The Dreamer's Lover

Inevitability

I've never met either of my parents, not even once. I lived with my Lola, who gave me all I wanted and needed to survive. She never loathed the wealthy as, for her, happiness doesn't have to be dependent on money. We live simply, not too far from town in a bungalow just 10 trees away from the main road. I remember counting the trees as I hopped from one rock to another on the way home from school or the town plaza.

The neighborhood kids - my friends would invite me to play in the town plaza, which Lola simply allowed. We played games like patintero and such all afternoon and once the church bell rang at 6 o'clock we'd race our way home hoping our parents wouldn't scold us for playing until sun down. My grandmother isn't as strict as my friends' parents. Once, I saw Gavin get s*****d on the way inside their home as he sobbed.

Lola said, when I was conceived, my father went away with another woman. My mother was too young and depressed as it wasn't her or my father's intention to have me at eighteen. Once born, my mother took off for college and never went back. Every time I see my friend's parents, I would envy them, thinking that maybe having loving and accepting parents is nicer than living with one parental figure. Lola always sensed that longing; she would hug me tightly and whisper in my ears. I LOVE YOU LEVI.

She's perfect for a mother, a father and a grandmother. At nights we just sit outside our home and breathe in the chilly night breeze. Lola would never fail to remind me every time to breathe in as much air as life provides. On the night I turned 12, we were there outside, on our front porch, breathing as much air as possible. Lola was talking about life I never understood. She explained the importance of air and the connection to living. Her words of wisdom, though sometimes I do not understand them, is something I look forward to.

"Air. Something so indistinct, just floating from space to space and yet so tangible; it can be felt. It is a lovely thought, ijo. It's just like how love feels. That's how loving you, dear, feels like." She chuckled and kissed my nose.

My teacher also told us about what love is. She said it was something that could not be seen nor touched, but it could be felt. What love really was to me at that time was playing with my friends, hugging Lola and going to the park with her. It is something I knew I could rely on. Little did I know that love would hurt a 12-year-old boy. I felt it choking me as I looked beyond Lola's eyes. It showed that longing and emptiness I see when she looks at Mom's photos, slowly filling her soul when she stares at the night skies with teary eyes. Normally, Lola asked how my day went so I smiled widely, remembering how Gavin and I and the rest of the kids at school played baseball.

"It was wonderful. We played and laughed. Lola, I wish you could play with us too." I hugged her and she smiled. She would always respond with a "Smile and be happy. Let nothing take that away from you." I go on talking about my day, but that night I never got the courage to do so. I felt scared as Lola sounded so weak.

I was too anxious as I listened to her slow beating heart. She pulled me closer and tighter like it was her last moment alive. It was indeed her last moment alive and I did not know that. No one knew that. I just realized it as her grip loosened. She slowly faded until I could no longer feel her heartbeat against my ears. Her cold hands fell beside her, leaving me sobbing and gripping her.

"Lola! Lola!" I cried out her name but she never answered.

"Wake up Lola! Wake up! Do not sleep here. Do not sleep yet!" I shook her, shouted at her, cried and cried and cried for her name, but I got nothing. The night became a blur and all I could remember was how Gavin's mother, Tita Elise, rushed toward our porch and hugged me closer to her as I sobbed. Her husband, Tito Gregorio, panicked as he held his phone, talking to someone. I saw Gavin by their front door, staring at me, about to cry as well, before rushing back inside. Nothing else would register in my mind but the hurt I felt that night.

Red and blue lights flashed outside our house as people took Lola's body away. That was all I could see beyond the glass window of Gavin's room. Mr. and Mrs. Eliot was talking to the men in police uniforms and hospital suits and occasionally glanced my way. They offered to have me in for the night. That was how a day worth celebrating became a day for grief.

I remember how I became aware of Lola's illness. She had lost weight and became weaker each day. I remember opening a prescription one summer when me and Gavin were playing hide and seek and I hid in Lola's closet. It was at the bottom of her bag full of socks. I looked the medications up on Google and got to a series of WebMD diagnoses from Colon Cancer to Leukemia. Turns out it was Colon Cancer.

I never wished I had not seen that prescription. I never regretted the fact that I got a little idea of what was going on. It was more of rage, anger, not towards her but towards myself. For years, I never took good care of her despite being aware of it. I had taken her for granted and ignored how she suffered alone. I was just being a kid, going around town as if I was the happiest human being alive and that had expired.

"Smile and let nothing take that away from you." Yeah right. I hated myself for that - for not caring. I should have spent more time with her than my friends. I should have.

During Lola's funeral, my parents never showed up. Tita Elise said they had already contacted them but none responded, not even my own mother, her daughter. Both of them were too busy to visit their deceased mother or mother-in-law and unwanted son. It broke my heart having to watch Lola lowered to her 6-feet grave while her daughter probably laughed with her friends or new kids. The thing is, I never really knew where she is and how she has been living for the past 12 years. But how could she not show up? There were only me, Gavin's family, Lola's public attorney and the presiding priest. Experiencing this whole situation made me cry every day, every night, and at her funeral I felt like I was an unwanted w**d in the flower bed, waiting to be discarded and plucked out of the garden. Life might be hard living with Lola, but it was much more difficult to accept that I would always be the unwanted child, alone and lonely.

For the next few weeks, I was living with Gavin and just as I thought I would be living peacefully with this family, a knock on the door made me cry once more.