For simply being alive

This entry was supposed to be about the hectic week I’ve had this week. It was supposed to be filled with the stress of completing the macroeconomic project on sub-prime mortgage crisis, how I and many others are annoyed at Cent, how I stayed up until 3am compiling the project paper and ended up not studying for my chemistry test, how I screwed up the first question in the test, plus every other groans and moans over the week. I had planned a long list of complaints, until a couple of hours ago.

Edna called me somewhere around 11pm. Well basically I just thought she wanted to ask me what it was that she needed to remember to bring home, or whatever. When she said she had bad news, my first thought was, ‘OMG, something happened to grandmother’. When she told me Allen R. passed away, it actually took a few seconds to actually sink in. Being the person who could be counted on to saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, I actually told her that she was going home at the right timing. How amazingly dumb can I be? Of course I didn’t mean it that way, but it was out of my mouth before I could actually think it over.

The news was seriously a shock. Few weeks ago, when I got that sms to pray for his operation and didn’t hear any news after it, I assumed that he was doing well. I mean no news = good, right? Which is why, Edz’s call was kind of a shock.

I’m sorry that Allen passed away. He was a nice guy. But most of all he was young, and that’s what makes it more sad. It’s sad when someone dies, but when that someone is old it’s easier to accept it as a part of life and it’s not as depressing as it is when it happens to the young. When death strikes the young, all I can think of is how young that person is. How full of life, full of plans; plans that are now crudely summed up as ‘unfinished business’.

Thinking about what I initially planned to blog about, I realize how it all seems so trivial now. A waste of time to dwell about, because here I am sitting in my room, at the liberty of doing anything I want – alive. Time is always wasted on the petty things.

I’m sorry for the family’s lost. I’m sorry for Aunty Meg, because much as it’s hard on the family, it’s harder on the mother who was there from the beginning, until the end. It’s a small consolation to know that he’s now out of pain, and much as everyone wishes this didn’t happen, at least we seek solace in knowing that he is in a better place.

So here I am sitting on my bed typing this entry, thankful for the air that I breath, thankful for all the things that I've complained about, thankful because I have tomorrow, next week, next month and hopefully a lot more nexts to look forward to, and most of all thankful for simply being alive.