It was a cold summer evening, and the stars are out to fill the sky with beautiful sparks of light. It was past midnight of April 2, year 1999. I was feeling tipsy, I got drunk but I was still aware of the events around me. I am not satisfied with this level of drunkenness, after all, this would be the first time in my 18 years of existence to finally get “wasted”. It was also the first time that my overprotective parents allowed me to go to an overnight swimming with my tae kwon do classmates and friends. I was eager to go back to the table where my friends are serving “beer-gin” (a mix of beer and gin), but there was this boy, (whom I’ve known for only a few months) who kept on bugging me to stay close, holding my hands and refusing to let go. Darn it, he’s boring – but cute!
Anyway, this guy was pestering me to stay put, and to try to sleep. In my head I was saying, “Shut up”, but he was so innocent-looking that telling him such a rude thing would seem to break his heart. So I kept my mouth shut and went with him to the playground just beside the pool area. There, I lied on the slide while he sat on the grass. With him still holding my hand, we just looked up in the bright starry night and eventually fell asleep.
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| You are the answer to my prayers... |
Since then, we became good friends. He would visit me on our college building to say hi and hello. We would hang out to malls every time a common friend would celebrate a birthday. He even called me once or twice to ask how I was doing. He was very thoughtful. It was fun having him around… until year 2000 came when I moved to a different school and we lost communication.
Fast forward to year 2009. It was June 7, the last day of my dad’s wake and the morning of his cremation. I was sitting on the wide hall of Sanctuarium, randomly browsing through friends’ Facebook accounts… when someone popped in for a chat. It was him! For more than 9 years of no communication, we finally found each other! The rest, as what many people love to quote, was “history”.
One night, while we were discussing which church to choose for our wedding day, I told him a little story.
“You know, I always joke that I would never marry a Filipino. I always think Filipinos are playboys and would never take me seriously… but then I prayed to God, that if ever I am going to marry someone, I would like to marry a certain person that was always on my mind. I asked Him to give me Eugene Patagan, if he’s still available.”
He smiled with teary eyes, then he said…
“Do you still remember when we were at the playground, you were on the slide and I was holding your hands?”
“Yes. You were staring blankly at the sky.” I said.
“No. I was looking at the stars and I was praying.” He continued, “I said to God, ‘Right now, am not suited for this girl and all I can do is hold her hands. But I wish that someday, a time will come when I can meet her again and hold her hands like I am doing now.'”
I cried. It only proves that God has been so good to us!