The dawn was already breaking when I found myself wide awake, and sitting inside the bus. I looked at my phone to check the time, and it says there that it was already six o’clock in the morning. So little time passed by, and yet, it felt like I had been gone for so many years. I unlocked it, and saw the same four distinct yet related things that it has: pictures of her, as a child with her dad, as a teenager eating sandwiches with her friends, taking a “serious” selfie, and standing on the scenic roadside of Pagudpud. All was a dream. All was inspired by those pictures of her. Remembrances of the past that no longer exist, yet imparted to us things that can last forever. I guess I was searching for her in those pictures, in those remembrances, like a scientist looking at the starlight because he was looking for the distant star itself. He seemed to forget, for a while, the fact that the starlight was just an ancient reminder of the star, and not the star itself. Wake up. I guess I need to dream first in order to wake up. Lost. Maybe I really need to get lost first before I can be found. Desperate. I guess I experienced it in order to learn what hope truly is. The screeching noise: I need to “die” first in order to start living truly.

Almost five years...

I’m sorry that it took so long before I realized it. 

In a land far beyond the sea...

But I’m on my way now. 

Thank you, for reminding me, somehow, through these remembrances of you. We shall meet again someday, somehow, somewhere, Yuna. And I shall finally be able to say those things that I longed to tell you. Truly…

“We have hope. Wake up now. The final sleep for us to live in that beautiful dream is not yet. Wake up now. We have hope.”

I will keep believing.