Regrets

This summer I learned how painful it is to have regrets. I have made mistakes in the past, mostly concerning my actions. However, now I realize what it really means when life is short and you're not able to do anything about it, except to live it to the fullest.

Apple, a friend of mine from University, has a great and hospitable family. I did not receive any news yet but she might as well have aced the recent medical board back home. Their house was always open to us when we were at the University, since it was located inside the campus and it was like home away from home (trust me, I've always been away from home). I would remember her mom and her smiles, and her outlooks and all the stomach-aching humor. I missed her.

I could not imagine that day though, when I went back to that same house, to see a different picture of her. Apple's mom has become ill, and she could not speak anymore. She breathes through a tube that runs through her throat, eats through another tube that's through her abdomen. My worst regret - I was not able to speak to her for about four years.

Here are some people who mean to me, people who are far detached from me as relations, but as close to my heart as family:

This is my former boss and his wife. This is the compound that I used to live in for two years. He lent his weight room (note: room) to me when I was trying to get big (obviously I failed), while she lent me some money to go back to my Masters. They have treated me as a friend, son, and as an equal.

This is Mama Emy. I call her that because she has been a mother to me when I didn't go home for occasions. She is Apple's aunt, sister to Apple's mom, and xiau's mother. She is still deeply funny when I went to visit her.


Here is a picture of my cousins from my mom's side. The only ones I REALLY knew when I was young. How could I forget them, when I lived with them for weeks and months when I was four years old! My cousin, the one beside me holding up my sister's little girl, is the only child of her parents (foreground). I visited the old neighborhood and nothing much changed. Look at the girl beside my cousin. That's her first child. She's taller than I am!
I know there were people and places that I didn't get to visit on this trip. But I'll try, try harder that I do not make the same mistakes again. I will try my best to look back, and see the people who have touched my life and made me who I am now.