The handle on my cane has smoothened over the decades. I hand-carved it myself from a branch of a guava tree that I used to park my wheelchair under during my therapy. The rough edges from my amateurish carving are gone and I think the small splinters are all embedded in my calloused right palm. It never seemed to bother me at all. My cane has served me well especially in my senior years. I have hobbled through the heat and rain, through rocks and concrete and sent a number of annoying dogs scampering away with it.

My presence at my daughter's house is made known each time I take a step with my right leg as the cane makes contact with the floor tiles. And as I heave my leg to a cripple's cadence I am forced to reduce my groans into muffled grunts shifting my weight over to the stick. Aside from rheumatism, there was still a small amount of pain on my knee that managed to outlive the therapy.

Right now, getting to my rocking chair out on the porch was my sole motivation for each excruciating step.

Against my children's wishes, I decided against painkillers six months after the completion of my therapy. Dealing with my disability was one thing, getting hooked on anesthetic drugs was another. At that time it seemed that pain was the only fortune that life had in store for me. So pain became the logical path. That was over forty years ago.

The memories of the accident are still fresh. The warm tears on my cheeks, my numb hands on the steering wheel, the overwhelming weight of bitterness on my chest, the spinning sensation in my head and the blink that seemed like forever. And then, of course, there was the terrifying sound of metal scrapping and crumpling against the concrete barrier that separated the two opposing lanes of the expressway.

The gentle and timeless breeze from the distant ocean greets me anew through the screen door. Its creaking sound from the rusty spring and hinges, and the thumping of my cane rudely invade the quiet of the wooden porch. I hobble a few more steps towards the rocker then completed the painstaking ritual of having to seat myself. I was admitted to this house after my seventieth birthday, a modest dwelling sitting on top of a cliff approximately 27 feet above the crashing waves below.

I rolled up my sagging cardigan sweater past my elbow to allow the air to cool my forearm. It felt really good. My slippers fell off from my dangling feet as I settled them on the extended footrest. The strong gust gently rocks me back and forth. This moment always excites me. Each afternoon is an intimate rendezvous with yet another beautiful sunset, one afternoon after the other.

Estella.'¦

I mutter her name as if to paint her face on the clouds though I know that even the clouds will never do justice for a canvass. I paint it anyway and blow a kiss into the wind. Then I tilt my face towards the breeze to feel her hands caressing my withered cheeks. In the soft howl of the wind through the windowpanes I hear her voice reminding me how much I mean to her. Tears began to swell. It always did at this point, for the past eight years.

We both loved the sea. She always dreamt of becoming a marine biologist and I've always wanted to join the Navy. I always believed the sea connected our souls somehow. And I still do.

The screen door suddenly creaked open and it rarely did when I was alone in the porch. There was something about the intrusion that almost made me jump to my feet. I hurriedly dried my tears.

My daughter told me I had a visitor.

She was led to the porch and left standing beside my chair.

My vision has exponentially worsened in the last two years but I easily noticed she was cuddling a small carton box in one arm. She pulled a nearby stool and sat directly in front of me.

I've never seen her before but her eyes and her wide smile, which seemed to be forced out of sadness, made me feel like I've known her forever.

She told me it took her almost a year to find me. And that she has traveled far and wide.

From the box she pulled out a beige envelope and a small stainless steel flask. Her hands were trembling as she handed me the letter.

The envelope was unsealed and unmarked, a bit crumpled now, perhaps due to a lengthy transit. The strokes of the two-page handwriting seemed legible but obviously belabored.

I handed back the letter and asked her to read it for me. She struggled with each word through what seemed to be a lump suddenly lodged in her throat. And as she did, each word struck me so hard like a sledgehammer through my heart.


Hi Bebang!

I hope you still remember me because I never forgot you. I always thought of you every single moment of my life and I never ever stopped loving you.

I trust Darielle will find you no matter where you are. I literally begged her to fulfill a promise that I gave you almost fifty years ago.

Bebang, I'm so sorry for not seeing you at the hospital. I learned about the accident and pleaded with Dr. Maya to check on you and update me on your condition, as I could only go as far as the hospital lobby and cry for you for hours.

I fell seriously ill Bebang. I guess it came with age. I've been sick for two years now and my doctor tells me I have very little time left. I know you're still alive because I could still feel you and I'm most certainly sure about it. That is exactly the very same reason that I never gave up and stopped hoping. But by the time you read this letter I have already long passed away.

Along with this letter, I'm sending you the ashes of my right hand. It was our promise before that we would be married one way or the other. I also know in my heart that we will never stop believing that we were meant for each other even beyond the grave. And even in my deathbed I told Darielle that my right hand rightfully belongs to you. It wasn't easy, but she understood.

You taught me that it is easy to love when everything is going well and that it's easy to be happy when things are going your way. But it takes a certain kind of love and joy to exist through hardships and pain. And I have experienced those only as I grew deeper in love with you. And you have loved me fervently with a passion that I have yet to see in my lifetime. It shall be life's greatest blessing, and your greatest legacy to me.

I know your skeptical mind. Oh I know it so well. So to answer that unspoken question darling, yes, I've always been happy being with you and never have been happier with anyone else but you.

I never had any regrets my love, not for a moment. Not even when we decided to go our separate ways. Those were my life's darkest moments.

I write this letter with my last ounce of strength, my final testimony of my utmost love for you.

Never stop loving me Bebang even when I'm gone. I know this is too much to ask but please don't stop missing me for I've spent my lifetime dreaming and yearning only for you.

Farewell my jewel for now. I know we shall see each other again. We have so much to talk about.

Yours alone,
Estella

Our faces are covered with tears now and sobbing beyond control. My daughter was watching us from inside the screen door not knowing what was going on.

Desperately, I reached out for the flask and Darielle got up and stepped over and gently placed it on my chest.

I embraced it with my thin arms ever so tightly like it was the last most precious thing to me.

It was.

The waves seemed to wail with my sorrow from the distance as the rising tide made each crash grew louder and louder.

Darielle knelt and wrapped me in her arms. We stayed that way as she told me about her mother's last dying wish and how much her mother loved me. It felt like the longest time of my life.

My daughter quietly brought out glasses of water for us as Darielle and I spoke some more about Estella. The stainless steel urn of Estella's ashes never left my chest.

The tears and mucus that fell on the flask are dry now. Darielle finally realized how this event unfolding before her eyes meant so much to Estella. She wouldn't have been sent halfway around the world for nothing. Her eyes told me she wanted to stay and know more about the love that was borne for her mother and remained ablaze thru the years. But she also knew I needed this moment to myself.

I looked up at Darielle who was lovingly beaming down at my fragility. Words were no longer necessary at this point. In her eyes and her smile I saw Estella, the only woman who always meant the world to me. I kissed her hand in utmost gratitude and regretfully bid her goodbye.

Estella's ashes lay cradled in my arms for hours until the sky turned crimson in the horizon, and soon swallowed by the imminent jaws of darkness.

When my daughter returned to turn on the porch lights, all she saw were my cane and soft slippers on the floor. She noticed, however, a pair of irregular footprints on the composite sand leaving the porch and disappearing at the edge of the cliff, down into the savage waves of the ocean several feet below.

The flask and I were never to be found again.

The cliff will stand before time, a voiceless witness to a marriage, born out of a reckless and unrelenting love, joined forever by the unbridled might of the sea; a precipice, indifferent towards love and hate, pain and reprieve, locked in a never-ending tidal caress. It is here where the overwhelming pain of what might have been has found its consummation, its absolution and its final resting-place.

THE END.

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