On last Sunday

I went to church last Sunday and I cried.

Each time the priest spoke of forever and ever, and life everlasting..my tears fell down one after the other.

I took the holy communion and would have broken down if not for my conscious effort to be aware of the people around me.

It was a struggle to get a hold of myself. I was like a sobbing child who came home to her dad to tell him she was hurt. I needed to be comforted so badly. And I was comforted. I know He comforted me and He will comfort me some more in the days to come.

What is heaven like?

Karen's Daddy and brother dropped by our home today. Tito Rey mentioned that Karen's lapida will be ready this week. I had been very eager to visit her at the Loyola cemetery. Since the grass plus her tombstone will all be ready by this week, then I guess Sunday next week will be a good time to go to Loyola. That would be Mother's day, incidentally.

This afternoon, while Tito Rey and Kuya Allan were in our house, we were asking one another if anyone of us ever saw Karen in our dreams from the time she passed away. None of us did, except for my husband Joel.

Joel has seen Karen in his dreams, twice already. The first one happened about a couple of days after her burial. Joel dreamed that he was in a church full of children who were getting ready for a mass. There were so many kids, as if there was a "first communion". Karen came in the church accompanied by some more children. She had her hair tied in a neat pony tail and was wearing a bright yellow sleveless dress. Joel tried to call her but she could not hear him. He stood up to follow her but he could not find her anymore.

His second dream of Karen was very short. He was in our house, that looked different from our actual house. Karen arrived in the house, wearing a pink dress. She came up to him and said "Hi Joel!" then she kissed him on the cheek.

They say that loved ones who pass away sometimes appear in dreams as a way of communicating..or I don't know...maybe dropping by to say hello. I am not sure if i believe that or not. What I believe is that Karen is with the Lord. What she is doing in heaven, and how heaven actually is, I don't know and I will never know for sure, not yet at least.

Heaven. Do you think she still remembers everything from heaven? When a person passes away does she carry to heaven all the memories of her lifetime? When I see her again will she still remember all those talks, all the stories we shared? Is she going to remember our love for starbucks and her undying crush for Allan Gil? When I see her in heaven I will probably be old and wrinkled and she will still look 28 with beautiful skin and hair.

I'll will not yet know for now. I pray for the grace of a stronger faith, to find a peaceful state of mind, inspite of not knowing for sure what heaven is.

on losing Karen

I lost my best friend Karen last month. She passed away after battling with lupus for eighteen years. She was 28.

I still sometimes cannot believe that she's gone. My husband and I sometimes recall something about her and we start to talk about her as if she were still alive. Then I'd remember that she is gone forever. And it is just so strange...that she is gone. Gone in its truest sense... never coming back, never to see her again, never to hear her voice, never knowing how she is. It's just so hard to believe sometimes.

It's hard to believe that I will not see her again in this lifetime. It's even painful when I am reminded that I will no longer share a conversation with her. No more talks over two cups of coffee. I try to recall the last time she sat in our kitchen as we had coffee on a Saturday afternoon. I remember she was wearing a blue shirt and had gained weight because of her lupus. She was laughing at the craziness of gaining ten pounds in a week's time. "Kahit buntis hindi tataba ng ganito kabilis", she had said.

Oh Lord, it's unbelievable.

Death is a common thing I hear about and read about. But to lose someone you love so dearly is something else. I am at a loss for words to explain how I feel. It's not sadness. It's emptiness.

I am struggling so hard to go back to my rhythm, to find my positivity again. I yearn to go back to my usual self... the person who always finds the goodness in things, who sees miracles in the very ordinary daily routine. Miracles. That's what I need now . Nothing grand, just enough to help me keep believing everything that I held true: that everything happens for a reason, that God's love is so much more than I can possibly comprehend, that He has beautiful plans for me, that there is life everlasting.

I'd really love to move on.