got crushed by a post because of a low-lying wire was jammed to a truck that passed by. It was put in broadsheets and tabloids with a gruesome photo of the incident. The way he died was as if it was one of the scenes in that dreadful movie, Final Destination.We were all in shocked of what happened to our kabarkada.
His wake lasted for five days and we tried our best to go there after our class everyday. One of those days we got the chance to see the amateur colored photos taken by his father. I couldn’t bear to stare at it for a long period of time. It was truly hard to imagine how he could survive that tragic accident. I got the chance to talk to her sister and she confessed her childhood and bonding moments with him.On the last night before his interment, our barkada decided to spend the night with him. We didn’t sleep. We tended to recall the happy memories with CK—playing basketball and computer games, hanging out in clubs, relaxing at our friend’s place, and eating ordinary food with him.It was only at the last day of his service that I gathered strength to look at him inside that box. At that moment I couldn’t hold back to my emotions so I cried.
Only in these past few weeks that I understood why he was very mindful about his schedule, as if nothing or no one could change it. It was because he was trying to maximize the time allotted by Him. CK made the most out of it and had the best time of his life with us. His business was to make us realized that every second is worthwhile and life is to be treated lightly. He never was anantagonist to anyone’s story. I could say that he is the character that causes us to change the way we see life.
He maybe physically awaywith ourbarkada, but his deeds and memories live among our hearts and minds. No one will be mistaken to send group messages saying, ‘UNLITXT20’; no one will initiate to sing a door-to-door Christmas Songs during that season; no one willsurely go when you ask for an unplanned inumanafter class. He always tried to bring our group together especially now that we are in college. It’s just a sad thing to see that the way he brought our group back once more was through his loss.
Now that April is just around the corner, signifying that our birthday is very soon, I promised to him before I celebrate that day, I’ll visit him first thing in the morning. And with a great smile on my face I’ll say, “Tol, Happy Birthday!”
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