Remembering the Moon’s Eulogy

 by Natasha D. de Guzman

College is a fun place.  It’s where you learn valuable lessons about life that are mostly not taught inside the classroom.  It’s where you meet people of different beliefs and learn to tolerate them.  It’s where you discover new things and new ideas.  And sometimes, yes most of the times, it’s where you’ll meet the friends you’ll have for a lifetime, lose the ones you’ve always taught would be there, and it’s where you’ll break your heart.

 

I have this friend whom I’ll always call my “best friend”.  College for me would not have been that much fun, had I not met this friend.  And even if I had known that everything would come to this, I guess I will always choose to go back to that time when all was right with the world and live there forever.

 

My friend is gone now, and what’s sad is that it wasn’t a very nice parting. There were so many misunderstandings that one could easily get lost in the tangled web we’ve created.  I wish it were different because I have never wanted to lose a friendship that is so dear to me.  I wish I could have hugged my friend one last time.  I wish I could have held that hand close to my heart, and I almost wish there wouldn’t have to be any goodbyes.  I’ve always blamed myself for everything.

 

As the days pass, I come to realize that the chance that I’ll ever regain what I’ve lost becomes lesser.  I content myself with occasionally looking back to those happier times while deep inside I tell myself that I should move on.  Sometimes, I pull out my old letterbox and go over each letter once more.  I’ve noticed that the feeling becomes weaker and the memory becomes fainter each time I pull out a letter.  They seem to belong to another person from a very distant past. 

 

There is this one essay however that I’ve always liked.  My friend wanted to submit it for publication but never got the chance to do so.  I took it for safekeeping and up to now it has been in this letterbox, waiting for this moment perhaps.  I’d like to share this essay in memory of my friend, wherever my friend may be.

             An Excerpt From My Diary in the Sky

    It’s always there, I was told as a child.   I had a hard time accepting this as a fact for I don’t get to see it often.   As a child, I don’t know what a cycle is and probably I don’t really care.   What I want to know is how come it’s not there.   The reason that it follows a certain path older than life itself is unacceptable.   You could say I was infatuated with the moon.   It is so magical, so mysterious and so beautiful.   The moon, though reached by man remains unconquered.

                        I’ve always held a belief that I was born by the light of the moon.   How else could I explain my “attachment” to it.   I had always been engrossed by its light, distance and shape.   I used to go outside and sit with my parents when I was a kid.   While they talk about adult stuffs I’d just sit there and stare at the moon.   It’s like I’m afraid that if I blink it would go away.   I hated it when we’d have to go inside for it means I’d have to wait for tomorrow night to see it again, hoping that it’s still there tomorrow.

 

                        When I grew a bit older, my brother and I were allowed to play with the neighborhood kids at night when the moon is bright.   We played lots of games like hide and seek, patintero, and many more.   I usually lose, for half of my attention was on the sky.   It seems as if it’s looking down at us and observing.   Everyone groans when the adult would call us in, the other’s reasons were that the fun of games would end while mine was that the fun with the moon would end.

                        Even on my early teens the moon was still a part of me.   When the moon is full, my cousins and I would set up a blanket on the grass outside and sit under its light.   We would play cards, tell jokes or just lay there looking at the sky and talk about our family, our friends, school or even political issues.   The moon sets an ambiance for our moods.   And though we don’t resolve solutions to problems we discuss, we did bond somehow.   And the moon was there observing and listening.

 

                        During my senior year in high school, I had some fun memories under the moon.   During our night with Brother Ceci, he gave our whole class incense candles to light before we graduate.   I kept mine in my closet and soon forgot about it.   On the night before my graduation, while I was lying in bed unable to sleep, I remembered that candle.   I looked for it and though it was almost twelve, I went downstairs.   My brother was watching TV but I ignored him and went outside.   I sat where I used to sit with my parent and lighted the incense.   The moon wasn’t full then but nevertheless it was there.   I said thanksgiving, made some wishes and prayed.   Even when the candle wad burned out I was still there watching the moon.   It was a threshold of another point of my life and I got my witness, the one who was always there, the moon.

 

                        There was a time when I truly missed it.   Such time was when my friends and I were walking home from a party.   There was a blackout on the city so it was very dark; you can’t see beyond ten feet.   There was no moon and the clouds are covering the stars.   I felt a terrible loss then, even a portion of it would have been a welcoming sight.   It’s always there I know, but I need to see it though.

 

                        Up to a certain point in my life, the moon reminds me of myself.   It elicits fond memories of laughter, triumph, sadness, bonding, tranquility and solitude.   It is a shrine to what I was and what I’ve become.   It was my passage through time.   But from that point of my life and now, my views towards it have changed.   It no longer reminds me of myself alone but also those that shared its magic with me, my parents, my brother, the neighborhood kids, my cousins and the most recent addition, a good friend.   This good friend, whom I don’t know if I’ll be with much longer, somehow got into my system.   “Think of me by the light of the moon”, a letter for me said.   How could I dare forget when the reference point is the focal point of my life?   It is my heavenly diary and now a new entry has been added, my friend’s name.

 

                        The moon that gives me joy when I look at it now brings loneliness.   The joy from happiness remembered is overshadowed by the gloom of loneliness anticipated.   Loneliness on times when, like right now, I’d be looking at the moon with so many people on my thought but no one on my side.

 

                        The moon has always been there and will probably remain far longer than my existence on earth.   It was there when I was born and watched me grow from toddler to teen, from my gay times to brink of success; from simple curiosities to intense ponderings; from debating political issues to opening the heart and soul to another.   I don’t only believe that I was born by the light of the moon but my gut tells me I’d die on the night when the moon is full.

 I, too, am a child of the moon.   It elicited awe and wonder from me as a child because I always felt that it followed me wherever I go.  It has been my only true friend who stood by me and witnessed all my tears and frustrations about home, school, and almost everything else.   I’ve often told myself that if there is another person in some other part of the world who feels the same way about the moon like I do, then I have found my soul mate. And though miles and oceans may separate us, the moon will always be there to link us forever.

 

I have found that friend, but then I lost that friendship all too suddenly.  And now all that’s left is me picking up the pieces of what has been and what could have been.   If only I could put it back together and bring my friend back, I would give up the world for it.

 

My friend, wherever you are, I wish you happiness, contentment and peace, and whenever I look at the moon, I will smile and think of you.   I will always remember your diary and I will always be thankful that once I was a part of it.

 

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Bones from the Graveyard ™© J.R. Perez 2000

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