My only Hope

Today, September 28, 2008, it had been a year since the death of my cousin slash best friend Nonie.

I remember it was a Saturday morning when I got a text from my dad asking me if I know where my cousin is. I just replied blatantly, no, and asked him if she has any missing clothes, if so, maybe she just ran away.

Come Sunday Morning, our routines in the house were all normal, and my aunt and uncles were all texting us that they are still looking for my cousin, and they are within our Area in Makati. So, from our worship service in CCF, my family and I decided to meet them in my sister’s office in Makati. At that time, my other cousin slash best friend Jing just arrived from the tour.

This time, the elders were all serious and were asking Me, Jing and April – Nonie’s best friends since birth, if we know where she is, and are trying to make us spill, but unfortunately, I do not really know. I was the very indifferent member of our family. And other than my best friends – Nonie, Jing and April, I do not mind other people’s business. But even during that time, I was thinking that the elders are so overacting, since Rich (Nonie’s other nickname) had stowed away before.

But the thing is, last Friday, Nonie’s mother was supposed to celebrate her birthday with her friends, and she even promised her mom that she will be back home early for her mom.

Being the geek of the family, I volunteered to help them by posting a comment on Rich’s Friendster, asking them all if they ever saw Nonie to give my Ninang Mel (Nonie’s mom) a call or text. After several minutes, Nonie’s brother called their mom and told them that there is a messenger in their house looking for Nonie as well. And so, they left. And we went back to our normal life routines.

It was a Monday Morning, when still no news about my cousin, the song on the radio was Think of Laura, it was the jokester part of me which led me to singing the song, but replaced the name Laura to Nonie, just to make a laugh about the incident, still I never thought that my cousin could probably be dead already. But my sister and best friend April, told me that I am mean, so I stopped singing the song. As I was about to leave the house, the door made a loud bang closing in front of me, and again, being a Sagittarius, I am used to take things lightly optimistically, so I joked again to my sister, “April, it must be Nonie”… But then it was because I never thought it could possibly be true, but still it is mean to think of a person as dead, and I don’t know what entered my mind that morning to make very insensitive jokes such as that.

So my sister and I went to the office, and went on with our lives, and Nonie being lost was never on my mind… Until, my immediate supervisor, who happens to be Miss Malou -my mom, called me from the Graphic Artist’s Department, and asked me to come out.

Once, I got out of the room, the door of the Executive Office broke open, and there the COO of the Company who happens to be my sister April, is crying out so loudly… the first thing that entered my mind was, my sister is so strong and courageous, but whoever made her cry like that, must have done something so mean to her… so I ran to her and asked her, “sis what’s the matter?”. But she just went on crying out loud as if she could not utter a word… but still she tried, though some of her words were inaudible, It is as if I have heard her say “Trish, patay na si Nonie!” and then burst out crying… I did not believed her the first time I heard her and was shocked, so my initial reaction was not to cry, but to stare blankly, then went back to my senses, and then asked her and my mother, what exactly did they hear? I was wishing that they just heard the news wrongly and misunderstood. We decided to go to Manila, where our ancestral house is. When the rest of my family is calm already during our travel, I tried to ask them what they really heard, and how the news was exactly relayed to them. “Nasa morge si Nonie” … so being the optimistic me, I just told them maybe they found Nonie already and that Nonie is in the morgue just trying to indentify some bodies… We prayed during our commute, and prayed that Nonie is safe and that she is not dead… But strangely, during our prayer, instead of me being more faithful that Nonie is alive, I slowly was thinking she could possibly be dead.

When I got to our ancestral home, there were a lot of people, some childhood friends, some relatives from the province, and when we entered the house, my ninang was staring blankly but still calm. I asked her, “Ninang ano poh ba ang balita?” but still she can not be talked to, and was just staring blankly.

One of our childhood friend, Lalai talked to me, while I was sitting among the visitors in our house. She told me everything that had happened while they were looking for Nonie in the NBI Office. And there, I finally realized that Nonie might really be dead already. Weirdly, I still have not cried…

My “Anya” – Nonie’s older brother and my uncle were still at a morgue in Makati trying to pick Nonie’s remains.

Lalai asked me if I already know what happened, and me still confused and in denial, told her that I do not know. She told me that over the past few days, they have helped my Ninang to look for Richelle Ann Uy, or as we fondly call her Nonie or Rich, and when they were in the National Bureau of Investigations, it seems that the people there are busy, so they were not really entertained that much, because the NBI Agents seems to be going to an operation somewhere in Makati. As they showed the photo of Nonie asking if they have seen her, they were so-so. Until, they told them that my cousin was working for her boss who is an NBI Agent, Edgar Veloso. When the agents heard the name of the NBI Agent, they suddenly were interested, and asked them if they could wait.

There, they explained to her that the NBI Agent Ed Veloso was found dead inside a Condominium in Makati with a girl also dead. They were still unable to identify the body, so they asked them if they could identify the body. My Anya (Chinese for older brother) was there with them as well as my uncle.

In the Morgue, my anya went inside the morgue, he saw the legs, but before he could see the body, my uncle stopped him, and told him that he would be the one to look at the body, since my anya is still young and he might not be able to recover from what he might be seeing.

Back in Tondo, Manila, we were still waiting…

When my uncle and anya got to the house, my anya was discombobulated. I asked them what they saw, that it cant be Nonie’s cadaver that they saw. But my anya and uncle’s achromatic reaction, only weakened me… and slowly I begin to lose hope that might cousin might be dead already.

After several hours, the remains of my cousin was already brought in Dulce Abad Santos – a funeral home near our ancestral house. There my cousins and I all wanted to see for ourselves, if it was really my cousin who is lying dead inside the morgue. Though our uncle already confirmed with us that it is her, we still wanted to see it for ourselves… Our stubborn impulse brought us to the funeral home, but upon reaching there, the mortician do not want to let us in the morgue. But due to our confounded state, we still insisted, and so the mortician asked us to talk to the embalmer. But the embalmer told us that if it were him, he would not let us see the body, since even him, who is used to seeing dead bodies everyday could not take the sight of my cousin. He said it was unbearable for him, and we – who are not used to seeing cadavers everyday, might not be able to remove the panorama of her dead body. My mother tried to talk us out of it as well, and she was able to convince me and my cousins Jing and Denise. But Paul, Rich’s youngest brother wanted to see her, since it was a long time since he had seen his sister. And the last time that they had talked, they were supposed to meet because she is doing something for Paul.

After several minutes of Paul being inside the morgue, he went out and confirmed that it was really Nonie. He saw her birthmark on her legs.

From there, I found out, that what the actors and actresses do in the movies upon finding out a death of a loved one was no exaggeration. I felt my knees weaken that I could not stand, and It is true that when you lose a loved one through an unexpected death, you do not care whatever other people think. I cried out loud, hollering. An unexplainable pang in my heart was irremovable.

From that moment, flashbacks of my happy days with my cousin since we were kids were all depicted involuntarily on my mind. And just the thought that it will never ever happen again inflicts a sharp spasm of pain in my heart.