Old age is the worst bitch if it's happening to your parents. It doesn't come in a snap. It doesn't announce its arrival. It sneaks into the little things: your mom forgetting the house keys, the time of the day, packing your luggage but forgetting your favorite gray socks you can't live without. It's the memory and it doesn't stop there.
Life is happening too fast for you and it's getting back at them really slow. The weight of decades is starting to hold ground and you will never notice. It sneaks into the little things. You don't notice the little things. You think it's normal. You stare straight ahead because a huge future is straight ahead, waiting for you to grab it. The little things in the sides can be ignored. You have to prove something. Your parents are pushing you as they always do but you never really see the fact that they are at your back. As you stare straight ahead, you never notice them ever so slowly consumed by time. Their eyes heavy and rested. Their skin fragile and crumpling. Their hearts content and still with the same parental zeal but old age is the worst bitch.
Yet they just always laugh. I forgot the house keys again, and they laugh. It is almost as if they embraced old age the moment it came. It is almost as if they were ready to lose the little things, the snapshots of memories, and the faintest recall of all the years.
My parents are getting old. Someday they will leave me here. I am terrified by this fact but what keeps me awake at night is the question of when I will be ready to lose the little things just as my parents do.
Maybe it all makes sense that we just got to hold on to our fondest memories, the things that matter, the moments that we keep going back to, the big things. Maybe they are enough just as so when the worst bitch comes we are ready.
So let it come.
BINABASA MO ANG
ISKRIBOL (Mga Suka ng Isang Bored na Otistik)
Random[Written in Filipino and konting English] Kompilasyon ng mga mahahabang maiikling kwento, mga anik-anik, mga suka ng isa talagang bored na otistik, mga pighati habang naglalaslas, at iba pang mga walang kwentang kwento. Palakpakan!
