Remembering Eric

He’d have been 29 now-probably married and with kids-if not for that fishing trip with friends 15 years ago. There are days when I still think of how that day could have ended differently. My brother’s friends’ account of that morning still makes me seethe within. They said that one minute he was just sitting on top of a rock and the next thing they saw was him already underwater. Precious minutes ticked by and they did nothing. When help finally came, it was too late. The doctor-less hospital where they took Eric when he was finally hauled out of the water should burn to the ground.
What became of his friends? One, I believe, got married, the other is a bum. I’d say that’s irony (and stop here, because the next thoughts should not be said aloud anymore).
If Eric were still alive, I’m sure he’d have enjoyed playing with his nephews and nieces. I’m sure he’d have enjoyed fixing their bikes and going around the neighborhood with them. My son would have someone to play basketball with. If he were alive, I’m sure he’d be as tall as an electric post now, for he was one lanky fellow.
When I was studying in Baguio, every time it was time to go back to school after a sem break was particularly difficult for me. Eric would wave goodbye at our gate and I would wave back till I couldn’t see him anymore. There were days when my mom would take him to Baguio during her vegetable-buying trips. In one of those trips, he visited me once at school. It was raining hard and he was soaked to the bone and quivering. When it was time for them to leave, I remember the feeling of wanting to beg them not to go. I think there wasn’t a day during my college years when I wasn’t homesick. I graduated and got a job and my first 13th month pay went to an uncle who helped me finish college, and the rest, to Eric’s first guitar. He loved that guitar, and he was heartbroken when it got crushed at an LRT ride. One time, I went to Malolos and my cousin Bong gave me a puppy which I hid in a bag. When I got home, I asked Eric to put his hand inside the bag and that was how he met Mac. We called the puppy such because the tv series MacGyver was a family favorite.
He was always “fixing” something at home. He particularly liked tinkering with electric wires and in one of my sem breaks, he showed me his “project”: a bulb lighted up inside his clothes cabinet each time the door was opened.

I like to think he hasn’t forgotten us. I like to think that he has forgiven us for whatever guilt feeling we have for some things we should have done of him but didn’t. I like to think that at some point in his short life, he felt he was loved by us, his family.