19th
Goodbye
I remember an old canto movie I saw, I forgot the name but I think it featured Tony Leung, where they compare a person’s life to a bus ride.
You start off entering the bus and you pay the fee and you choose a seat. There are people on the bus already and you may or may not want to get to know some of them. Later on, more people board the bus and you get to know some of them as well. The people that are closer to you you get to know better and the people sitting further away you get to know a little, then just familiars and then there are people you know nothing about. You can also change seats to get to know people that were far away and you would like to know better. Other times your closer friends have to move seats and thus you talk to them less. Then there are people you have gotten to know really well that alight the bus. With a stinging feeling in your nose you wave goodbye to them and hope to meet them again someday. Some you meet again the next day, others never to be seen again. Sometimes you realize that you’re taking the wrong bus to the wrong destination and have to switch busses. Sometimes your bus friends follow you to your new bus because they can take either bus to their destination and choose to tag along with you. Others might decline the offer and stay on the bus you abandoned.
The catch is no one really knows where the bus is going, at least that is how I interpret it. What is important is that you are all on the same bus, changing seats, alighting and boarding.
My favourite uncle from my mother’s family passed away Dec 31st 2008 because of cancer. He didn’t even get to see 2009. I will always remember him for his sarcastic jokes. Most notably the last time I saw him, normally a guy on the pudgy side, was so thin and pale I almost didn’t recognize him. He could only lie on his side because the cancer had eaten away the flesh in his body so it was painful to lie on his back. Sitting up was torture since there was no flesh in his rear. But despite knowing his certain death was close, he still managed to crack me up.
My mom and my aunt just got wind that a friend’s daughter learned how to perform a heart bypass operation in just 1 week.
Aunt: Did you hear? John Smith’s daughter just learned how to perform a heart bypass operation in a week.
Mom: Really? I doubt it. That’s very difficult. I highly doubt that you can learn that in a week.
Aunt: But she really did! They got the certificate and everything.
Mom: I don’t think so. A week is too short for something so advanced.
Uncle: Nah a week is too long. Should take only a couple days for that shit.
*In the most sarcastic tone ever. Really made me laugh.
Although he sat in a seat rather far from me, he was still one of the relatives I liked to talk to during family meets.
He is someone who has alighted the bus that I am sure will not board again anywhere in the future.
