Still Here

He flashes through my mind at certain moments, especially in the past month when I feel his spirit and his memories so vividly that it feels as though he is calling me. Sometimes it seems as thoughI could breathe him in, he is so close. I was no one special to him, just a companion in the last few months of his life. Not a lifelong friend. Not the love of his life. Just a passerby that happened to love him very much despite our differences, despite our weaknesses, despite the depression, the confusion and the anger that would suddenly show themselves during our time together.

He is hard to forget. His smile, his eyes, his voice, his determination, his focus, his love for his family. No, he is an unforgettable man. It’s been more than a year and when I feel his presence, I often wonder where he walks, if he is now passing by me, reminding me of his vibrant existence during this life.

Walk in peace. We miss you.

Her Wild American Self

I'm finishing up a set of short stories by M. Evelina Galang called Her Wild American Self. The book came out in 1996. Part of me wonders why I didn't read this earlier. I guess I was a bit young to read it in '96. I do have a vague memory of seeing the cover and not being ready for it. In any case, I'm glad I found it at Arkipelago Books when I did. The stories about Filipino American families and Filipina American women in particular are honest -sometimes painful, sometimes sweet and always familiar.

One of my favorite paragraphs in the book is from the story "Lectures on How You Never Lived Back Home." In the first lines of the story, Galang writes:

You grew up hearing two languages -one you can pull apart, name, slap a series of rules to, twist like clay-dough in a child's hand -the other you cannot explain, you listen and you know. It is a language you understand intuitively -like being able to read the sunrise, the strips of pink and orange, the clumps of uneven clouds, a thin patch of grey and the moon and somehow, without thinking twice, you know what kind of day it will be. You understand like this because you are the first born. First generation. First American. First cousin. First hope.

How does she know me so well? How does she know what it feels like? What I can do? What it sounds like? Did she write this for me?

Yes, yes. I think she did.