i'm really sleepy right now but i'm going out with my sister to hit Greenhills tiangge by storm and then dinner. but i'm not craving for dinner right now. i really want coffee. i want Starbucks coffee because no matter how abnoxious people think the planner promotion is, i really want one and i want to try out their toffee nut latte. so wag na umangal okay!

moped around the house the whole day shifting from the living room to the room. i tried to read, watch tv, and listen to music but it did no good. i was still down after the news (death of the Speaker's daughter). poor girl.

after being depressed over someone's death that i don't even know, i couldn't help but remember the death of my former classmate, Karlo. he was a Nursing major at UPM. we went to the same HUM2 class together. he was stabbed to death along Taft Ave. in February.

it's pretty long. but go ahead if you want to.

10:27 PM 6/26/2004 (gail's take on death)

i wish i understood how the world worked. last night as i sat comfortably on the couch reading a book that i was enjoying very much, a former classmate of mine from my former Humanities class texted me. he told me that a former Humanities classmate died the other night of stab wounds. Karlo was mugged. then stabbed four times by his four assailants. after exchanging a few more text messages expressing how grief-stricken we were, we agreed to call it a night.

i didn't sleep, though. although i had intented to jump into bed right away, i lost the mood to do so. instead, i just sat where i sat earlier and stared off into space imagining what it would be like to be attacked at night. i thought about how his girl friend would have taken the news. his family too. i started remembering Karlo from my Humanities class. i remember our field trip in Laguna seeing him happy with his own crowd. i remember him being with his girl friend and how happy they looked in a natural kind of way. i remember not paying too much attention to him then because he was just another classmate.

this pain- losing someone you knew even for a short while, is similar to stabs on the chest. it's like having the world slap you on the face with reality. i know i talked about this already. being in this state and feeling this way is like remembering the day my sister lost her friend in a car accident. but no. it happened again. to me. this time it was someone i knew even from a distance, someone with whom i went to my humanities class with for one whole semester. i don't know why i haven't learned my lesson on death yet. i've known several people whose lives were lost either by accident or by being murdered. these deaths just made me want to scream, to be mad, and blame someone. but who? who should i blame? who should i pour my anger on? who should answer my question when i ask, "why them?" i dare not question God. i know His ways are always best no matter how unfair it may seem. but yes, at the back of mind i want to ask Him what exactly His plans were when He took these souls from us.

i may or may never learn the lesson Life is trying to teach me. i may never understand why they leave so soon when they have their lives to live. i may never understand how to get over pain from losing people even if you were not even closely related. but i can't help it. i still feel the pain of losing a person. i am scared. scared that someday someone close to me might be gone and i may never get over that loss, if ever. i am scared of what lies in the future. i may never know. when i was younger, i knew about death but i only saw Death on movies, read about it on books, and heard about Death on songs, but it never happened to people i know.

now Death haunts me. it haunts my inner-being, making me scared out of my wits that someday i might lose someone close to me as well. i shudder to think of the day that might happen because i'm scared. i am not that strong, you see.

for now i pray to God to watch over me and over people i wholly care about.

and if time comes that i, myself, should go in an unexpected time when i least expect it, i pray that people who know me won't mourn as much as i would have mourned for them. if it would be the other way around: me losing them, i pray to God to give me strength because i am frail. i am just human. i have a weak soul and i am vulnerable.

for now i shall live life as if each day were my very last. i shall smell the flowers once in a while and remember how much i love my family and friends. and God.

i may not understand life for now but hopefully, someday i will. and when that happens and i leave this life unexpected, i will welcome the idea of eternal peace where i will get to walk side by side with the Creator.