Stories

You have stories --- and I have mine, too. Everybody have interesting stories to tell. It might be stories of love, life or death. It might be of adventure. It might be scary, or funny. It's essence matters not on how happy it is, or who's story it is, but on the way it is being told ... the way it molded and affected life ... the way we're part of it, and the way it ended.

"When I was just a little kid..." would always be a perfect beginning --- that's how people usually started their stories ... their life stories. But I loved how fairy tales did it. It's "A long, long time ago, there was once a young princess ...", would always be my favorite line.

Fairy tales always started happily, full of hope, full of joy. It would have wicked witches but would always end with "and they lived happily ever after."

But what about the ever after? Are there no longer second rate witches on the loose? What about the witches? They surely have their own stories to tell, too!

Come to think of it ...

Why am I writing this for, anyway? Oh, forget it! I just wanted to find out how am I going to tell you my story. But it seemed that my mind is moving real too fast that my hand can no longer type what I am thinking. Besides, I think, I can never start my story with "Once upon a time, there was a young, beautiful and lovely princess..." because, never in my life have I become a princess, and I certainly am not beautiful and lovely ... literally.

Well, let's start it this way ...

I am 28 and I am going to be 29 eight days from now. I have done something in my life for the past seven years that others would consider "accomplishments". But sad to say that for me, it was never enough. I wanted more. Calling it "accomplishments" just doesn't fit, according to my own standards.

I know I wanted something that I cannot ever define ... I wanted that "je ne sa quios". It could be fortunes, but deep inside, I know that it's not. I have never measured man's success by money alone.

It's not enough. It isn't important.

I got job, though decent enough and I am proud of it, but it never offered me the security I need ... it never offered me a chance to live in style. And I just do not feel like working right now -- that is why I am talking nonsense. See what I mean?

Hmmm, how am I going to end this?

Never mind. It's not important. It doesn't even have a good start. Or - has it started yet?

Funny thought LOL.

(date unknown)

To Remember Me

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The day will come when my body will lie upon a white sheet neatly tucked under four corners of a mattress located in a hospital; busily occupied with the living and the dying. At a certain moment a doctor will determine that my brain has ceased to function and that, for all intents and purposes, my life has stopped. When that happens, do not attempt to instill artificial life into my body by the use of a machine, and don't call this my deathbed, let it be called the bed of life, and let my body be taken from it to help others lead fuller lives.

Give my sight to the man who has never seen a sunrise, a baby's face or love in the eyes of a woman. Give my heart to a person whose own heart has caused nothing but endless days of pain. Give my blood to the teenager who was pulled from the wreckage of his car, so that he might live to see his grandchildren play. Give my kidneys to the one who depends on a machine to exist from week to week. Take my bones, every muscle, every fiber and nerve in my body and find a way to make a crippled child walk.

Explore every corner of my brain. Take my cells, if necessary, and let them grow so that, someday a speechless boy will shout at the crack of a bat and a deaf girl will hear the sound of rain agianst her window.

Burn what is left of me and scatter the ashes to the winds to help the flowers grow. If you must bury something, let it be my faults, my weakness and all prejudice against my fellow man.

Give my sins to the devil. Give my soul to God. If, by chance, you wish to remember me, do it with a kind deed or word to someone who needs you.

If you do all I have asked, I will live forever.

- Robert Test (I will  Live Forever, A Semi-Religious Funeral Reading)

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I am feeling strange -- I am not dying now am I having an illness -- I just felt like something within me is trying to fathom the meaning of life ... especially my life. Am I going to die today? Or tomorrow, perhaps?

I can't help but wince at the thought. I still don't want to die young. I am not ready. I don't want to leave my love-ones without showing them hoe much I love them in my own special ways ... ways that they might not understand ... ways that might not satisfy them

Life is so short, I know. Our breath is only lent to us by God. Each day, whether we like it or not, we are postponing the inevitable death that might claim our life at any moment. While still alive, we are given the opportunity to experience everything -- happiness and sadness, love and hatred, ups and downs -- everything that are considered as the sweets and spices of life.

Each day is an exciting adventure. One day we laugh, the next day we cry, and then we laugh again.

It's so amazing how it made us insane. Living ... loving ... dying ... seemed to be our game, and life as our playground.

Each day is an undending battle, thus making us in constant war against safety from death. Many times we fought bravely just to extend life for a day or more, whether noticed or unnoticed. Perhaps to untangle all the complicated strands and connect the loss ends of what we are and who we are?

Whether or not we are living our life to the fullest, what mostly matters is whether we know what we are here in this world for. Would people remember the days while we are still alive? Or would they just bury us into oblivion ... forgotten ... unnoticed?

No? Yes? Sure? Why not? Maybe?

Which?

I really don't know. I am confused.

But one thing is for sure ... when death comes my way, I don't want it to be painful. I want it to be a sweet rebirth. And most of all, I want you to remember me like what Frost wanted. That way, I will live forever.

(09.26.2004)

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