Over a Cup of Tea: Ang buhay 2

by Philip 'Boy' Mactal

Isa pang madramang kuwento o pangyayari na naging bahagi ng aking buhay noong panahon ng aking kabataan:

Her name is Pochie. She's not so beautiful but she's got the looks. Our special friendship started when we're fourth year high school students. Then, we called ourselves bestfriends. Our house was just a "stone's throw" from theirs. We usually went to school together just as together we went home after class.

I remember that it was December 20 of 1975 when I organized a birthday party for her. I passed around a hat among our classmates and friends to buy suman kakanin, palitaw, sapin-sapin, ginataang-mungo, lumpia and softdrinks. The party was held in their house.

I saw her and she could not hold her tears, as she became emotional with the event, specially when I said a special prayer and sang a beautiful rendition of a song made specially for her. She whispered to me it was her first time she celebrated her birthday. When I asked her why she did not celebrate her birthdays in the previous years, her grandmother cut us with a retort, "Sus gastos lang yan!" It almost spoiled the party had it not been for those yourhful jokes that we did to each other. When we bid goodbye to each other at the end of the party, she came to me, hugged me and kissed me in the cheek with all our classmates and friends' eyes focused on us. When her lips touched my cheek, I felt that the earth tilted underneath my feet. it opened the floodgate of emotional affection for her that now still lingers in my heart.

What was most inspoiring of all was our "lettler exchange". As if we were not contended with our being together in school everyday, we still exchanged friendly letters. She tucked a thank-you-friend note on a piece of paper of one of those fancy stationeries between the pages of either note or book she borrowed from me. I did the same, too. Later we were exchanging friendly "I love you's". It went on that way until we were were already exchanging friendly compositions. Actually, until now I still have her poems and notes which, are neatly packed in my closet.

The following year, the feelings towards her took a very different turn. I couldn't sleep without thinking her. I felt the sadness each time we parted ways. Sometimes I couldn't answer the teacher's questions because I was absorbed in my thoughts for her. "Tol, you are in love", Bong, a friend told me.

I started courting Pochie through letters. But her response was terse and made me sad, "I love you only as a friend." I didn't stop clipping letters each time I borrowed her notes, she too. Sometimes, I even pretended to need her notes just to be able to slip notes from me. I felt very sad but I kept on writing to her.

Both of us graduated in March 1976. My feeling then was mixed. I was happy because of the graduation and I was lonely because of the looming fact that we would eventually part ways. I moved to Manila and studied Police Science and Advanced Technology in Crime Investigation while she took up Nursing in Baguio City.

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