When I was a kid, I had one of those friends who just accepted me for what I was. I called him Tan-Tan, as we all did, since we were like 6 or 7-years-old. He was an all-around good guy and smart to boot. We first met through our parents, I don’t exactly know when, but we pretty much kicked it off straight away. We would have sleepovers at his place, and we would play the heck out of Crash Bandicoot. That game was the last game we played together.
I met him years after at a reunion. I had gotten fat, and he had gotten a lot whiter. He apparently had some sort of rare blood disease, but it wasn’t so apparent then. We talked about how we did and what we did since we saw each other. I took up football; he took up archery. I went to musical theatre during summer; he went to science camp during summer. I had turned out to be a delinquent (I never told him that though), he had turned out to be gifted.
A couple of years more, we met up again. I don’t remember much, but I do remember my mother being disappointed at me. “They keep telling me how well Tan-Tan is doing! He has all these awards from school and competitions! AND ALL I COULD TELL THEM WAS THAT YOU COULD ACT!” Then she would hit me while we drove home, and my father would do nothing but keep his hands at two and ten.
A few more years passed, and I heard that he got into the Ateneo School of Medicine and Public Health, one of the country’s top medical schools. He wanted to be a doctor and help those who had the same disease that he had. It’s a noble pursuit and one that I could never top, even until now.
One or two years passed after I heard he got into med school, he was admitted in a hospital. His body was weakening. Continue reading “I Would Trade My Soul For You (part 1)”